Journalism

Jon Wiener: El Paso,Christchurch, Charleston: the attackers have all been described as loners. You say they are all connected. How?
Kathleen Belew: We’re talking here about the White Power movement, a coalition that includes Klan groups, neo-Nazi groups, skinheads, and other activists.  One of their key tactics is called leaderless resistance—a few people work in a cell without direct communication with other cells and without direct orders from leadership. This strategy was implemented to stymie infiltration efforts and prosecution. But there’s been a much larger and more damaging legacy: It has effectively erased this entire movement as a movement, so what we see instead are a series of stories about lone wolf attackers, acts of violence that are inexplicable and unrelated to each other. . . . continued at TheNation.com, HERE   9/3/19

JW: Paris isn’t the only place where a cathedral of Notre Dame is in ruins and awaiting rebuilding. There’s another Notre Dame—in Haiti, destroyed in the earthquake of 2010. Remind us first of all why we care about Haiti, including those of us who’ve never been there.
Amy Wilentz: We should all care about Haiti, because it was the first black republic ever established on the globe. It had the only successful slave revolution, which began in 1791, and eventually created the Republic of Haiti.
. . . continued at TheNation.com, HERE
5/10/19

The fossil fuel industry knew everything there was to know about climate change back in the 1980s. And they believed what their scientists were telling them. Exxon started building all its drilling rigs to compensate for the rise in sea level it knew was coming.  But of course the thing they didn’t do was tell any of the rest of us. Just the opposite. They’ve spent billions of dollars building the architecture of deceit and denial and disinformation that has spread with relentless efficiency the lie that science was unsure about climate change. . . .  4/25/19
continued at TheNation.com, HERE  4/25/19

Jon Wiener: The chair of the House Ways and Means Committee formally requested six years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns earlier this month. Trump, of course, refused to comply, and said the law is “100 percent” on his side. Does the IRS have to hand over Trump’s tax returns to the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee?
David Cay Johnston: If they follow the law, they absolutely have to hand them over. . . .
continued at TheNation.com, HERE   4/23/19

Q. Everybody I know says that if there’d been a fair count in the Georgia election, and no voter suppression, you would be the governor of Georgia right now. But you did accomplish some amazing things in that race.
Stacey Abrams: We received more votes than any Democrat in Georgia history, including President Obama, or Secretary Clinton, or any Democrat who’s ever run. We tripled Latino turnout, we tripled Asian Pacific Islander turnout, we increased youth participation rates by 139 per cent, we increased black turnout by 40 per cent.. . .
. . . continued at TheNation.com, HERE

Introduction by Jon Wiener.  A how-to book for activists written at one of the darkest moments of the Nixon years, it remains relevant and useful today.  The book takes up the question of what we can do, what we should do, about a president who fills us with dread and rage.  “What is to be done?” is of course the classic question for leftists facing oppressive regimes and long odds.  Walzer’s book is “an invitation to commitment and participation,” to get together in groups, to argue at meetings, and then to go out and talk to people.  The book has been republished in 2019 by New York Review Books at the suggestion of some high school students in Los Angeles.

JW: How would you describe the Green New Deal resolution introduced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey?
Naomi Klein: It’s a sweeping plan to radically transform how we get energy, move ourselves around, live in cities, and grow our food; and it puts justice at the center—justice broadly defined, from racial and gender justice to making sure no worker is left behind, battling inequality at every level. It’s really about multitasking. It’s about understanding that we are in a time of multiple overlapping crises, and that we are on an incredibly tight deadline . . .
continued at TheNation.com, HERE

“As the host of Start Making Sense, the weekly podcast of The Nation magazine, Jon Wiener ’66 promises “political talk without the boring parts,” and the show delivers, featuring interviews with a mix of Nation contributors and other leading journalists and experts. (Recent guests include author Naomi Klein, New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert, and Princeton historian Sean Wilentz.). . . ”  continued at the Princeton Alumni Weekly, 2-21-19, HERE