“Bevins chronicles the protest movements that made the 2010s the most politically active in history, considering why such unprecedented mass protests so often had the opposite effect from what the protesters intended. Still, rather than focusing solely on these losses, he tracks the small wins, as well as the lessons learned and edifying counterfactuals disseminated…
Category: disobedience
Rodrigo Karmy Bolton: “The ashes of the Republic”
[] the French situation shows us the global situation of which we are witnesses: unlike modern revolutions, contemporary revolts are not guided by the horizon of “progress” but, rather, by that of its destitution. In this sense, they are both more radical and labile than modern revolutions: “radical” because they call into question the modern…
Mansa Musa interviewed: “George Jackson’s unfinished revolution”
“52 years since his death at the hands of California prison authorities, George Jackson’s legacy has left an indelible imprint on the ongoing struggles for liberation from capitalist exploitation and the prison state.”
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: “The Unknown History Of Black Uprisings”
“More than fifty years after the Kerner Commission, we have seen in the past eight years the return of Black rebellions in response to growing inequality that has been managed by the forces of racist and abusive policing. This is not history repeating itself; it is evidence that the problems that gave rise to earlier…
David Palumbo-Liu: “Rise Up in Anger and Hope: How Eruptive Protests Can Propel Urgent Issues to the Center of Political Debate”
“When politicians and governments are held accountable for defaulting on their promises to support democracy and to practice it, the streets become a place where unofficial, yet highly visible plebiscites can take place.”
introduction to “Smash The System! Punk Anarchism as a Culture of Resistance” (2022)
“Our subculture will be Dionysian—sensual, spontaneous, wild—an uncontrollable geyser of raw feeling. The Apollonian (the rational, the intentional, the orderly) will follow the chaotic energy that drives this movement, not precede it. Intellectual proposals can build on adrenaline, lust, violence, and pleasure, but they can’t substitute for them. So nothing sanctimonious, nothing triumphalist or moralistic.…
Janet Afary & Kevin B. Anderson: “Woman, Life, Freedom: The Origins Of The Uprising In Iran”
“Many issues besides women’s rights are bound up in the protests: authoritarianism, economic stagnation and severe unemployment, climate disaster, and various religious-fundamentalist impositions. The current uprising also represents the public’s response to the regime’s colossal cronyism and corruption, and to its confrontational foreign policy and regional expansionism, which have isolated Iran and contributed to extremely…
Glenda Gilmore interviewed: “The Civil Rights Movement Was Radical to Its Core”
“Gilmore’s narrative follows a path of struggle through Southern, American, and world histories that links together the Russian Revolution, the rise and fall of fascism, and the “long civil rights movement” in the United States”.
Billy Anania: “The General Strike in Modern Art”
“A massive strike wave in the 19th and 20th centuries redefined how painters, illustrators, and photographers advocate for the working class.”
John Tarleton: “The Rise of Occupy Wall Street: The Movement Moment That Revived The U.S. Left”
“Ten years ago this fall a protest movement took root in Lower Manhattan that transformed how we think about inequality and reinvigorated the Left.”