The Political Education Newsletter

September 6, 2019

Published on our Blog

DSA Convention 2019: A Reportback
Boston DSA delegates provide a summary of what took place at the 2019 DSA Convention in Atlanta, highlighting the outcomes of resolutions debates, formation of new national working groups, and contributions by Boston DSA comrades.

Boston Police Captain John Danilecki: A clear and present danger to Boston
After screening numerous videos and images of the Straight Parade counter protest on social media, Chris S identifies Captain John Danilecki as the zealous pepper-spraying cop who instigated unprovoked police violence against the counter protestors.

Articles from the Web

A Red Deal
Nick Estes, academic and activist with The Red Nation, responds to the Green New Deal’s proposed scope of transformation with a Red Deal to address the causes underlying environmental destruction – capitalism and settler colonialism.

A Podcast to Listen to

The Dig: Race and Class in the Liberal Suburbs
Daniel Denvir interviews Lily Geismer, author of Don’t Blame Us: Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party. While Boston whites fought school busing in the streets, suburban liberals along Route 128 maintained and benefited from the larger system of metropolitan residential and school segregation that made the crisis possible.

Worst Take of the Week

Why Everyone Is Talking About Bedbugs, NYT Columnist Bret Stephens, And A GW Professor
As some may know, NYT op-ed extraordinaire Bret Stephens has created quite a kerfuffle over the past week over being called an insect in a tweet that had less than 10 likes. This piece by Rachel Kurzius gives a good summary of the twists and turns of Bret's epic journey to prove that being called an insect on the internet is in fact identical to Nazism. The story even features a guest appearance by our president!

Some Subversive Literature

Towards a Gay Communism
Innovative and controversial in its day, Towards a Gay Communism is among other things a vivid document of a time when sexual liberation was a wing of the revolutionary struggle. An idiosyncratic synthesis of 1970s Italian radicalism, psychoanalysis, and Marxist feminism, Mario Mieli’s provocation both shows his vintage and retains a critical urgency.