February 15, 2022
An earnest effort to inspire progressives to regain the political initiative now apparently firmly in conservative hands. "Counterintuitive as it may seem, disaster creates unprecedented opportunity to change our world. When all is broken, disoriented, and rearranged...we can transform society." So writes Zamalin, a political science and African American studies professor and author of Against Civility: The Hidden Racism in Our Obsession With Civility. He looks back fondly to the 1950s and '60s, when movements for civil rights and against the Vietnam War genuinely influenced U.S. leaders, and then to the 1980s, when AIDS activists instigated real change. Nowadays, noisy crowds are likely to be harassing an abortion clinic or denouncing mask mandates. In 20 short, fiery chapters, Zamalin stresses the importance of nonviolent street action, political art, participatory democracy, radical environmentalism, reproductive freedom, and a "counterculture opposed to what's corrosive in the mainstream." At the same time, he denounces authoritarianism, jingoism, racism, and the American obsession with "national security" and worship of the free market. Zamalin emphasizes--and few readers will deny--that the unemployed, low-wage workers, and less-educated Americans suffer more in the capitalism system. In the past, they voted for left-leaning politicians, while right-leaning candidates, dominated by the middle class and financed by the wealthy, opposed them through legislation, court action, or even violence. As the middle class has hollowed out and wages have stagnated, many Americans have gotten restless and angry. Having received the short end of the stick from democracy, they show it little respect. Consequently, political candidates with autocratic tendencies have gained favor even as they seek to dismantle civil rights. Zamalin correctly points out that the wealthy have given a great deal of money to Donald Trump and similar figures, but he doesn't adequately explore how the middle-class and less-educated sectors elected him. Still, activists will find useful pointers in this earnest manifesto. Impassioned advice for reformers.
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