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Jane McAlevey on MSNBC, HuffPo Live and Counterspin
In her newest book Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell), author and maverick organizer Jane McAlevey draws on her two decade-long experience and sets out a plan for revitalizing labor. Reacting to Michigan’s Republican-dominated legislature’s passage of the so-called “right to work” law (an uncomfortable term to use due to its racist origin) and the corporate-backed effort to push for similar legislation nationwide, she made several big media appearances last week and over the weekend to outline the state of labor in America (prognosis: not good) and how labor can be revived. She appeared on MSNBC's UP with Chris Hayes, Counterspin, KALW in San Francisco, The Real News, Huffpost Live, and KBOO community radio in Portland. Audio lies below the jump. Click on the links to listen and watch the interviews in full.
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Books of the Year - As Chosen by Verso
In between publishing the works of Žižek and plotting ways to destroy capitalism, many of us at Verso occasionally like to read books.
As usual we were stunned by how little the newspaper's books of the year seemed to represent our own reading so we gathered together our own top books of 2012 (and beyond) and the resulting list is a refreshing reminder of just how lively much of the independent publishing scene is.
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The Nobel Peace Prize for the EU—A Sick Joke?
The awarding of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union in a Dutch newspaper cartoon was mocked by depicting the Nobel committee at the end of its deliberations, realising it forgot to select the peace laureate. One member shouts, ‘Quick, a name! A short one please!’The true misjudgement of course is that the EU, rewarded for its supposed role in preventing war in post-1945 Europe, began as a sideshow to preparation for war with the Soviet bloc and today terrorises southern Europe, whilst lining up for war with Syria and Iran.
In the 1950s, the first initiatives towards Western European integration were taken by France to prevent a straightforward resurrection of West German economic and military power as favoured by the Atlantic ruling class. There was real compromise involved but early European integration still was part of the West’s Cold War line-up.
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A Modest Proposal for John O'Brien
As Verso Books is currently looking for a Digital Marketing Manager, we read with interest the new Dalkey Archive 'job' ad—everyone from the New Yorker to Salon, the LA Times and Forbes has now weighed in, feigning surprise that people might work for no money to get into the media. Here at Verso Books, we already have a 'Personal Assistant to the Publisher' who fulfills all of John's desired qualities: working for no pay, no complaints about working overtime or weekends, no 'weddings in Rio' to attend, let alone surfing the internet, gossiping, or taking personal phone calls. She's always happy to 'meet all key authors the Press publishes, be a liaison between the Publisher and other staff, and know what the Publisher needs or wants before he does'. Meet Lola.
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Video: Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch on the theology of capitalism
On October 31st Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, authors of The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire, spoke at Town Hall Seattle with economics Professor Dan Jacoby. Their conversation, broadcast on C-SPAN's BookTV, challenges the dominant economic theology that assumes globalization to be the natural progression of western capitalism. The authors, whose work Jacobi calls "magisterial," discuss in detail the formation of this ideology after World War II. Probing both the union's emphasis on individual consumption and the anti-globalization movement's tendency towards stasis, Gindin and Panitch call for more effective tactics in the quest for economic reform.
Visit C-SPAN's website to view the video.