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Bill McKibben’s Oil and Honey is a Jeremiad about Global Warming that’s also a charm offensive. The author’s faith in the appeal of his teacherly Yankee persona seems almost as strong as his certitude rising levels of atmospheric carbon will have a devastating impact on the climate.
A Green Army Takes on Big Oil
First is honored to reprint this small classic of reportage on the struggle against oil and gas companies who are trashing Louisiana’s wetlands and spawning toxic sinkholes in places like Bayou Corne.
Q&A: Scialabba & Smoler in the Court of Public Opinion
What follows is an exchange between George Scialabba, essayist and editor of The Baffler, and longtime First of the Month contributor, Fredric Smoler. The subject of their debate (which was sparked by Smoler’s article “Democracy Now.”) is the controversy surrounding Michael Kinsley’s Times review of Glenn Greenwald’s No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State.
Love Is the Message: Tributes to Lawrence Goodwyn
This twenty gun salute to Lawrence Goodwyn—late, great historian of social movements and exemplary democrat—amps up echoes from the memorial celebration that took place at Duke University in Durham. There are texts here of talks given by those who honored him then along with reflections by many other comrades. The contributors are Donnel Baird, Terry Bouton, Elaine Brightwater, Dororthy Burlage, Chris Chafe, William Chafe, Benj DeMott, Thomas Ferguson, Todd Gitin, Wade Goodwyn, Casey Hayden, Jim Hightower, Wesley Hogan, Woody Holton, Max Krochmal, Ralph Nader, Syd Nathans, Paul Ortiz, Tim Tyson & Peter Wood. (F.Y.I.: Larry’s old friends Ronnie Dugger and William Greider have eulogized him in Texas Observer and The Nation.)
A Democrat for the Ages
Lawrence Goodwyn—great American historian of democratic social movements (and First friend)—has died.
Lead Us On
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ first take on Obama’s impromptu speech after the Trayvon Martin verdict still seems on point: “No president has ever done this before. It does not matter that the competition is limited. The impact of the highest official in the country directly feeling your pain, because it is his pain, is real. And it is happening now. And it is significant.” But Coates’ clarity about wha’ppen is already at risk given news cycle mindlessness.
Within the Context of Obama
On Inauguration Day and on the day before the State of the Union address, I went to Serious Times dialogues – academic seminars (at New York’s School of Visual Arts) where American radicals ponder “Why doesn’t the United States make social progress?” What follows here takes in the distance between doomy discourse there and spectacles of social progress enacted by Obama et al. as he launched his second term. But it’s not locked on that opposition. I try to say true things about where we’re at now by treating old and new acts of mimesis, including classic Russian novels by Vasily Grossman and a soon-to-be classic hip hop CD by Kendric Lamar. My approach to politics and high/low culture is intuitive. This is not a scholarly essay. Call it an experiment in synchronic method.
Two from the Heart
The day before the election, the author sent First these two pieces, which he rightly believed would be “relevant however the vote turns out.” In the interval since the election, he updated the second piece here to take account of Romney’s defeat.