Search Results

Global Social Democracy

Richard W. Miller

in Globalizing Justice: The Ethics of Poverty and Power

If the established institutions of great powers, including the United States, are an enduring source of global injustice, social movements hold special promise as means of progress. The history of ... More

If the established institutions of great powers, including the United States, are an enduring source of global injustice, social movements hold special promise as means of progress. The history of the anti‐Vietnam‐War movement and the recent advance of movements against global injustice—mutually reinforcing yet diverse in forms and goals—suggest how movements can affect decisions of global reach by changing the calculus of power. In the current cluster of social movements against global injustice, a certain community of outlook, globalizing the aspirations of social democracy, makes use of the connections between power, responsibility and actual irresponsibility traced in this book. The patterns of distrust and trust that it promotes are its distinctive contribution. In the United States and, perhaps, some other countries, affiliation with global social democracy tends to undermine patriotism. But it provides a better form of solidarity, encouraging a clearer vision of moral reality.Less

“The Ranting of the Black-Hearted Villains”: Soldiers and the Anti-War Movement

Steven J. Ramold

in Across the Divide: Union Soldiers View the Northern Home Front

This chapter examines the Union soldiers' opposition to the anti-war movement that emerged during the Civil War. It considers how Union soldiers came to despise those who espoused peace at any cost, ... More

This chapter examines the Union soldiers' opposition to the anti-war movement that emerged during the Civil War. It considers how Union soldiers came to despise those who espoused peace at any cost, including those whom they suspected of conspiring with the Confederacy to undermine the Union Army and government from within. It argues that soldiers made little attempt to separate political anti-war support from nefarious conspiracy, and conveniently lumped all who opposed their dedication to the conflict under the Copperhead banner. It cites the Copperheads as a prime example of the communication divide between soldiers and civilians at home. As treasonous adversaries often accused of acting in concert with the Confederate foe, Union soldiers viewed the anti-war movement as unworthy of the political and legal protections granted to loyal citizens. This chapter also looks at the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC), believed to be conspiring against the Union, and the occurrence of riots throughout the North at the height of the war.Less

A Cresting Wave, 1967–1970

Daniel Burton-Rose

in Guerrilla USA: The George Jackson Brigade and the Anticapitalist Underground of the 1970s

The threat of a large-scale white riot prompted by United States policies in Indochina cropped up for the first time in the planning of the October 1967 march on Washington. Dave Dellinger, a Quaker ... More

The threat of a large-scale white riot prompted by United States policies in Indochina cropped up for the first time in the planning of the October 1967 march on Washington. Dave Dellinger, a Quaker pacifist first incarcerated for refusing to serve in World War II and the editor of Liberation magazine, was the primary organizer of the affair. He recognized that the anti-war movement was at a grow-or-die juncture, and, committed to enhancing its appeal to the young, invited Jerry Rubin to collaborate in its planning. New segments of the African American community had participated in the riots that had been shaking the country. Black men, in particular, had, up until the emergence of the “civil disturbance,” largely boycotted the civil rights movement, because they found that its insistence on non-violence insufferably constrained a perceived patriarchal duty to protect women and children. From 1965 to 1970, domestic bombings evinced a clear progression from property destruction to violence against people.Less

The Regret of a Nation

Song-Chuan Chen

in Merchants of War and Peace: British Knowledge of China in the Making of the Opium War

The Warlike party did not get its way entirely. To further elaborate the history of the Pacific party’s efforts in arguing against the war, this chapter shows how the British public opposed the war. ... More

The Warlike party did not get its way entirely. To further elaborate the history of the Pacific party’s efforts in arguing against the war, this chapter shows how the British public opposed the war. Anti-war arguments in the London print media, drawn from Christian universalism and Enlightenment humanitarianism, were often discussed in one breath and became inseparable. Even before the British expedition arrived in China in the summer of 1840, the war was already being called an ‘Opium War’ by the anti-war campaigners, which has stuck ever since. Their opinion of the war prevailed in the second half of the 19th century. After 1860, while British imperial expansion worldwide continued, British parliamentarians, more often than not, condemned the war, and regretting that the ‘Opium War’ was ever waged.Less

The Respect experiment

Sarah Glynn

in Class, ethnicity and religion in the Bengali East End: A political history

Chapter 9 looks at the attempt by some on the left (especially the Socialist Workers’ Party) to build on the movement against the Iraq war and create a new political party combining socialists and ... More

Chapter 9 looks at the attempt by some on the left (especially the Socialist Workers’ Party) to build on the movement against the Iraq war and create a new political party combining socialists and Muslims. It looks at the rise and fall of Respect in its power base of Tower Hamlets, including George Galloway’s defeat of Labour’s pro-war Oona King in the 2005 general election and more limited electoral successes in the local council. It argues that Respect was a coalition based on opportunism, and another example of the failure of popular front politics. It was conceived by a weakening left, prepared to compromise its socialist programme to make links with a strengthening Islamic movement. It made the left even weaker and strengthened religious organisations. The chapter examines at length whether religious and socialist organisations can work together beyond single issue campaigns. It concludes that while non-political Muslims might practise forms of socialism, Marxists and Islamists hold incompatible world views and any attempt at a more general coalition between the two would be bound to result in unacceptable compromise.Less

Learning from the Social Movements of the 1960s

Oliver Fein and Charlotte S. Phillips

in Social Injustice and Public Health

This chapter describes how we can learn from the social movements of the 1960s in the United States and apply insights from those social movements to address social injustice today. Social movements ... More

This chapter describes how we can learn from the social movements of the 1960s in the United States and apply insights from those social movements to address social injustice today. Social movements have had, and will continue to have, a powerful impact on medicine and public health, motivating and energizing health workers to address social injustice. The authors, in part drawing from their personal experiences, describe the civil rights movement, the student movement, the anti-war movement, the women’s movement, the gay rights movement, and new social movements. The authors conclude that the experiences of the 1960s teach us that, as new social movements emerge, it is important for single-issue movements to unite with each other and collaborate for progressive change.Less

Education, or ‘part of our foreign policy’?: At war in Vietnam

Alice Garner and Diane Kirkby

in Academic ambassadors, Pacific allies: Australia, America and the Fulbright Program

By the early 1960s the original Fulbright Agreement had expired and a new one was negotiated, as a binational agreement with the Australian government providing equal funding. This was signed in ... More

By the early 1960s the original Fulbright Agreement had expired and a new one was negotiated, as a binational agreement with the Australian government providing equal funding. This was signed in 1964, in the context of increasing miliitary intervention in the war in Vietnam by both the US and Australia. Under the ANZUS and SEATO treaties, signed the previous decade, Australia was a keen ally of the US in Vietnam. The Fulbright program and the Australia-US Alliance were pursued simultaneously by the Australian government. Senator Fulbright visited Australia, criticised the Alliance and became a leading dissenter to the Vietnam War. Academics on educational exchange also became active in the anti-war movement.Less

Labour Politics and the Dundee Working Class c.1895‒1936

Kenneth Baxter and William Kenefick

in Jute No More: Transforming Dundee

This chapter suggests that increasing concerns over poverty, housing, and worsening economic conditions combined with the aspirations and political demands of a Labour movement laid the solid ... More

This chapter suggests that increasing concerns over poverty, housing, and worsening economic conditions combined with the aspirations and political demands of a Labour movement laid the solid foundations for Labour's further advance during the early twentieth century. In examining the activities of Dundee's early Labour radicals and socialists, it reveals how Labour's slow-but-steady progress from the late 1880s contributed to the important developments that were to take place in Dundee between 1905 and 1910; how the period of labour unrest from 1910 further advanced the Labour cause before 1914; and how with the ever present support of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) Dundee became a leading centre of the anti-war movement in Scotland during the Great War. The final section focuses on post-war developments within the Labour movement and the growing ‘Moderate’ anti-socialist alliance which politically polarised Dundee during the inter-war years.Less

‘Experience is the only teacher’: Academic ambassadors interpret ‘mutual understanding’

Alice Garner and Diane Kirkby

in Academic ambassadors, Pacific allies: Australia, America and the Fulbright Program

The Vietnam War posed significant challenges to academics on educational exchange who were expected under the Fulbright program to be ambassadors as well as researchers. The CIA surveillance of the ... More

The Vietnam War posed significant challenges to academics on educational exchange who were expected under the Fulbright program to be ambassadors as well as researchers. The CIA surveillance of the anti-war movement and political interference in the administration of the Fulbright program from government caused academics in both Australia and America to defend the autonomy of the Program. How did scholars interpret the ambassadorial expectation when they were opposed to their government’s foreign policy? Many also found they could not speak critically of their national government without antagonising their hosts. Living up to the Fulbright program’s ideal of achieving ‘mutual understanding’ was very much a matter of learning by experience, to be interpreted by scholars for whom research was actually the priority.Less

The Dawn of a Conservative Era: Gaining Power, 1968 to 1972

Bryan Hardin Thrift

in Conservative Bias: How Jesse Helms Pioneered the Rise of Right-Wing Media and Realigned the Republican Party

In retrospect, 1968 was the year a conservative era dawned. The year was so promising that Helms considered a run for governor. From 1968 until Helms’s election to the Senate in 1972, public anxiety ... More

In retrospect, 1968 was the year a conservative era dawned. The year was so promising that Helms considered a run for governor. From 1968 until Helms’s election to the Senate in 1972, public anxiety about urban riots, the failing effort in Vietnam, continued liberal influence, and the black power, anti-war, and feminist movements aided his efforts to increase the backlash against Democrats. But a shift toward conservatives was far from certain. Helms feared that the 1968 Republican presidential nominee, Richard Nixon, would run as a moderate out of political expediency. Helms used WRAL to push the debate as far to the right as possible during the election, and afterward he never hesitated to criticize Nixon. Helms’s entrance into the 1972 senatorial election culminated over two decades of mixing his media career with politics. He only reluctantly engaged in retail politics. He was first of all a media insider—a news director, a reluctant entertainment executive, and a conservative television personality. He had refined pious incitement for eleven years on WRAL. Along with his campaign manager and close friend Tom Ellis, Helms used pious incitement in a massive advertising campaign to depict his opponent—Congressman Nick Galifianakis—as an out-of-touch liberal.Less

Gershom Scholem and Leo Strauss: Notes toward a German-Jewish Dialogue

in Reading Leo Strauss: Politics, Philosophy, Judaism

This chapter focuses on Gershom Scholem and Leo Strauss, the two most important Jewish thinkers, whose prominence, if not preeminence, among the most important German Jewish thinkers is already ... More

This chapter focuses on Gershom Scholem and Leo Strauss, the two most important Jewish thinkers, whose prominence, if not preeminence, among the most important German Jewish thinkers is already secured. Despite their influence in their respective fields of kabala and political philosophy, no comparative study of their work has yet been attempted. The biographies of Scholem and Strauss present some striking parallels and contrasts. Scholem was born into a middle-class, assimilated Berlin family, the milieu of which he ridiculed mercilessly in his autobiography. From an early age, he was attracted to political Zionism and was active in the German anti-war movement during World War I, something that proved a profound embarrassment to his parents. Strauss, by contrast, was born into a religiously observant family in the Hessian village of Kirchhain that he would later describe as a home in which “the ceremonial laws were rather strictly observed,” but where “there was very little Jewish knowledge.”Less

Radical

Michael E. Staub

in Rethinking Therapeutic Culture

This essay investigates how radicals in the 1960s and 1970s sought to use various forms of therapy to combat the emotional ills wrought by a society they believed had itself gone insane. Across the ... More

This essay investigates how radicals in the 1960s and 1970s sought to use various forms of therapy to combat the emotional ills wrought by a society they believed had itself gone insane. Across the United States, radicals established “counter-institutional” therapy rap centers as a way to break down the power hierarchy between client and counselor. These centers emphasized the group encounter—which was also identified as one important key to the processes of making progressive social change. From the radical perspective, mainstream therapeutic tools served to trick oppressed individuals by suggesting offers of material and psychic rewards if they abandoned their activism. From a feminist perspective, mainstream (and overwhelmingly male) psychiatrists were agents of adjustment whenever they stated the answer to women’s problems in terms which were private and individual, rather than social and interpersonal. Both perspectives ultimately remained hopelessly confounded on the core question of how best—or even if—the many varieties of radical therapy could ever result in meaningful social change. Yet this essay contends that the impact of radical therapy on mainstream therapy would ultimately be profound.Less

Tomás Irish, The university at war, 1914–25. Britain, France, and the United States (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), x + 254 pp. ISBN: 9781137409447: Tomás Irish, (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2015), xix + 300 pp. ISBN: 9781908996787

Robert Anderson

in History of Universities: Volume XXX / 1-2

This chapter reviews the books The university at war, 1914–25. Britain, France, and the United States (2015) and Trinity in war and revolution, 1912–1923 (2015), both by Tomás Irish. In The ... More

This chapter reviews the books The university at war, 1914–25. Britain, France, and the United States (2015) and Trinity in war and revolution, 1912–1923 (2015), both by Tomás Irish. In The university at war, Irish argues that the three western allies—Britain, France, and the United States—had a concerted campaign to mobilise academic ideals as a weapon against Germany during World War I, and as a way of strengthening cooperation among themselves. He shows that American universities were engaged in this project from the start. He also examines a number of significant issues, including the anti-war movements in Britain and America, debates on academic freedom in America, and the promotion of student exchanges in a spirit of internationalism. The broad perspectives of Irish’s general study are complemented by his history of Trinity College Dublin.Less

Act II Man

Aram Goudsouzian

in The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America

Chapter Three explores the quixotic campaign of Eugene McCarthy, with a particular focus on the first primary in New Hampshire, when he surprised the nation with a good showing, helping to drive out ... More

Chapter Three explores the quixotic campaign of Eugene McCarthy, with a particular focus on the first primary in New Hampshire, when he surprised the nation with a good showing, helping to drive out Johnson. Student volunteers flocked to help his campaign, illustrating how portions of the Baby Boomer generation were altering the political landscape. Yet McCarthy – a former professor and poet – was an indifferent campaigner with little appeal to a broader Democratic coalition.Less

His Own Man

Aram Goudsouzian

in The Men and the Moment: The Election of 1968 and the Rise of Partisan Politics in America

Chapter Seven charts the turbulent Democratic National Convention through the experience of Hubert Humphrey, the onetime champion of American liberalism. In Chicago, the Democratic Party came apart ... More

Chapter Seven charts the turbulent Democratic National Convention through the experience of Hubert Humphrey, the onetime champion of American liberalism. In Chicago, the Democratic Party came apart on national television: delegates feuded on the convention floor, peaceniks caused trouble on the streets of Chicago, and police employed wanton violence in the name of “law and order.” Humphrey emerged with the nomination, thanks to the loyal party machinery, but the Democrats appeared doomed. Humphrey bore much of the responsibility: he chose a safe nomination by letting Lyndon Johnson dictate the party plank on Vietnam. His weakness intensified the displeasure of the party’s liberal anti-war wing, and neither Humphrey nor the Democratic Party ever fully recovered.Less