Daily Archives: March 12, 2024

The first thing you notice when walking into the middle-school classrooms at Brilla, a charter-school network in the South Bronx, is the sense of calm. No phones are out. The students are quietnot in the beaten-down way of those under authoritarian rule but in the way of those who seem genuinely interested in their work. Sixth graders participate in a multiday art project after studying great painters such as Matisse. Seventh graders prepare to debate whether parents should be punished for the crimes of their minor children. Another group of sixth graders, each holding a violin or a cello, read out notes from sheet music. A teacher cues them to play the lines pizzicato, and they pluck their strings in unison.

Brilla is part of the classical-education movement, a fast-growing effort to fundamentally reorient schooling in America. Classical schools offer a traditional liberal-arts education, often focussing on the Western canon and the study of citizenship. The classical approach, which prioritizes some ways of teaching that have been around for more than two thousand years, is radically different from that of public schools, where what kids learnand how they learn itvaries wildly by district, school, and even classroom.

In many public schools, kids learn to read by guessing words using context clues, rather than by decoding the sounds of letters. In most classical schools, phonics reign, and students learn grammar by diagramming sentences. Some public schools have moved away from techniques like memorization, which education scholars knock as rote learning or drill and killthe thing thats killed being a childs desire to learn. In contrast, classical schools prize memory work, asking students to internalize math formulas and recite poems. And then theres literature: one New York City public-high-school reading list includes graphic novels, Michelle Obamas memoir, and a coming-of-age book about identity featuring characters named Aristotle and Dante. In classical schools, high-school students read Aristotle and Dante.

Classical education has historically been promoted by religious institutions and expensive prep schools. (Many classical schools have adopted the Harkness method, pioneered by Phillips Exeter Academy, in which students and teachers collectively work through material via open discussion.) More recently, powerful investors have seen its potential for cultivating academic excellence in underserved populations: the Charter School Growth Fund, a nonprofit whose investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, has put millions of dollars into classical schools and networks.

Republican politicians have also smelled opportunity in the movement, billing its traditionalism as an antidote to public-school wokeism. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has railed against a concerted effort to inject this gender ideology into public-school classrooms, and has celebrated the influx of classical schools in his state. Tennessees governor, Bill Lee, proposed launching up to a hundred classical charter schools statewide, touting their mission to preserve American liberty. As more conservatives have flocked to classical education, progressive academics have issued warnings about the movement, characterizing it as a fundamentally Christian project that doesnt include or reflect the many kids in America who arent white, or who have roots outside this country. The education scholar and activist Diane Ravitch recently wrote that classical charters have become weapons of the Right as they seek to destroy democratically governed public schools while turning back the clock of education and social progress by a century.

Stephanie Saroki de Garcia, who co-founded Brilla, acknowledged that classical education is often seen as a white childs education. This is partly because of the curriculum: Youre talking about teaching the canon and mainly white, male authors, she said. Its also because these schools have been embraced by white Republicans who have the resources to keep their children out of the local school system. And yet Brilla is not rich, or white, or discernibly right-wing. Many students are English-language learners and immigrants, from Central America and West Africa. According to Brillas leaders, nearly ninety per cent of their students meet the federal requirements for free or reduced-price lunches. Saroki de Garcia purposefully opened the first Brilla school in the poorest neighborhood of the Bronx, which has a large population of Latino Catholics. (Brilla is secular, but it offers a free Catholic after-school program.) The students I met were nerdy and earnest, and far from young reactionaries. Angelina and Fatumata, two eighth graders, told me that they started a book club to read about racism in America; one recent pick was Passing, the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen, set in the Harlem Renaissance. Brillas leaders intentionally take a wide view of the canon, and of which texts are valuable to study. We try to make that connection for our students, who are mostly Black and Hispanic, with faces they can see themselves in, Will Scott, the principal of one of Brillas middle schools, said.

Brillas administrators were careful to note that the network isnt classical but, rather, classically inspired. This distinction is partly practical. Although teachers invoke Latin root words when theyre teaching kids English, for example, students dont take Latin as a subject. But it also seemed like the schools leaders wanted to put some distance between themselves and the broader classical-education movement. If we say classical school, that has a connotation, Scott said. Still, its telling that the schools have found traction by marketing themselves as classically inspired in the South Bronx, where voters overwhelmingly prefer Democrats and the college-graduation rate is among the lowest in New York City. During the lead-up to Brillas launch, in 2013, volunteers posted up outside a local McDonalds to pitch families on enrolling. We billed it as, This is what the lite get, Saroki de Garcia told me.

Everyone I met at Brilla seemed aware that their school is an implicit rejection of traditional public schools, but not in the way one might expect. Although Americas public-school wars are often depicted as fights over race and gender ideology, there are also a lot of parents who think their local schools just arent very good. Brillas two middle schools are in New York Citys School District 7, where, last year, less than a third of sixth graders were proficient in math or in reading and writing. Angelina, a recent immigrant from St. Croix, said that most of her friends go to a public school, and they talk really poorly about their school. Fatumata added that they dont have what we have, such as Algebra I classes for middle schoolers. The schools around us are, frankly, failing, Scott, the principal, told me.

There are many charter schools that aim to address the problem of low achievement, often through an obsessive focus on test scores and discipline. Brilla cares about both of these things, but what sets it apart is its mission. Classical education is premised on the idea that there is objective truth, and that the purpose of school is to set kids on a path toward understanding it. This principle is often framed in philosophical shorthandclassical educators love talking about truth, beauty, and goodness, which can sound like a woo-woo catchphrase to the uninitiatedand its paired with an emphasis on morality and ethics. Brilla students attend a character-education class every morning, where they talk about how to live out the different virtues reflected in the texts they read. As Alexandra Apfel, an assistant superintendent for Brillas middle schools, said, Were building students that are not just going to be academic robots but moms and dads someday.

In 1947, Dorothy Sayers, a motorcycle-riding Anglican crime writer, delivered a paper at Oxford titled The Lost Tools of Learning, in which she bemoaned the state of education. Do you ever find that young people, when they have left school, not only forget most of what they have learnt (that is only to be expected) but forget also, or betray that they have never really known, how to tackle a new subject for themselves? Young people do not know how to think, she argued, because theyve never been taught. They may have been introduced to subjects, but not to what it means to learn.

In the face of this contemporary problem, Sayers proposed an ancient solution: the revival of a medieval teaching format called the trivium, which divided learning into three stagesgrammar, dialectic, and rhetoric. The first stage is about mastering basic skills and facts; the second teaches students to argue and to think critically about those facts. By the third stage, theyre ready to express themselves in essays and oration. This model of education, cultivated by Renaissance thinkers and the Catholic Church alike, was common among European lites for centuries.

Cartoon by Roz Chast

Sayerss essay built on a long-standing debate about whether this kind of education made sense in a rapidly changing, industrialized world. Classical-education advocates often point to John Dewey, the early-twentieth-century progressive reformer, as the bte noire who marginalized their preferred form of schooling: There was a war going on between the progressive and the classical educators, and the progressives won in a rout, Andrew Kern, the founder of the Center for Independent Research on Classical Education, told me. Although this story is perhaps overly simplistic, Johann Neem, a historian at Western Washington University, said, its true that Dewey and other progressives thought that the old ways of education were inadequate for modern students. These progressive reformers planted the seeds of two trends. The first was shifting the focus of school toward appealing to the interests of the child, rather than transmitting ancient knowledge and wisdom, which these reformers considered litist. (Academic and scholastic, instead of being titles of honor, are becoming terms of reproach, Dewey wrote.) The second was a utilitarian impulsesome scholars thought that the purpose of education was to train workers. They did not believe that every student needed to read Plato.

Follow this link:

Have the Liberal Arts Gone Conservative? - The New Yorker

Too many of my friends are having a hard time correctly interpreting the criticism leveled by liberals in countries throughout the world against our governments policies.

We demonstrated together against the current governments efforts to undermine our judicial system and against the policies of a coalition formed by Benjamin Netanyahu with messianic zealots, draft evaders, and corrupt politicians.

Yet, particularly in the aftermath of the barbaric massacre carried out against us by Hamas on October 7, it is difficult for many of them to come to terms with the fact that the world is seeing very difficult pictures from Gaza, while we, completely understandably, are still dealing with our trauma, mourning our dead, and living in denial with respect to the terrible suffering of the Gazans.

Too many of my colleagues in the liberal camp in Israel still relate to every international statement that is critical of the governments policies as anti-Israel. They are searching for the hasbara (public diplomacy) wizards who will show the world our good side, while it is actually much more important for us to invest our energy in improving the soul of our nation rather than its image.

Too many Israeli centrists are delighted to see the Israeli flags waving at demonstrations in Brazil in support of the populist Bolsonaro, or that the racist Viktor Orban of Hungary is preventing the European Union from imposing sanctions against violent settlers. They are enthusiastic about the speeches against Muslims made by the Dutch Geert Wilders and the bizarre visit by Milei, Argentinas Elvis Presley, to the Western Wall. They even supported the cruel and cynical dictator Vladimir Putin, simply because of his image as a friend of the Israeli prime minister, an image that turned out to be nothing but a smoke screen. At the same time, they relate to all criticism regarding the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as deriving from anti-Israel sentiment, or even antisemitism.

This is not a new phenomenon; for years I have been hearing many of my liberal friends relating to every decision of any UN institution against the settlements as if it is an anti-Israel decision, to all criticism of the infringement of human rights by our government as if it is antisemitic. They relate to the requirement to mark products from the settlements as such as if this is a boycott of Israel, while in fact it is not a boycott and it is not against Israel. These are decisions that strive to extricate us from the one-way ticket to a binational state drowning in blood that we are led to by our governments.

I still remember how, in my childhood on the kibbutz, Scandinavian volunteers would come who admired Israel as a model of tikkun olam (improving the world). However, they no longer see the same Israel, because Israel has changed. They see the right-wing governments that aspire to turn Israel into an ethnocracy and a theocracy. They see an occupation with no end in sight and boundless expansion of settlements intended to perpetuate it. And when they voice their criticism, our way to avoid dealing with it on the merits is to call them antisemites.

This approach also characterizes many of the establishment Jewish organizations. These are the organizations that think that the Evangelicals are our best friends, simply because they actively support the occupation and the expansion of the settlements, in spite of the fact that their vision is that we will die while helping to bring about Armageddon which will lead to the Second Coming. These Jewish organizations supported the narcissistic, misogynistic Trump and his loyal election results deniers followers, who spread the antisemitic replacement theory, because he gave legitimacy to Israels policies in the occupied territories.

This same line led these organizations to refrain from expressing support for the democratic protest movement in Israel against the attempt to overthrow the legal system, and at present they are not taking a stand against Netanyahus policy to continue the war without any political vision, while hardening their hearts in their willingness to sacrifice the hostages.

At this dangerous time for the future of Israel, our good friends are actually those who are critical of our government and who are trying to effect a change in its policies. They expect us to act in a manner consistent with the values we share with liberal democracies and against the policies that impair the chance to arrive at a reasonable agreement that will safeguard the states security and will ensure its democratic values, for our own good and for the stability of the region and of the world.

The policies of the right-wing governments continue to drag Israel down to the status reserved for pariah nations, such as Iran and Syria. Therefore, just as we expect that the world act against the infringement of human rights by such countries, we should not be surprised that it is considered legitimate at this juncture to oppose the policies of our government.

When the government acts against the interest of the State of Israel and continues with its agenda to reduce it to an occupying ethnocracy, the criticism of such policies must not be viewed as harmful to Israel, but, rather, as an act that might just save it from itself and return it to the path of a liberal democracy.

The writer is J Street Israels executive director. He has served as an Israeli diplomat in Washington and Boston and as a political adviser to the president of Israel.

See the original post here:

Even when it criticizes Israel, the liberal world is not against us - opinion - The Jerusalem Post

Now and then during an election cycle, a Republican pundit becomes something of a hero to Democrats.

Peggy Noonan, a conservative Wall Street Journal columnist and former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, filled that role in the months leading up the 2008 election, after she had pilloried the second Bush administration over its invasion of Iraq and criticized Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee.

Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt, veterans of John McCains failed 2008 presidential campaign, reached pundit primacy on MSNBC excoriating the tea party activists then in ascendance.

A rising star of the current season is Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former communications director for President Trump who is now a co-host of ABCs The View and a regular commentator on CNN.

Ms. Farah Griffin, who resigned from the Trump administration in December 2020, garnered wide attention with a tweet she posted on Jan. 6, 2021: Dear MAGA I am one of you. Before I worked for @realDonaldTrump, I worked for @MarkMeadows & @Jim_Jordan & the @freedomcaucus. I marched in the 2010 Tea Party rallies. I campaigned w/ Trump & voted for him. But I need you to hear me: the Election was NOT stolen. We lost.

Three years later, Ms. Farah Griffin, 34, spends many of her nights at the CNN headquarters in the Hudson Yards district of Manhattan, bantering with Van Jones, David Axelrod and other liberal commentators.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit andlog intoyour Times account, orsubscribefor all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?Log in.

Want all of The Times?Subscribe.

Read more from the original source:

Former Trump Aide Alyssa Farah Griffin Becomes a Liberal Favorite - The New York Times

New York University will host Zaheer Ali as the keynote speaker at the annual Liberal Studies Student Research Colloquium, on Friday, April 5, 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. at the Eisner & Lubin Auditorium at the NYU Helen & Martin Kimmel Center for University Life (60 Washington Square South).

Zaheer Ali is the inaugural executive director of the Hutchins Institute for Social Justice at the Lawrenceville School and an executive producer of American Muslims: A History Revealed,a film series for PBS Digital Studios launching this fall.

For Ali, oral history is key to cultural preservation. Storytelling, he says, serves as a powerful medium for marginalized voices and challenges notions dictated by the mainstream discourse. His keynote address, Listening as Creative Act: Story-Listening for Social Change, will discuss the role of storytelling in advancing social justice and explore the importance of listening to everyones stories and its pivotal role towards nurturing inclusive communities.

Alis scholarship explores the use of oral history to preserve voices from the past and to change the mainstream narrative. One of his works is Flatbush + Main, an award-winning monthly podcast that covered Brooklyns past through historical archives and oral history. His work on Malcolm X was featured in CNNs documentary Witnessed: The Assassination of Malcolm X (2015) and Netflixs documentaries Who Killed Malcolm X? (2020) and Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali (2021).

Ali, a former adjunct professor at NYUs School of Professional Studies, has received a Soros Equality Fellowship from the Open Society Foundations for his work to leverage the power of storytelling and listening for social change.His work was recognized with the 2021 Special Jury Social Justice prize from the GLAMi Awards and the 2021 MUSE Award from the American Alliance of Museums.

The keynote address is free and open virtually to the public. Registration for the webinar is required on the Zoom registration page. For more information or to request accessibility accommodations, please email lsdeansoffice@nyu.edu or call 212.998.7120.

About NYU Liberal Studies Liberal Studies at NYU is recognized for its interdisciplinary, global liberal arts curriculum, experiential learning and small, seminar-style classes. It offers the best of both worlds: a small college experience nestled within a large urban research university. Liberal Studies has the second largest entering first year undergraduate class each year at NYU. Its classes are small; its presence is large and far-reaching.

Original post:

NYU to Host Zaheer Ali at the Annual Liberal Studies Student Research ColloquiumApril 5 - NYU

Around 1970, an unprecedented movement emerged across major American cities calling for returning control of urban government to the neighborhood level. Although conservatives had long embraced neighborhoodism, a distinguishing feature of this political trend was its newfound appeal to Democrats who were disillusioned by the turbulent urban transformations of the first postwar decades. Using New York City as a case study, this white paper shows how this new neighborhood liberalism reordered the priorities that urban liberals expected of their elected officials and, in so doing, remade American cities to a degree that scholars are only beginning to understand. On no issue was this influence clearer than that of urban growth. Whereas large-scale pro-growth projects had been at the heart of the mid-century liberal vision, the new generation of neighborhood liberals saw growth as an outdated obsession that had wreaked self-evident harms on vulnerable urban communities. Subsequently, New Yorkers enacted laws and implemented processes that slowed the pace of growth by requiring neighborhood input in the real estate development process. By the eighties, anti-growth politics and neighborhood protection had become the common dialects through which New York liberals tried to make sense of, and stake claims within, their citys shifting political environment. Yet neighborhood liberalisms achievements were not necessarily those that its initial proponents anticipated or desired. Although the devolution of land-use policy brought stability to city life for a fortunate few, the restrictions on urban development that marked the era of neighborhood liberalism set the stage for the severe housing shortages that New York and similar cities would experience in the twenty-first century.

Read more here:

Power to the Neighborhoods!: New York City Growth Politics, Neighborhood Liberalism, and the Origins of the ... - Joint Center for Housing Studies

Defying prevailing opinion among a substantial section of Canadian big business, the Opposition Conservative Party, led by the far-right MP Pierre Poilievre, joined in giving unanimous consent to a union-backed, Liberal-NDP sponsored anti-scab bill on its second reading in Parliament on Feb. 27.

Now in committee before a final vote after which it will head to the Senate, Bill C-58 would amend the Canadian Labour Code to limit the ability of federally regulated employers to use replacement workers during a labour dispute, while further limiting workers ability to strike. The limit on scabs would not apply to workers in the federal public service, under the argument that these workers are not replaceable.

Tabled by Liberal Labour Minister Seamus ORegan and universally touted by the New Democratic Party (NDP), the bill has been boosted by the union bureaucracy as historic and a major advance for working people in Canada. It is possible that the Conservatives will change their stance on the final vote on the bill, but this would not block its passage in the House of Commons, where the minority Liberal Trudeau government enjoys a majority thanks to the backing of the NDP through their confidence and supply agreement.

The bill is seen by both parties and the union tops as a key component to patching up the Liberal governments progressive credentials ahead of an impending election. It was part of the joint measures that the two parties agreed to when they forged their governmental alliance to provide, to use words of NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, stability following the outbreak of the NATO-instigated Ukraine war.

Beyond electoral considerations, the bill reflects the close corporatist relations between the state, union bureaucracy, and big business that prevail in Canada.Since coming to power in 2015, the Trudeau Liberals have developed unprecedentedly close ties with the union bureaucracy, whose cooperation in suppressing the class struggle is highly valued and sought by key sections of the ruling elite.

The unions have embraced the Liberals pro-war, pro-austerity agenda, and have been rewarded with strong representation in some of the governments most important policy areas. For example, when the Liberals renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement with the fascist-minded US President Donald Trump to prepare the economic basis for the continents twin imperialist powers to wage war against their rivals, top union officials acted as semi-official government advisers. In return for the services he had rendered to the bourgeoisie, Canadian Labour Congress President Hassan Yussuff was appointed to the Senate by Trudeau upon his 2021 retirement from the leadership of Canadas largest union federation.

Today is a great day for workers and a bad day for big bosses who want to exploit those workers, NDP leader Singh declared following the Feb. 27 vote. This is a bill that gives workers the ability to negotiate for fair wages.

The United Steel Workers (USW) leadership called last months unanimous consent vote a significant step forward for workers rights in Canada. And USW National Director for Canada Marty Warren explicitly welcomed the support of Poilievres Tories, declaring in a statement, The vote on the anti-scab bill is an important victory for federally regulated workers. The all-party support is a recognition of the importance of this legislation

In his statement, Warren admitted that the bill contains provisions which would hinder and even outright block the ability of a significant section of workers to strike through their designation as essential employees, and that it will not come into effect until 18 months after it receives royal assent.

Ultimately the architects of the Liberal-NDP alliance see Bill C-58 as another tool in the hands of the state to regulate and limit the class struggle, as they strive to subordinate the working class to their policies of austerity at home and aggression and war abroad.

With the support of the unions, the NDP intends to tout this as a victory for workers. One that results from its backing for a reactionary government that is assisting Israels genocide in Gaza and plays a key role in NATOs war against Russia in Ukraine. At home, the Trudeau government has urged the maintenance of high interest rates to impose the cost of rearmament and enriching the wealthy on working people through real wage cuts.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CCC), Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, and the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses have all actively opposed the anti-scab legislation. The Globe and Mails editorial board, the mouthpiece of the Bay Street financial elite, stood up for the right of management to use scabs to ruthlessly break strikes and declared the bill a terrible idea.

After the February 27 vote, the CEO of the CCC, Perrin Beatty, bitterly complained, bad news for Canada, for Canadian families, and for Canadian workers. This will exacerbate our productivity problem, further erode our global reputation, and keep us from simply getting things done.

Poilievre, for his part, deliberately played coy, refusing to state clearly his partys position on the bill. As polls underscore the widespread popular revulsion with the Trudeau government and the likelihood of a Conservative sweep if an early election were called, the leader of the Opposition has been making phony appeals to workers and reaching out a hand to the union apparatus, posturing as a man of the people.

Speaking last week before the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, Poilievre, mimicking the lies of other far-right would-be autocrats like ex-British Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, declared, When Im prime minister, my obsessionmy daily obsessionwill be about what is good for the working class people of this country.

In so far as Poilievre has gained traction for such reactionary phony appeals, it is above all due to the unions and NDPs systematic suppression of the class struggle. They have isolated strikes, when they have been unable to prevent their breaking out, and imposed one sell-out contract after another, while politically subordinating the working class to the big business Liberal government and its agenda of austerity and war.

The lurch of official politics to the right, the promotion of identity politics by the Liberals and NDP, and the Trudeau governments spearheading of savage attacks on workers to pay for war abroad are fueling growing hostility to the so-called progressive parties and trade unions. Their anti-worker record has created a political opening for Poilievre, long notorious for serving as former Prime Minister Stephen Harpers attack dog, to preposterously present himself as an advocate of working Joes. No matter that Poilievre has a long record of supporting the use of emergency back-to-work laws to break strikes, vows to increase military funding by $20 billion per year to meet NATOs 2 percent of GDP target, is promising to get tough on crime and is whipping up backwards anti-LGBT sentiment.

The Conservatives are making demagogic social appeals on the question of continued high inflation and the housing crisis, while promising to axe the Liberals carbon tax, which Poilievre falsely presents as a main driver of inflation. The ability of the far-right Poilievre, who came to lead the party in the aftermath of the fascistic Freedom Convoys occupation of Ottawa which he stridently supported, to seek support from broad sections of the population underscores the real danger present in the current political situation. To the extent that the Liberal/NDP/union alliance retains its political stranglehold over the working class, the only beneficiaries from the deepening capitalist crisis and Canadian imperialisms turn to imperialist war will be Poilievre and the political far right.

Poilievres open hand to the union bureaucracy makes clear that he is ready to continue their ever closer integration with the state. A model for this is seen at the provincial level in Ontario where Tory Premier Doug Ford has made inroads with the union bureaucracy, in particular among the construction trades. The unions in turn have worked to prop up Fords government, scuttling a developing general strike movement in late 2022 after the premier pre-emptively illegalized a strike and imposed a concessions contract on education support workers.

However, Poilievre would combine any outreach to the bureaucracy with the adoption of openly authoritarian forms of rule and brutal state repression. The Conservatives have repeatedly attacked the Trudeau government for not cracking down more harshly against the anti-Gaza genocide protests and are eager to put paid once and for all to any political taboo on the use of the notwithstanding clause to trample on democratic rights.

Since becoming leader, he has assiduously courted the most openly far-right forces, including the supporters of Maxime Berniers Peoples Party, and made a point of championing Rebel News. It should not be forgotten that his political allies in the leadership of the Freedom Convoy advocated the creation of a military-style junta to eliminate all remaining COVID public health measures. Poilievre would have no hesitation in mobilizing such forces to use violence against a growing working class movement, including in opposition to Ottawas involvement in a rapidly developing third world war.

The debate over the anti-scab law makes clear that the workers confront an across-the-board conspiracy to suppress the class struggle from the far-right Poilievre to the social democratic NDP and their backers in the trade unions in the interest of capital. The passage of the anti-scab billrife with measures which further bind workers within the pro-business collective bargaining systemwill not advance workers interests one step forward.

The working class must assert its own independent interests by fighting for a political break with the Liberal/union/NDP alliance, the chief obstacle to the mobilization of the working class against capitalist austerity and war. This requires the struggle to form rank-and-file committees in every workplace and neighborhood to break free from the nationalist union bureaucracies, which tie workers to the Canadian capitalist political establishment.

Workers must fight to develop ties with their class brothers and sisters across provincial and international borders. Above all, the advancement of workers interests requires the adoption of a socialist and internationalist perspective to guide the fight for the transformation of society to meet the needs of humanity and not private profit. This is the perspective which the Socialist Equality Party (Canada) is fighting for, and we strongly urge all workers to contact us today to join and help build it.

Sign up for more information about how to join or build a rank-and-file committee in your workplace

Read more:

Canada's Conservatives back NDP-Liberal anti-scab legislation that undermines the right to strike - WSWS

For years, the Yimbytown conference was an ideologically safe space where liberal young professionals could talk to other liberal young professionals about the particular problems of cities with a lot of liberal young professionals: not enough bike lanes and transit, too many restrictive zoning laws.

The event began in 2016 in Boulder, Colo., and has ever since revolved around a coalition of left and center Democrats who want to make Americas neighborhoods less exclusive and its housing more dense. (YIMBY, a pro-housing movement that is increasingly an identity, stands for Yes in my backyard.)

But the vibes and crowd were surprisingly different at this years meeting, which was held at the University of Texas at Austin in February. In addition to vegan lunches and name tags with preferred pronouns, the conference included even celebrated a group that had until recently been unwelcome: red-state Republicans.

The first day featured a speech on changing zoning laws by Greg Gianforte, the Republican governor of Montana, who last year signed a housing package that YIMBYs now refer to as the Montana Miracle.

Day 2 kicked off with a panel on solutions to Texass rising housing costs. One of the speakers was a Republican legislator in Texas who, in addition to being an advocate for loosening land-use regulations, has pushed for a near-total ban on abortions.

Anyone who missed these discussions might have instead gone to the panel on bipartisanship where Republican housing reformers from Arizona and Montana talked with a Democratic state senator from Vermont. Or noticed the list of sponsors that, in addition to foundations like Open Philanthropy and Arnold Ventures, included conservative and libertarian organizations like the Mercatus Center, the American Enterprise Institute and the Pacific Legal Foundation.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit andlog intoyour Times account, orsubscribefor all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?Log in.

Want all of The Times?Subscribe.

See the original post here:

The Surprising Left-Right Alliance That Wants More Apartments in Suburbs - The New York Times

State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands Armed Forces Americas Armed Forces Pacific Armed Forces Europe Northern Mariana Islands Marshall Islands American Samoa Federated States of Micronesia Guam Palau Alberta, Canada British Columbia, Canada Manitoba, Canada New Brunswick, Canada Newfoundland, Canada Nova Scotia, Canada Northwest Territories, Canada Nunavut, Canada Ontario, Canada Prince Edward Island, Canada Quebec, Canada Saskatchewan, Canada Yukon Territory, Canada

Zip Code

Country United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe

Read more from the original source:

PARKER: Clarence Thomas, liberal racism and the ongoing denigration of Black conservatives - Kankakee Daily Journal

Hollywoods awards season has finally ended and in perfectly normal election-year fashion: Tinseltown freaking out over former President Donald Trumps possible return to the White House.

Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel got a retort from Trump after he blasted the former president and his Republican allies. Kimmel responded, Well, thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching. Im surprised youre still isnt it past your jail time?

But his shruggable performance was far outdone by the angry venting of actor Robert De Niro, who stepped up his attacks on Trump.

On Friday, De Niro pleased Bill Mahers audience by blasting Trump. Vote for Trump and youll get the nightmare. Vote for Biden and it will be back to normalcy, he began.

To laughter and applause from Mahers Los Angeles studio audience, De Niro marveled at how anyone could support Trump. He called the poll-leading former president a total monster who will install a dictatorship. More insults followed: sociopathic, psychopathic, malignant narcissist, as well as an idiot and clown.

From Fridays Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO:

ROBERT DE NIRO: The bottom line is: Its Biden vs. Trump. We want to live in a world that we want to live in and enjoy living in or live in a nightmare? Vote for Trump and youll get the nightmare. Vote for Biden and it will be back to normalcy.

The guy is a total monster, and anybody, I dont understand it. I guess they get behind the kind of logic: They want to f*** with people, screw them because theyre unhappy about something. Hes such a mean, nasty, hateful person. Id never play him as an actor because I cant see any good in him nothing, nothing at all, nothing redeemable in him. Whoever the people are who want to vote for him, and they look like intelligent people around there, for some reason, it cant be, it cannot be. If he wins the election, you wont be on the show anymore. Hell come looking for me. Theyll be things that happened that none of us can imagine. Thats what happens in that kind of a dictatorship which is what he says. Lets believe him. Take him at his word.

Hes a sociopathic, psychopathic, malignant narcissist. He is a dangerous person the people who somehow think hes going to be the answer to their prayers, whatever those are.

BILL MAHER: Did you know him as fellow New Yorkers?

DE NIRO: Never wanted to know him.

SEE THE LATEST POLITICAL NEWS AND BUZZ FROM WASHINGTON SECRETS

MAHER: Never wanted to, you must have crossed

DE NIRO: He was an idiot. He was a clown. He was a clown in New York.

Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explains our weekly pick: Rants like this from pretentious Hollywood celebrities probably drive more to vote for Trump than dissuade anyone from supporting him. How many care about the all-too-predictable left-wing political views of lefties in Hollywood who always denounce the Republican candidate and advocate for the Democratic one? Not anyone who is drawn to Trump.

Rating: FIVE out of FIVE SCREAMS.

Follow this link:

Liberal Media Scream: Hollywoods freaks over Trump - Washington Examiner