Reading List

 Michael Kazin says that American politics won't improved much unless we Revive Socialism. Interestingly, his piece appeared not only on Dissent's blog, but also in the New Republic. Kazin believes

an opportunity for radicals to offer the public, for the first time in decades, an argument for socialism grounded in ideals most Americans already cherish: communal responsibility and equal rights. As Michael Harrington, the last great leader of socialists in the United States, wrote back in 1966, “The democratization of concentrated economic, social, and political power is the only hope for the achievement of Western humanist ideals…[to the] possibility of a new order of things in which the people actually decide their own destiny.” It should be a good time to start such a discussion, since most Americans are rightfully disgusted with the order we have.

 Another historian Eli Zaretsky, also on Arguing the World, says that the US needs a resurgent left

What drives American history forward, then, are not horse-swaps, “grand bargains,” and “pragmatic” compromises between centrist liberals and centrist rightists but rather a struggle between the Center and the Left over the meaning of equality. The implications for understanding America today are clear. Obama’s first term disappointed not only because his pursuit of a center-right dialogue was still-born and vacuous, but also because it wound up empowering the Right. The immediate and welcoming response to Occupy Wall Street demonstrated how much Americans have missed the presence of a leftist voice; it was as if we had been waiting for someone to raise the question of equality again. We need the spirit of Occupy Wall Street to speak not only to our moment of national crisis but also to inspire a permanent radical presence in American life, one that builds on the egalitarian tradition at the core of our identity. Only a genuinely independent, radical Left can revitalize centrist politics and relegate the extreme Right to the marginal place it has historically occupied.

 On the French Presidential election, Left Foot Forward and a couple from Tendance Coatesy here on Sarkozy's pitch to Le Pen's voters and here with an analysis.


The Forward has two roundtables on their recent interview with Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook. The first round features  Laura Kam of The Israel Project; Israeli security analyst Yossi Alpher; Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now; and Princeton University Prof. Daoud Kuttab.  The second features Laura Kam of The Israel Project; Israeli security analyst Yossi Alpher; Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now; and Princeton University Prof. Daoud Kuttab The links will take you to a page with teasers from the responders, click through to their entire responses.

Tim Murphy at Mother Jones on Mitt's nutty professor.

Bill  Fletcher is frustrated when he talks to (some) leftists about electoral politics.