Surveying the Democratic Left

Judie Newman "Bellow and Trotsky"

The later Bellow’s reputation as a neoconservative has obscured the centrality of his early enthusiasm for Trotskyism to his life and writings. The 2010 publication of a selection of his letters opens with Saul Bellow aged 17 writing to Yetta Barshevsky, a fellow high school student who introduced him to Trotskyism, and for whom he wrote a eulogy more than sixty years later. Bellow was still thinking about Trotsky in the 1990s as his correspondence with Albert Glotzer, his lifelong friend and (at one point Trotsky’s secretary) indicates.

Gus Tyler--Labor Activist and Forward Columnist, Is Dead at 99"

Commemorating the Forward’s 110th anniversary in 2007, Tyler, in this column, recalled his mother’s anger when a fishmonger handed her a purchase wrapped in the newspaper. “My mother literally threw the package back at the fish handler. Startled, he said, ‘What’s the matter, lady?’ ‘It’s the Forward,’ she shouted. `If you have to wrap the fish in a paper, use The Times.’”

Bill Fletcher Obama, Progressives, and the White Nationalist Backlash




To borrow from a comment offered by television commentator Tavis
 Smiley, the 2012 elections are likely to be the most racist that most
 of us have seen in our lifetimes. Given this, what are the
 implications?

 It has been striking that many progressives, particularly those who 
have not only written off President Obama but also written off all
 those who offered critical support to the Obama campaign in 2008, have 
said so little about race, racism, and the discourse of right-wing
 populism in the context of the upcoming elections.
  ...

Despite our knowledge of history and awareness of the antics of white
 right-wing populism, few progressives are discussing the implications 
of any of this for the 2012 elections. The implications, it would seem
 to me, are quite profound, and range from what this means about HOW to
criticize the Obama administration, to how to ensure that the
 elections are not outright stolen by the white Right.


Devin Burghart and Leonard Zeskind , Tea Party Nationalism: A Critical Examination of the Tea Party Movement and the Size, Scope, and Focus of Its National Factions

     Prepared for the  NAACP, an excellent website, and a 94-page PDF report here for those so inclined.
Must reading.

Matthew N. Lyons, "Liberalism’s Limits: A review of Burghart and Zeskind’s Tea Party Nationalism " Three Way Fight

Political Research Associates, "