Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Category: Activism (Page 24 of 31)

These are posts on activism from the blog Base and Superstructure. This takes many forms. The focus here is on political activism, above all on activist organizing and base-building. One concern is how to build effective movements. There’s also a need to create solidarity with fellow members and build coalitions with other groups. The main aim of good movements is to work together to advance material interests. This section also includes critiques of electoral work, and discussion of how and when to use elections to advance activist goals. Navigating the balance between grassroots work and electoral work is difficult for everyone.

elevator words space elevator

Elevator Words and the Left

December 7, 2020 /

We’ve seen a flurry of activity on the left. Yes, this includes activism on a wide range of issues. But I’m not talking about that here. Here, I’m talking about a flurry of new ways to label or describe our actions. The left increasingly uses elevator words to do these things.

What does that mean? The left uses loftier words for its actions than those actions warrant. It inflates the language. During the early months of COVID-19, activists proposed modest, temporary rent subsidies. But they called those subsidies ‘cancel rent.’ Even though the subsidies would do no such thing. I’ll post plenty more examples below. For now, I’ll note that things like this happen a lot these days.

I want to ask why. And not only why, but is it a bad thing? If so, how bad is it?

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free speech left

Free Speech and the Left

October 22, 2020 /

Earlier this week, I wrote a post on Marx and the ‘rights of man.’ I want to continue the theme by applying it to free speech and the left. Free speech is kind of a hot topic on the left. Some leftists come out pretty hard against something they call free speech. Other leftists, like Noam Chomsky, defend it (they mean something a bit different, as we’ll see).

Part of what makes this issue difficult is that the U.S. far-right poisons the well. It shrouds itself in the language of ‘free speech,’ but it does so dishonestly. It pretends to be persecuted. And we do find some hard anti-speech attitudes within certain ‘left’ identitarian movements. But these elements hold little real power. The left shouldn’t cede the ‘free speech’ label to the political right because of this.

How should we think about it, then?

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intersectionality

Intersectionality and the Left

September 21, 2020 /

Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term ‘intersectionality‘ in 1989 as she used the central metaphor in a paper in a law journal. Crenshaw used the term to pick out the idea that people’s identities overlap to create novel experiences. As a legal scholar, she drew attention to experiences of discrimination. For example, black women may face novel issues neither black men nor white women face.

Since then, the term – and perhaps also the idea it picks out – took on a life of its own. It’s a rallying cry for some social justice movements. People routinely assert things like ‘the future is intersectional.’ Politicians run (usually unsuccessful) campaigns around it. But as leftists, what does intersectionality mean for us? Is it a tool for getting things done? A theory we should accept or reject? How should we handle it?

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security deposit landlord steal

College Towns and Security Deposit Theft

August 31, 2020 /

I’m sure many readers know I live in Iowa City. And I’m sure many people in Iowa City know landlords here run a swindle each August and September. OK, so landlords run at least a few swindles. But I’m talking about the Great Annual Security Deposit Theft.

It’s a source of much wailing and gnashing of teeth among tenants in this college town. Anger over it stood out as a key reason for our local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America to start a tenants union.

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