“Abolitionism: What Is and What Could Be.” Cohosts Will Beaman, Natalie Smith, and Maxximilian Seijo are joined by historian Dan Berger to reflect on the political economy of abolitionism and its critical importance for the Left.
In this episode we interview prisoner movement historians Dan Berger and Toussaint Losier who co-authored the book Rethinking The American Prison Movement. Today is the 49th anniversary of the Attica Rebellion, and in this episode we honor the ongoing tradition of prisoner resistance by examining the history of prisoner movements, and discussing the challenges faced by prisoners as well as abolitionists on both sides of the walls amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and the current movement for Black Lives in the streets.
Why Has Covid-19 Not Led to More Humanitarian Releases
Remaking Radicalism
This book brings together documents from multiple radical movements in the recent United States from 1973 through 2001. These years are typically viewed as an era of neoliberalism, dominated by conservative retrenchment, the intensified programs of privatization and incarceration, dramatic cuts to social welfare, and the undermining of labor, antiracist, and feminist advances. Yet activists from the period proved tenacious in the face of upheaval, resourceful in creating new tactics, and dedicated to learning from one another. Persistent and resolute, activists did more than just keep radical legacies alive. They remade radicalism–bridging differences of identity and ideology often assumed to cleave movements, grappling with the eradication of liberal promises, and turning to movement cultures as the source of a just future.
Remaking Radicalism is the first anthology of U.S. radicalisms that reveals the depth, diversity, and staying power of social movements after the close of the long 1960s. Editors Dan Berger and Emily Hobson track the history of popular struggles during a time that spans the presidencies of Richard Nixon and George W. Bush and bring to readers the political upheavals that shaped the end of the century and that continue to define the present.