The next republic the rise of a new radical majority

the next republic the rise of a new radical majority d d guttenplan seven stories press new york * london * oakland Copyright © 2018 by D D Guttenplan A SEVEN STORIES PRESS FIRST EDITION All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher Seven Stories Press 140 Watts Street New York, NY 10013 sevenstories.com College professors and high school and middle school teachers may order free examination copies of Seven Stories Press titles To order, visit www.sevenstories.com or send a fax on school letterhead to (212) 226-1411 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data has been applied for ISBN 978-1-60980-856-3 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-60980-857-0 (ebook) Printed in the USA 987654321 IN MEMORY OF MY PARENTS, Jacqueline and Mitchell Guttenplan, and in the hope that their grandchildren’s generation might find something useful in these pages CONTENTS INTRODUCTION In Search of the Lost Republic CHAPTER ONE Jane McAlevey—Winning Under Conditions of Extreme Adversity CHAPTER TWO The Whiskey Republic CHAPTER THREE Jane Kleeb—The Accidental Environmentalist CHAPTER FOUR Carlos Ramirez-Rosa—Chicago Rules: Governing from the Left CHAPTER FIVE When the Republicans Were “Woke”: The Death and Life of the Lincoln Republic CHAPTER SIX Waleed Shahid and Corbin Trent—A Tea Party of the Left? CHAPTER SEVEN Chokwe Antar Lumumba—Black Power Matters CHAPTER EIGHT Whatever Happened to the Roosevelt Republic? CHAPTER NINE Zephyr Teachout—Corruption and Its Discontents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS NOTES INDEX INTRODUCTION In Search of the Lost Republic America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have turned our language inside out who have taken the clean words our fathers spoke and made them slimy and foul America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have bought the laws and fenced off the meadows and cut down the woods for pulp and turned our pleasant cities into slums and sweated the wealth out of our people —John Dos Passos, The Big Money As he was leaving Independence Hall one morning in 1789, Benjamin Franklin was accosted by a Philadelphia woman wanting to know what kind of government he and his fellow delegates had devised The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention had been held in secret, and all kinds of wild rumors were beginning to circulate “Well, Doctor, what have we got,” Elizabeth Powel is said to have demanded, “a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin’s reply was brisk: “A republic, Madam—if you can keep it.” From its earliest days, the survival of our republic has always been in doubt Can we keep it? For many of us that uncertainty became painfully salient on the morning of November 9, 2016 I’d spent the previous fifteen months covering the election for the Nation, beginning with the Republican National Committee summer meeting in Cleveland in August 2015, where Sean Spicer boasted to me about how much the party had spent recruiting and training volunteers—and where, after the first Republican debate, I’d written that Donald Trump’s “unpredictability—his manifest inability to respect the norms of party, civility, or any institution or structure not bearing the Trump name, preferably in gilded letters—makes him the campaign equivalent of crack cocaine.” Though I didn’t think any of the other occupants of the Republican clown car could beat Trump, I assumed the RNC would find some other way to stop him Over the months that followed I attended Trump rallies in half a dozen states, from Florida to New Hampshire—where I spent the last night of the campaign at a Trump rally in Manchester—yet I was as surprised as anyone else on election night How could a country that twice sent Barack Obama to the White House such a thing? There are plenty of other books that try to answer that question This one is doing something else Because while I’d been watching Donald Trump out of the corner of my eye, fascinated by the reinvention of a man whose first brush with bankruptcy I’d covered as a writer at the Village Voice and New York Newsday in the 1980s, my main focus was elsewhere Assuming that the campaign would be boring, I’d told my editors I wanted to concentrate not on the candidates, but on the voters, volunteers, activists, and movements that make up the political ground on which elections are fought I was wrong about the campaign, which turned out to be anything but boring But I was right in thinking that there was a deeper story to be found far from the lights and the cameras Our politics was broken Walt Whitman had the good fortune to hear America singing I heard a country screaming—at itself, at shadows, at enemies domestic and foreign “Lock Her Up!” “Build the Wall!” But I also heard something else, a quieter sound underneath all the shouting, a collective gasp of recognition and amazement I’d heard it most clearly in a high school gym back in February 2016—on the night Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary Sanders himself was elated, reminding his supporters that when he’d begun campaigning “we had no campaign organization and we had no money And we were taking on the most powerful political organization in the United States of America.” Only it wasn’t Sanders I was listening to It was the audience—a mix of old radicals and young activists, tie-dyed grandmothers from California and the Carolinas celebrating with thick-waisted older men in union windbreakers and college students in blue “Feel the Bern” T-shirts Could Bernie go all the way? That magical night, with Nevada and Michigan still ahead of us, anything seemed possible But what I remember even more vividly than that moment of wild hope was the sensation of looking across the packed gym and being astonished at how many of us there were—and realizing that everyone else was just as surprised (Though it being New Hampshire, and a Sanders rally, the crowd was overwhelmingly white.) For decades the media had been relentlessly reminding us just how far outside the mainstream we were In a country where Ronald Reagan and Lee Atwater made “liberal” a badge of dishonor, a label to be shunned, where did that leave those of us further left? Since the fall of the Berlin Wall nobody bothered calling us “communists” anymore, but to call yourself a socialist, as Sanders had done, was an invitation to derision We’d watched in dismay as the bankers deregulated by Bill Clinton crashed the economy—only to be bailed out by Barack Obama, while millions of ordinary Americans lost their homes and their savings We’d seen George W Bush’s National Security Agency spy on millions of Americans—and Barack Obama’s Justice Department try to lock up the whistleblowers We’d witnessed the War on Terror give way to the war against Iraq, and heard the cries to bomb Damascus and Tehran So when Bernie stood up and said “Enough is enough,” we were ready to stand with him But we weren’t prepared for what happened next Grown used to our own marginality, we weren’t prepared to discover that there were literally millions of us, in every state and every region of the country It must be said that Bernie wasn’t prepared either A campaign that began somewhere between a quixotic gesture and a protest movement came close enough to winning the nomination to scare the hell out of the Democratic Party establishment—which hadn’t exactly kept its thumbs off the scale during the primaries Socialism is no longer toxic—indeed, polls show that, among younger Americans, most think it sounds like a pretty good idea And yet here we are, with Donald Trump in the White House, Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, and Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court Beyond the immediate damage to the economy, Trump’s tax cut gives Republicans a rationale for shrinking an already overburdened state even further—the moment the Democrats return to power The Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci warned that while the old order “is dying and the new cannot be born a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” The headlines—and Trump’s Twitter account—provide new examples on a daily basis Yet there are also many signs of rebirth And not a moment too soon For all Trump’s noisy—and contradictory—promises of action on gun control and immigration reform and health care, that blank check to the party’s big donors may be the Republicans’ sole legislative achievement But his administration’s rollback of federal regulations protecting consumers, the environment, and American workers is likely to be equally damaging, while his quiet reshaping of the federal judiciary in favor of economic privilege and social reaction may last for decades to come With Trump and Mike Pence in the White House, and a conservative majority on the court, decisions that once seemed like settled law—gay marriage, legal abortion, the right to join a union, indeed, the very right to citizenship itself for all born inside this country—may now come under attack These are all fights we cannot afford to lose Nor can we allow ourselves to spend the next two years solely on defense, devoting all our efforts to maintaining a status quo that—Hillary Clinton’s blithe assurances to the contrary—already wasn’t working for most Americans And so, despite the temptation to mourn, we have to organize Because if we can’t rely on the president, or the Congress, or the courts, we have no choice but to rely on one another Not just for comfort, but for survival—and resistance There are some in immediate peril, who need our help, our energy, and our solidarity There are others—many, many others—who are already fighting, but who may not see how their battle fits into a bigger picture Which is where this book comes in Not as a prescription or exhortation And not, I trust, as mere wishful thinking Ever since Election Day, I’ve tried to adopt “no more wishful thinking” as my own political mantra All the same, in my reporting on where the energy and purpose and genuinely radical ambition revealed by the Sanders campaign might be going, I’ve found ample grounds not just for hope, but for optimism The United States may be a continental power, and a global empire, but it is not an island, isolated from the currents of world politics You don’t have to be a historical determinist, or an orthodox Marxist—I am neither—to see a surge of majoritarian revolt spreading across the globe from the “pink tide” in Latin America to the democratic ferment that sparked the Arab Spring to the rise of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain Not all of these challenges to power will succeed The Arab Spring liberated Tunisia and electrified the Middle East, but its brief flowering in Egypt provoked a brutal reaction, as did the challenge to Bashir Al-Assad’s regime in Syria, while even the tentative shoots it put forth in the Gulf states were quickly suppressed Nor is it only medieval theocracies that cling to power The European Union’s refusal to allow Greece to depart from the cruel austerity demanded by the continent’s central bankers and private bondholders may have involved fewer troops, but neoliberalism showed itself just as willing to impose misery and submission as any dictatorship It is still too early to say how far Jeremy Corbyn’s challenge to the British version of austerity will take the Labour Party His Momentum supporters, however, have given this global phenomenon what may be its simplest expression in their slogan “For the many, not the few.” In trying to map out how we in the US might, as they say in New England, “get there from here,” I’ve been guided by two principles The first is to stay close to the grass roots The movements for social, racial, economic, and environmental justice in the United States have produced some genuinely prophetic voices: not just Bernie Sanders, but Naomi Klein, the Reverend William Barber, Elizabeth Warren, Bill McKibben and May Boeve, Michelle Alexander Their vision informs many of the people profiled in these pages, but I wanted to introduce readers to people whose names are still unfamiliar, but whose work is every bit as important The other principle is that history is essential—not just the first draft of history provided by journalism, but the awareness of possibility, indeed precedent, that only history can provide I wanted to break through the imposed collective amnesia that lets Americans forget what we have accomplished together in the past—the audacity that let a colony defy the most powerful nation on earth, the courage and solidarity that defeated racial slavery, the democratic confidence that took on fascism in Europe and began the work of building economic security at home As you will discover, each of these earlier achievements—these lost republics—was only partially successful If we are to complete the work, or even to advance it, we need to remind ourselves both of what we once accomplished—and of the reasons why previous efforts fell short The word “republic” itself has a long and complicated political history Its roots are Latin, from res publica—“public thing, or matter”—and it is perhaps best rendered into English simply as “commonwealth.” But it is also the name of Plato’s most famous work—the original Greek title, Πολιτεία, from the word Πολις, or “city-state,” can be translated variously as “polity” or “the state” or “citizenship—purporting to describe the ideal state, and deeply critical of Athenian democracy Elitist and democratic strains of republicanism have coexisted uneasily ever since Franklin and the other Founding Fathers derived their understanding of the term partly from English history: a republic was what you got when you dispensed with the king But as educated men of their times they’d also read Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and were acutely aware of the fragility of republican governments, their susceptibility to corruption and decay—especially when faced with the temptations of empire Kennedy in, 39–40 presidential election (2016) and, 38–39 US Steel in, 39–40 Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals See PASNAP Phillips, Wendell, 110–11 pink tide, 11, 78, 83 Popular Front anti-fascism and, 174 cause of, 174–75 culture and politics of, 175–76 Nazi-Soviet pact ending, 176 racism combated by, 171–72 strikes of, 171, 172 populism Abrams and, 137 Dean and online, 195–96 Hall on, 85 intersectional, 85 of Left, 83 Nebraska and, 67–68 revolt against elites and, 13–14 Teachout and, 207 Texas, 15 Populist Party Democratic Party and, 164–65 movement culture and, 165–66 power employer, 31–32 hereditary, 44 Left and, 76 potential, 32 race and, 136 The Power Elite (Mills), 32 presidential election (2016) See also Clinton, Hillary Nebraska and, 69–70 New Hampshire primary and, 8–9 Pennsylvania and, 38–39 politics in, race and debates of, 133–34 St Louis presidential debate, 133–34 Trump during, 7–8, 38–39, 69, 157 pre-Whiskey Rebellion period, 41 Continental dollar in, 49–50 Cromwell and, 42–43 enforcement for whiskey tax in, 50 equality in, 45–46 Fugitive Slave Act in, 53 Great Britain and, 42–43 hereditary power and, 44 Lenox in, 50 Morris in, 46–47, 50 property rights in, 44–46 Regulators and, 45 Vermont and universal suffrage in, 45–46 Whitefield and, 43–44 Pritzker, J B., 88 Progressive Era, 113 See also New Deal; Roosevelt, Franklin D Populist Party in, 164–65 radicals in, 167 Republican Party in, 166, 167–68 Socialist Party in, 165–67 property rights in Great Britain, 44–45, 46 Lincoln and, 100 Locke on, 44–45 Vermont and universal suffrage and, 45–46 white supremacy and, 53 Public Works Administration (PWA), 160–61 Putin, Vladimir, 127 PWA See Public Works Administration Quezada, Anthony Joel, 75 race and racial justice See also Mississippi Abrams campaign and, 136–37 African American women voters, 136 Barber and, 134–35 Black Lives Matter and, 30, 134 Cold War and, 185 Democratic Party and, 131–32 Du Bois on color-line, 135 mass incarceration and Clinton, B., 136 New Deal and African Americans, 169 Obama and, in U.S., 139 O’Dell and, 179–80 Popular Front combating racism, 171–72 power and, 136 presidential debates and, 133–34 resistance and, 155 Roosevelt Republic and, 171–72, 178–79 Sanders and, 135–36 Tea Party and, 190 racial violence Black Lives Matter, 30, 134 Brown and, 133–34 trials for, 138 Wright and, 137–38 Radical Republicans Civil War and, 104–5 as liberals, 110 in Reconstruction era, 106–7, 111–12 Rainsborough, Thomas, 47 Raising Expectations and Raising Hell (McAlevey, Jane), 19 Ramirez-Rosa, Carlos, 14 campaigning of, 86–87 community-based movement and, 77 education of, 80–82 family of, 73–74, 80, 86–87 on gentrification, 81 Gutiérrez and, 82 ICIRR and, 82–83 immigration laws and, 75–76 Latino identity of, 74 on Left, 76–78 LGBTQ identity of, 74–75 organizing for, 79–80 participatory budgeting for, 79 political inspiration of, 77–78 rent control and, 78–79 Sanders and, 76, 84, 87, 88 socialism for, 76–77, 80, 88 United Neighbors of the Thirty-Fifth Ward and, 87–88 Reclaim Chicago Sanford and, 85–86 Weaver and, 84–85 Reconstruction era Black Codes and, 106 Eight Hour movement in, 109, 111 end to, 111 Fourteenth Amendment in, 106–7, 112 Grant in, 107–8, 111 Hayes in, 112–13 labor rights in, 109–10 Radical Reconstruction in, 108, 111 Radical Republicans in, 106–7, 111–12 strikes in, 112–13 Reed v Reed, 180 Regulators, 45 reproductive rights Jackson Women’s Health and, 151 Kleeb, J., on, 68–69 republic Lincoln and, 13 roots of, 12 republicanism, 42–43 Republican Party, 205 Civil War and, 103–4 in Gilded Age, 166, 167–68 slavery and, 98–100 Republic of New Afrika (RNA), 147 Reuther, Walter, 177–78 right-to-work law, 33–34 in Nevada, 29 RNA See Republic of New Afrika Rogers, Nathaniel, 95–96 Roosevelt, Franklin D (FDR), 201 on economic inequality, 173 fundraising for, 168 as governor, 166 major legislation of, 162–63, 173–74 New Deal coalition of, 14 presidential bid of, 166–67 PWA and, 160–61 Roosevelt, Theodore, 165, 208 Roosevelt Republic, 162–63, 201–2 See also New Deal; Popular Front Communism and, 184 healthcare in, 182 higher education and, 186 impacts of, 187 Keyserling, L., and, 183–84 racial justice in, 171–72, 178–79 racism and, 171–72 Reuther and, 177–78 Section 7(a) of Wagner Act and, 169 strikes (1934) in, 170–72 Taft-Hartley Act and, 182–84 trade union movement and, 177 Truman and, 180–83 unemployment and, 169 unions in, 169–70, 177, 178, 181, 184 World War II and, 176–78 Rosa, Margarita, 73, 74, 76 Rosentel, Charles, 75 Rules for Radicals (Alinsky), 26–27 Rust Belt, 18–19 Sanders, Bernie, 186 Black Lives Matter and, 135–36 Democratic Party platform and, 17, 70 on healthcare, 182 Kleeb, J., supporting, 56 New Hampshire primary (2016), 8–9 OWS and, 117–18 race and, 135–36 Ramirez-Rosa and, 76, 84, 87, 88 Shahid and, 119, 126, 128 socialism and, 9, 84 supporters of, 8–10 Teachout and, 191–92 WFP endorsing, 119 Sanders campaign, 125, 127–28 Bernie Barnstorm and, 122–23 distributed organizing of, 197 Our Revolution and, 126 Trent and, 14, 120–22 volunteers for, 121–23 Sanford, Kristi, 85–86 Saperstein, Lou, 200 Scaife, Richard Mellon, 37–38 Scott, Dred, 98 Second Treatise on Civil Government (Locke), 44 settled law, 10 Shahid, Waleed, 14, 130, 132 #AllOfUs and, 128–29 family of, 119–20 OWS and, 118 Sanders and, 119, 126, 128 Shakur, Tupac, 148, 149 slavery See also abolitionists Adams on, 93–94 American Anti-Slavery Society, 94 buying out, 103 Calhoun and, 93–94 Constitution and, 91 cotton gin and, 92 Democratic Party and, 97 economics and, 103 Emancipation Proclamation and, 102, 105, 113, 137, 169 free blacks and, 93, 98 freedom of debate and, 97–98 Fugitive Slave Act, 53 Great Britain abolishing, 102–3 Hammond on, 101 Kansas-Nebraska Act and, 98 labor movement and, 93–94, 96 Liberator on, 94, 96 Lincoln and, 53, 91, 99, 102 Locke and, 44 Missouri Compromise and, 93 native-born slaves, 92 Neville and, 51 rebellion and, 92, 94 Republican party and, 98–100 Scott and, 98 slaves in Civil War, 102 Weld and, 94–95 Whitney and, 92 SNCC See Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee socialism, 11 Civil War and, 104 Lumumba, C A., and, 140–41, 150–51 popularity of, 10 Ramirez-Rosa and, 76–77, 80, 88 Sanders and, 9, 84 Socialist Party, 165–67 Spicer, Sean, 7–8 steel workers, 39–40 strikes, 34 automobile industry and, 172 Keystone XL pipeline and landowner, 64 McAlevey, John, and, 21 movement culture and, 171 in Reconstruction era, 112–13 Roosevelt Republic (1934) and, 170–72 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 141, 152, 153 Supreme Court, U.S Citizens United v Federal Election Commission at, 34, 202, 204, 208 corruption cases and, 204, 208 McCutcheon decision by, 34 Syriza, 83 Taft-Hartley Act, 182–84 taxes See also Whiskey Rebellion Civil War and federal income, 103 excise, 47–49 Farmers’ Alliance and, 163 Hamilton, A., and property, 50 Mississippi and, 144–45 in 1944, 177 Regulators and, 45 Trump cutting, 10 Teachout, Zephyr, 14 on antitrust, 201–2 campaign fundraising of, 206 on chickenization, 197–99, 200 corruption and, 197–98, 202–3, 205 Dean and, 190, 193–96 death penalty work of, 194, 195 early life of, 192 education of, 193–94 family of, 192–93 on future of Democratic Party, 207–8 on Google, 199–200 monopoly and, 197–202 on Obama, 190, 197 OWS and, 191 politics for, 189, 194, 195, 206 populism for, 207 Sanders and, 191–92 at Tea Party rallies, 190–91 TED Talk “What is Corrupt?” of, 197–98 Trump lawsuit and, 189 Tea Party, 124 Brat and, 115–16 donors for, 131 race and, 190 Teachout and, 190–91 Thoreau, Henry David, 53, 89 TransCanada, 63–65, 70–71 Trans-Pacific Partnership, 39, 159 Trent, Corbin, 129–30 BNC and, 123–24 family of, 120, 122 Ocasio-Cortez and, 131 as volunteer for Sanders, 14, 120–22 Truman, Harry, 180–83 Trump, Donald, 204–5 on Access Hollywood tape, 133 as boss, 31 broken promises of, 161 Clinton, H., on supporters of, 13, 158–59 Fetterman and, 38 immigration laws and, 130 impacts of presidency of, 10–11 New Deal and, 161 Pennsylvania and, 38–39 presidential campaign of, 7–8, 38–39, 69, 157 Putin and, 127 supporters of, 159–60 tax cut of, 10 Teachout and, 189 on Trans-Pacific Partnership, 39, 159 Tryon, William, 45 Twain, Mark, 162 UAW See United Automobile Workers UMW See United Mine Workers unions election spending and, 34–35 McAlevey, Jane, and, 19, 29, 32–33 Operation Dixie and, 179–80, 183 role of worker in, 32–33 in Roosevelt Republic, 169–70, 177, 178, 181, 184 Section 7(a) of Wagner Act and, 169–70 strikes and, 34, 170–71 United Automobile Workers (UAW), 172, 175 Reuther and, 177–78 United Mine Workers (UMW), 169, 172 United Neighbors of the Thirty-Fifth Ward, 87–88 United States (U.S.) See specific topics US Steel, 39–40 Wagner, Robert, 169, 181 Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act), Section 7(a), 169–70 wall charting, 28–29, 32 Wall Street, 201 Wall Street crash (1929), 163 Washington, George in French and Indian War, 41 Whiskey Rebellion and, 41–42, 52 Watkins, Hollis, 153–54, 155 Weaver, Amanda, 84–85 Weld, Theodore, 94–95 Welsh, Peter, 101 Werrell, Zachary, 115–16 WFP See Working Families Party Whig party, 43, 47 Jackson and, 91 Lincoln Republic and, 90–91 whiskey enforcement for tax on, 50 exchange of, 48–49 excise tax and, 47–49 frontier economy and, 48 Gallatin opposing tax on, 52 tax repealed on, 52 unequal application of tax on, 49 Whiskey Rebellion See also pre-Whiskey Rebellion period decades after, 90 “Dreadful Night” of, 52 English Civil War and, 42 Great Britain and, 42–43 Hamilton, A., and, 41–42, 47, 49, 50–52 Jefferson and, 53 legacy of, 53 local militias in, 50 McFarlane and, 51 military occupation after, 52 Miller and, 50–51 Neville and, 50–51 Washington and, 41–42, 52 watermelon army and, 51–52 White, Clifton, 194 White Citizens’ Council, 146 Whitefield, George Franklin and, 43 Whiskey Rebellion and, 43–44 white supremacy Democratic Party and, 14 property rights and, 53 Whitney, Eli, 92 Who Voted for Hitler? (Hamilton, R.), 157–58 Wide Awake clubs, 99 Willich, August, 105 women as abolitionists, 95 Clinton, H., and suburban, 18 Democratic Party and African American, 136 Harlem River Women’s Collective, 23 Reed v Reed and, 180 reproductive rights and, 68–69, 151 in World War II, 180 Women’s March on Washington, 127, 129 Working Families Party (WFP), 118 Cantor, D., and, 126 Lipton and, 125 Sanders and, 119 World War II, 176 See also Roosevelt Republic automobile industry and, 177–78 McAlevey, H., in, 22 McAlevey, John, in, 19–20 Nazis and, 157–58 women in, 180 Wright, Malcolm, 137–38 Young Lords Party, 74 young voters, 58 Iraq War and, 59 ABOUT THE AUTHOR As the lead Nation election correspondent throughout the 2015–16 election season, D D GUTTENPLAN set the highest standard for election reporting, traveling across the country throughout the primary season, present at the major speeches and rallies of all the candidates, offering deep as well as topical coverage in dozens of articles including many that graced the Nation magazine’s cover Guttenplan’s first book, The Holocaust on Trial, was praised by Ian Buruma of the New Yorker as “a mixture of superb reportage and serious reflection.” His biography of I F Stone, American Radical: The Life and Times of I F Stone , won the Sperber Prize for Biography Guttenplan wrote and presented two radio documentaries for the BBC, Guns: An American Love Affair, and War, Lies and Audiotape , about the Gulf of Tonkin incident He also produced an acclaimed film, Edward Said: The Last Interview A former editor at Vanity Fair , senior editor at the Village Voice , and media columnist at New York Newsday , Guttenplan’s reporting on the Happy Land Social Club fire in the Bronx won a Page One Award from the New York Newspaper Guild He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his investigative reporting on New York City’s fire code He lives in Vermont in the US and in London, England ABOUT SEVEN STORIES PRESS SEVEN STORIES PRESS is an independent book publisher based in New York City We publish works of the imagination by such writers as Nelson Algren, Russell Banks, Octavia E Butler, Ani DiFranco, Assia Djebar, Ariel Dorfman, Coco Fusco, Barry Gifford, Martha Long, Luis Negrón, Peter Plate, Hwang Sok-yong, Lee Stringer, and Kurt Vonnegut, to name a few, together with political titles by voices of conscience, including Subhankar Banerjee, the Boston Women’s Health Collective, Noam Chomsky, Angela Y Davis, Human Rights Watch, Derrick Jensen, Ralph Nader, Loretta Napoleoni, Gary Null, Greg Palast, Project Censored, Barbara Seaman, Alice Walker, Gary Webb, and Howard Zinn, among many others Seven Stories Press believes publishers have a special responsibility to defend free speech and human rights, and to celebrate the gifts of the human imagination, wherever we can In 2012 we launched Triangle Square books for young readers with strong social justice and narrative components, telling personal stories of courage and commitment For additional information, visit www.sevenstories.com ... parents had bought a tumbledown farmhouse and some land—and her father had become “an accidental politician He was new to the area, and the local Democratic Party probably thought, ‘He has the. .. have to be achieved often by non -radical, even ‘anti -radical means”)7 and Barack Obama (who worked as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, not far from Alinsky’s “Back of the Yards” neighborhood)... that the area was in a state of rebellion, a legal formality authorizing President Washington to take command of state militias With Washington himself at its head, and the tax’s author, Alexander