Activism

Author and activist Michael Albert's new book tells the story of the American Revolution for a Participatory Society, looking backwards from 2044 at the people, organizations, and strategies that succeeded in winning a new world.

In dozens of cities, worker-owner cooperatives are establishing new enterprises based on joint decision-making, dignified work conditions and fair pay. Utilizing their existing skills and harnessing new ones, these groups are leveraging their labor on their own terms, with a vision to change their industries and the economic landscape. And in this rising movement, people of color, immigrants and women are leading the way.

From Alicia Garza to Annie Leonard, nine organizers share their hopes for the new year.

In the short run, the primary objective of a left movement must be to defend the urgent needs for survival of all the so-called 99% of the population. In order to do this, they have to control state institutions at all levels. This means navigating the dangerous shoals of electoral politic.

The Occupy movement is more than five years in the past, and its legacy is mainly one of frustration. But there is still much to be gained from those few tense weeks.

George Orwell’s preference for plain-speaking over artistic experimentation, common sense over high theory, and common decency over fashionable cynicism has made him one of the twentieth-century writers who remains not only readable but worth reading.