Field Notes
Manifesto: No Evictions!
By Brooklyn Eviction DefenseBrooklyn Eviction Defense (BED) is an autonomous organization of tenants fighting against the eviction machine through direct action and collective organizing. BED came out of a coalition of tenant unions in the summer of 2020, in response to the looming avalanche of evictions created by the combination of federal and state eviction moratoriums and a refusal to cancel rent. Our work takes many forms including blockades, stoop watches, tenant association organizing, tenant support, preventive targeted outreach, data work, propaganda and political education.
“Striketober”: Hopes and Realities
By Marianne GarneauFor years now, we have been hearing about strike waves, upsurges in worker militancy from a labor movement ostensibly on a comeback.
“Striketober” and Labor’s Long Downturn
By Jason E. SmithMillions of Americans were forcibly put out of work by the pandemic shutdowns; others were forced to work in exceptional, even intolerable, conditions. And yet, against a backdrop of riot and disorder, in February 2021 the Bureau of Labor Statistics published a new release confirming 2020 one of the lowest points of working class militancy in recent history, the third lowest since records began being kept in 1947.
Capitalism, Rationality, and Steven Pinker
By Amir HernandezSteven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist and one of the most popular Rationalists, has published a book called Rationality,3 based on a course he gives at Harvard, in which he treats the subject of reason scientifically, elaborating on subjects such as logic, probability theory, and cognitive psychology.
At the Origins of Treason to the White Race
By Ferruccio GambinoAmong the many diaries and memoirs written by blue-collar workers, some of the more impressive ones come from militants and revolutionaries on the left. Noel Ignatiev’s just-published Acceptable Men: Life in the Largest Steel Mill in the World belongs to this category and can captivate readers with its unrelenting attention to social relations unfolding around blast furnaces.
