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Video from the kick-off of my book tour at the MLK National Historic Site in Atlanta, GA

By admin | Published: May 14, 2013

On April 2nd, I had the honor of being invited to start my national book tour for What Then Must We Do? at an event in Atlanta co-sponsored by the Partnership for Southern Equity and Georgia Stand Up, and held at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site. The video of my presentation, and the panel discussion focusing on how the themes of the book are reflected in the community organizing for economic justice and equity happening today on the ground in Atlanta, can be viewed below:

Posted in Audio and Video, What Then Must We Do? (News and Updates) | Leave a comment

Congratulations to the workers of the New Era Windows Cooperative!

By admin | Published: May 9, 2013

Congratulations to the workers of the New Era Windows Cooperative, now open for business in Chicago!  Their story is inspiring: two separate occupations of their factory in a day and age when such militancy in the labor movement is assumed to be a thing of the past, not to mention a long fight to get Serious Energy (the second employer to close down their workplace) to agree to sell them the equipment they’d need to restart production.

They had help from powerful allies in UE, the union that helped them organize the two occupations as well as the cooperative buyout—and from the Working World, an innovative lender supporting worker cooperatives both in the US and in Latin America, where a wave of factory “recuperations” erupted in the wake of Argentina’s financial collapse in 2001.

For me, the story of New Era is a dramatic symbol of a choice we face at this moment in history:

On the one hand; long running decay, with jobs continuing to leave communities as employers chase higher margins around the globe—and ongoing and persistent decaying crisis in a stagnant and unstable economy disproportionately played out on the backs of the poor, especially in communities of color.

On the other hand: the possibility of something else, of a movement to rebuild the economy with democracy—and democratized ownership—at its core, helping anchor jobs and workers to communities and vice versa, addressing at a structural level the rampant and corrosive inequality that pervades our contemporary society.

Such long term evolving systemic transformation is neither quick nor easy.  The dedication of the New Era workers, their refusal to give up and  “go quietly”, their willingness to stake their futures on a democratic workplace,  points towards something important: if we are serious about building a “new economy,” we need to be prepared for a long fight.  Not all of the quietly developing experiments with worker, community, and public ownership taking off around the country today are likely to encounter such dramatic tests of faith as those met—successfully—by the workers who today opened the New Era Windows cooperative. Their example, however, and their courage, are examples of the kind of thing we all need learn from as the developing trajectory of new economic democratization and change continues to evolve.
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Video from my book talk at Seattle’s Elliot Bay Books

By admin | Published: May 2, 2013

Posted in Audio and Video, Uncategorized, What Then Must We Do? (News and Updates) | Leave a comment

When Martin Luther King Came to Cambridge: An Historic Conversation about an Historic Moment

By admin | Published: April 29, 2013

vietnam-summerwith LANI GUINIER * GAR ALPEROVITZ * BYRON RUSHING

There can be no freedom without peace and no peace without justice.

—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 22nd, 1967

Monday, May 20th   7:00PM

Christ Church Cambridge, Zero Garden Street, Cambridge

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s legendary “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, an anniversary that is going to be marked by celebrations and commemorations nationwide this summer.

But four years after he gave that speech, Rev. King came here to Cambridge, to Harvard Square, with a different message for America: one not about a dream of equality of rights but the dangers of war. The war in Vietnam was killing and maiming young Americans at an astonishing rate and the casualty rates for black soldiers were far higher than for whites. At home, President Johnson and the Congress were cutting precious funding for the War on Poverty in favor of the War in Vietnam.

America, King feared, was being both wounded and corrupted by what was happening 9,000 miles away; so he came to Cambridge to issue a new call, one as important in some ways as his “I Have a Dream” speech, one that would link the civil rights and antiwar and antipoverty workers across the nation in a new common crusade for justice, equality, and peace.

But why Cambridge? And what did King say? What did he hope to achieve?

On Monday, May 20th, at 7PM, join Harvard professor Lani Guinier, co-founder of Vietnam Summer Gar Alperovitz, and State Representative Byron Rushing, a legendary civil rights and antiwar legislator here in Massachusetts in an intimate conversation as they discuss “When Martin Luther King Came to Cambridge….”

Forty years after Dr. King spoke, part of his dream was met: America elected its first African-American President.  But what else remains to be realized? And what of Dr. King’s challenge in Cambridge has been taken up by Barack Obama, and what not? What linked civil rights, antiwar, and antipoverty efforts into a common cause in Dr. King’s mind that day in Cambridge and how are each of them faring today?

By special arrangement, the conversation among Lani Guinier, Gar Alperovitz, and Byron Rushing takes place in the very room at Christ Church Cambridge where Rev. King issued his challenge. Join them as they reflect on his legacy and its importance today.

 Seats are limited for this historic event, but it is free and open to the public.

Street parking available. Harvard Square Red Line T stop one block away.

Parish Hall doors open at 6:45PM.

 More information about Vietnam Summer: Vietnam Summer Evolves From Phone Call To Nation-Wide Organizing Project

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The Question of Socialism (and Beyond!) Is About to Open Up in These United States

By admin | Published: April 17, 2013

Little noticed by most Americans, Merriam Webster, one of the world’s most important dictionaries, announced a few months ago that the two most looked-up words in 2012 were “socialism” and “capitalism.”

Traffic for the pair on the company’s website roughly doubled from the year before. The choice was a “kind of no-brainer,” observed editor at large, Peter Sokolowski. “They’re words that sort of encapsulate the zeitgeist.”

Leading polling organizations have found converging results among younger Americans. Two recent Rasmussen surveys, for instance, discovered that Americans younger than 30 are almost equally divided as to whether capitalism or socialism is preferable. Another Pew survey found those aged 18 to 29 have a more favorable reaction to the term “socialism” by a margin of 49 to 43 percent.

Note carefully: These are the people who will inevitably be creating the next American politics and the next American system.

As economic failure continues to create massive social and economic pain and a stalemated Washington dickers, search for some alternative to the current “system” is likely to continue to grow. It is clearly time to get serious about a different vision for the future. Critically, we need to be far more sophisticated about what a meaningful “systemic design” that might undergird a new direction (whether called “socialism” or whatever) would entail.

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Posted in Articles, Resources for The Next American Revolution, Resources for What Then Must We Do? | 2 Comments