Sitting To Stand

Protest, Patriotism, and the Endurance of White Supremacy

Since San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to stay seated during the national anthem, this country has witnessed an extended attempt to diminish his act. Former quarterback Boomer Esiason said that Kaepernick was “about as disrespectful as any athlete has ever been,” whereas Hall of Fame baseball manager Tony ...
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Trump Has Made Us All Conservatives

The president has unified the people around protecting the institutions of liberal democracy

Now Trump is president. He is as clueless as ever, whether in suggesting that Frederick Douglass is still alive, or in thinking that it is okay for the president to bully Nordstrom for dropping his daughter’s fashion line. He is also still hell-bent on lying, about millions of “illegal” immigrants voting ...
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Trumpism – How Should the Left Respond?

Dissent Editors and Contributors Debate how the Left can defeat Trump

Dissent editors and contributors debated how the left can defeat Trumpism.  Featuring: Bhaskar Sunkara is editor and publisher of Jacobin magazine. Nancy Fraser is a professor of philosophy and politics at The New School for Social Research and author, most recently, of Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to Neoliberal ...
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Protesting the Inaugural

Reactions from Washington, D.C. on January 20th

Protesting the inauguration of a President has become a tradition. While those who shouted “not my President” and other things as Donald Trump ascended to the highest office in the land clearly did not like him, most of them would have demonstrated had it been Hillary Clinton who took the ...
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Protesting the Inaugural

Durkheim’s Enduring Relevance

Sociology offers a solution to the problems raised by Critical Theory

Émile Durkheim and the Durkheimian school also allow us to rethink the tension between the modern social sciences, and morality and politics. However, Durkheim’s analysis of this tension is, in some respects, divergent from the one put forward by Critical Theory. Sociology, according to Durkheim, is neither about supplementing the ...
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Beyond lean-in

For a feminism of the 99%–and a militant international strike on March 8

The kind of feminism we seek is already emerging internationally, in struggles across the globe: from the women’s strike in Poland against the abortion ban to the women’s strikes and marches in Latin America against male violence; from the massive women’s demonstration of the last November in Italy to the ...
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“We Are At War!”

Steve Bannon’s Warmongering

“We’re in a war. We’re clearly going into, I think, a major shooting war in the Middle East, again.” November 27, 2015 “It’s war. It’s war. Every day, we put up America’s at war. America’s at War. We’re at war.” December 14, 2015 - Steve Bannon A warmonger, by definition, is someone who promotes ...
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The Intellectual Integrity of Our Spaces

The Proposed Boycott of International Academic Conferences

This morning it was brought to my attention that this boycott, and the AHA's response to the executive order itself, was being discussed on an AHA members' forum as an offense to US academic freedom. I do not have the right to reproduce what was said on a private forum, ...
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The Supreme Law of the Land

Standing Rock and the Dakota Access Pipeline

Donald Trump’s election only enhanced the sense that the fight is not won. Not only has Trump held financial interest in the pipeline (and likely still does), he is a friend of the fossil fuel industry and has never shown respect for American Indian nations. Pipeline advocates have challenged the Standing ...
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A “No!” to Gorsuch is a “Yes!” to Democracy

Democrats must oppose Neil Gorsuch for SCOTUS

Democrats must oppose Gorsuch, on principle but also because of the pragmatics of starting to organize real opposition to Trumpism and to mobilize Democratic constituencies and reinvigorate the party. Indeed, every Democratic Senator who questions him at his confirmation hearings should ask him these three questions: (1) do you believe that the ...
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