My “Challenge to the Left” has provoked a fair amount of discussion and pushback (the latter mostly on Facebook and Twitter, as well as on email listserves, or so I’m told). Part of the problem with this discussion, to my mind, is that very few people have a real sense of what organizing entails. One of the ones who does have a sense is Jay Driskell, a talented young historian at Hood College. Jay offered some thoughts on my Facebook page, and I asked him to turn them into a blog post.  So here it is. • • • • • Since the defeat of Tuesday’s recall effort in Wisconsin, there has been a lot of debate over whether it […]

This morning, my Facebook page exploded. It all started when I posted this excellent piece by Glenn Greenwald about Obama and the debt-ceiling deal. Greenwald says that those who think Obama is weak and lacks backbone, or that he got suckered by the Republicans or is somehow being held hostage, are full of shit.  With a few exceptions, Obama got what he wanted. Greenwald has a lot of evidence to back up his claims, but I wasn’t entirely convinced. So I put the question to my FB friends.  Is Obama politically inept or does he want these massive cuts? And if he wants them, is it because of political calculation? Is he a true believer in neoliberal economics? A hostage […]