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Abolish the Ivory Tower
An anonymous comrade writes about how the MIT-Epstein scandal is the symptom of neoliberalization of higher education and the profiteering tactics used by universities to generate wealth for the managerial class while exploiting the academic working class.
Boston DSA Statement Regarding the Events Surrounding the Straight Pride Parade
Members of Boston DSA’s Direct Action, De-Escalation and Security Committee have released a statement demanding that the charges against all 34 counter-protesters, medics, and journalists arrested at the Straight Pride Parade (and the police riot that followed it) be immediately dropped, and their records expunged and that Captain Jack Danilecki be immediately fired by the Boston Police Department, and demand that the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office press charges against him for his violent, unprovoked, and illegal actions on August 31st.
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Articles from the Web
Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State
This review of Samuel Stein’s book Capital City explains its core argument: urban planners (and other professionals of the built environment) are increasingly becoming wealth managers. What implications does this have for public space, housing, and cities? Stein will be speaking at Porter Square Books in Cambridge this Sunday, October 13th, at 3PM.
National Grid's New Rate Hike is a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Boston DSA’s energy democracy campaign, #TakeBackTheGrid, analyzes the MA Dept of Public Utilities decision to approve National Grid’s rate hike that would allow the company to increase rates without public involvement for the next five years.
Bernie Sanders Shares His Plan for a Working-Class Revolution
Kim Kelly interviews Bernie Sanders (whom Boston DSA has recently endorsed!), asking him about a variety of labor-related issues: labor law, the gig economy, the narrative of Trump’s “working class support”, incarcerated workers, SESTA/FOSTA and sex work decriminalization, and the strike wave.
Poultry Workers and Allies Organize in the Wake of Anti-Immigrant Raids
In this piece, Rose Bookbinder details efforts by workers and communities in the southeast poultry industry to further organize and advocate for workers rights in the wake of the disastrous ICE raids earlier this year. The raids highlighted the deep ties that the labor and immigrant rights struggles have together, and how the workers are proceeding with them in mind.
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A Podcast to Listen to
Red Hot Take: What if Bernie Wins?
Breht of Revolutionary Left Radio considers the question: what happens if Bernie wins? In this episode, he compares the three trends of resistance to capitalism (Marxism, anarchism and social democracy) and their historic successes and failures, and details the potential problems and benefits for the Left that might arise during and as a result of a Sanders presidency. Breht takes a decidedly critical approach towards social-democratic electoral efforts and remains pessimistic about the gains to be earned from a democratic socialist president versus the reaction it would incite, but nevertheless concludes that Bernie as president would provide a historic opportunity for left organizing.
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Worst Take of the Week
6 Ways the Salem Witch Trials were Fairer than Democrats Impeachment Hearings
It's spooktober, so here is the spookiest trash take we could find. In this piece, total law-knower Adam Mills “dissects” why the Salem witch trials were more judicially sound than the current impeachment effort by the Democrats. I know leftists shouldn’t be putting much faith in these impeachment shenanigans, but reading this alleged conservative intellectual have the difference between a trial and impeachment soar over his head is pretty entertaining. Take your issue up with your sacred constitution buddy.
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Some Subversive Literature
Death of a Yuppie Dream
In 1977, Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich posited a new development in class analysis: the existence of the “professional-managerial class”. This proposed “middle class” of non-proletarians was made up of employees in the educational, engineering, nursing and administrative sectors, and was distinguished from workers by their training and education as well as differing income/benefits trends. Decades later, the Ehrenreichs have returned to the hypothesis of the professional-managerial class and critique their prior analysis in “Death of a Yuppie Dream”.
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About the PEWG Newsletter
The Newsletter is produced by the Political Education Editorial Committee. We welcome submissions of interesting articles using this form. If you'd like to join the committee please email [email protected].
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