The clip below has nearly one million views in just two and a half hours. ...Read More

By Alex Shephard

April 8, 2022 - Shortly after it became clear that Ketanji Brown Jackson would be confirmed to the Supreme Court with at least three Republican votes—Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, and Lisa Murkowski—the senators’ House colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene took to the one unsuspended Twitter account she has left to call them not just soft on pedophilia but actively in favor of it. 

Greene, who embraced QAnon as a congressional candidate and who has pushed all manner of deranged conspiracy theories—including one that a Jewish “space laser” was responsible for devastating 2018 California wildfires—is typically presented as someone far outside the GOP mainstream: a wacko and a kook, nothing like her more sober-minded and responsible colleagues in either chamber of Congress. And yet, in this—and many—instances, Taylor Greene is very much a normal Republican. Here, while she was being coarser and less subtle than several of her colleagues, she was channeling the smear that dominated Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings: that Jackson is not only sympathetic to child molesters—an attack based on a mischaracterization of a sentence she handed down nearly 10 years ago—but that she was selected by her party because of that (fabricated) view. 

In seven months, when the midterm elections are held, we may see these hearings as a turning point. For much of the last two years, QAnon—a conspiracy theory that alleges, among other insane things, that Democratic elites run a vast child sex trafficking ring—was deemed so insane, as New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait argued Tuesday, that even Donald Trump kept his distance from it. Now, however, it is spreading through the Republican mainstream. By the midterm elections, it may very well form a troika in Republican attack ads: Democrats aren’t doing enough on inflation, they’re soft on crime, and, oh yeah, they’re also pro-pedophile. Not since George McGovern’s foes slandered him as the candidate of “Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion” has our politics seen as vicious and baseless a charge.

The Q-inspired pedophile smear is consuming Republican politics. “The phrase ‘child porn’ (or ‘pornography’ or ‘pornographer’)” was mentioned 165 times during Brown’s confirmation hearings, The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank tallied. “I’m not suggesting she likes what’s happening in child pornography,” Senator Lindsey Graham said Monday. But “she ha[d] a chance to impose a sentence that would deter [child pornography], and she chose not to.” Senator Josh Hawley, meanwhile, referenced QAnon in his own remarks. “Judge Jackson’s view is that we should treat everyone more leniently because more and more people are committing worse and worse child sex offenses,” he said, while also stating that “we’ve been told things like child pornography is actually all a conspiracy, it’s not real.” The lunatics who follow QAnon may just be onto something, in other words: The truth is out there. 

Recent polling offers one clue for why Republicans are eager to smear Democrats as pedophiles (or, at the very least, as being soft on such assault). Nearly half of Republicans (49 percent) and 52 percent of Trump voters believe that Democrats run child sex-trafficking rings, per YouGov polling conducted during Jackson’s confirmation hearings. Even though only 18 percent of Republicans had a positive view of QAnon (compared to 16 percent of all respondents), 30 percent of all respondents believed that “top Democrats are involved in elite child sex-trafficking rings,” suggesting the wide reach of the conspiracy theory.  

It’s not just Jackson’s hearings. Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, which prevents educators from discussing gender and sexuality with their students, was similarly conceived out of an inflated panic about protecting children from vicious predators. The spokesperson for Ron DeSantis, the state’s governor, has said that anyone opposing it is “probably a groomer,” while DeSantis himself has gone to war with Disney over its belated opposition to the bill. That law has spurred copycats in other states.

The cynicism of these attacks is profound, especially when you consider Republican support for figures like Roy Moore, an Alabama judge and GOP senate nominee who was accused of dating teenage girls while in his thirties, and Dennis Hastert, a former speaker of the House who was convicted of molesting several teenagers when he was a high school wrestling coach. Republicans have concocted a smear out of thin air, alleging that they are the only thing stopping the country from being seized by child sex predators.

The most debauched version of this attack may not work. And yet polling suggests that, by virtue of this lie being repeated enough, it has taken hold amongst a sizable portion of the electorate—and a near majority of Republican voters. Regardless, panics about education and the safety of minors—particularly ones that also touch on concerns about rising crime—have also been effective in some instances. “?Some version of it can work: Look at how Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin rode gender panic and [critical race theory] paranoia as well as parental fatigue with Covid restrictions to victory last November,” The Nation’s Joan Walsh wrote Wednesday.

Republicans certainly will be talking about this entirely invented issue come November. Their base, tweaking on unhinged internet conspiracy theories, demands it. But the party’s legislators are not much less deranged themselves. Their own positions in both economic and foreign policy are deeply unpopular. So they concoct increasingly psychotic attacks. 

Judge Jackson was confirmed on Wednesday in spite of those attacks. Democrats across the country will be facing them soon. ...Read More

This story was reported and written by Alexandria Herr, Shannon Osaka, and Maddie Stone. Videos were produced by Daniel Penner and Jesse Nichols. Jacky Myint handled design and development. Teresa Chin led the art direction. Illustration was done by K. Amelia Bates. Jacob Banas, Mignon Khargie, Myrka Moreno, and Christian Skotte did promotion and additional production. ...Read More

We are a small publisher of books with big ideas. We specialize in works that show us how a better world is possible and needed. Click Gramsci below for our list.

April 01, 2022 - Solidarity: we celebrate it in song, emblazon it on picket signs, and insert the word into Twitter hashtags. Inducing workers to overcome divisions and unite as a class, however, is far easier said (or sung about) than done. In our current polarized climate, solidarity may seem like an especially elusive goal.

But as a historian I can say: for organizers things have been tougher. In late 1946, corporate giant International Harvester (IH) opened a tractor factory in Louisville, Kentucky, joining the exodus of capital to the low-wage, and far less unionized, South. The Farm Equipment Workers (FE), one of the industrial unions that arose during the 1930s, already represented IH workers in Chicago and other Midwest locations.

In Louisville the FE—as opposed to the other unions competing for recognition at the new IH facility—made interracial equality central to its organizing drive. This was a risky strategy in still-segregated Louisville, since the vast majority of the 7,000 employees at the plant were to be white, steeped in the toxic traditions of white supremacy.

“We had hillbillies, that’s all we had,” said Jim Wright, one of the first Black employees at the Louisville plant. “And those kind of guys were real racist.”

The day-in, day-out "lived solidarity" that won raises and broke down barriers of segregation comes to life in Annabelle Heckler’s new comic “Go Places Together.”

Yet in mid-1947 the FE handily won the representational election at the Louisville plant. The FE local there would go on to prove exceptionally cohesive and combative, as workers regularly stood together and struck back against IH management. They took their struggle for justice into the community, as FE members, both Black and white, battled segregation in Louisville’s parks, hotels, and hospitals. And they defied social norms, as Black and white workers from the IH plant began socializing together off the job.

In the Jim Crow-era South, the FE had instilled in its members what Wright called “a religious feeling of them sticking together.” How was this possible?

The answer lies in the radical ideology that defined the FE. Many of its key leaders, both national and local, were connected to the Communist Party. The FE’s left-wing orientation resulted in a demonstrable commitment to racial equality, especially noteworthy in a union with a membership that was 85 percent white.

The FE fought to open skilled jobs to African Americans and won contract terms like plant-wide seniority that most benefited Black workers. From 1946 on, the FE’s leadership included a Black executive board member and a Black vice president. That was a track record unmatched at the time, even by unions that had many more African Americans in their ranks.

This helps explain Black support for the FE, but these same achievements could have alienated racist whites. To win them over, FE organizers in Louisville stressed the benefits that only solidarity could achieve. “The Southern bosses had for generations played white against Negro,” FE literature read. “There was a direct connection between this and the fact that Southern workers were the lowest paid in the country.”

However, the union did more than just pass out flyers. At frequent meetings, “it wasn’t just up-front stuff, of the organizer giving big speeches,” said Sterling Neal, a Black worker who became a leader of the Louisville FE. Rather, “workers were encouraged to discuss freely the questions they had on their mind.

“Sometimes there was objection openly on the part of white workers to the union’s policy of no discrimination,” Neal said, but “on many occasions, the white workers who understood this question a little better challenged them on the floor.” These unfettered, sometimes difficult conversations solidified Black and white support for the union.

But sustaining solidarity requires regular practice. The left-wing FE eschewed cooperation with management in favor of constant confrontation, and FE members engaged in exceptionally high levels of walkouts between contracts; the Louisville plant became especially strike-prone.

These actions proved effective at safeguarding and improving wages and working conditions. As Black and white workers walked off the job together, interracial unity became not an abstract construct but a regular exercise that delivered tangible benefits.

The radical FE modeled what could be called “lived solidarity”: the belief that day-in, day-out collective struggle—not just sloganeering—is essential to forging indivisible working-class power. Through it the FE profoundly transformed workers who had been “real racists”—the sort that some today might label “deplorables.”

That was no easy task then, and it isn’t now. But the FE’s example makes clear that with a mix of persistence, patience, and rank-and-file militancy, it can be done.

You can learn more about the FE in Toni Gilpin’s book The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland. ...Read More

These titles will be released in 2022, but you can order them from Hard Ball Press just in time for the holidays!

Tune of the Week: Three Little Birds (Bob Marley) feat. Baaba Maal | Playing For Change  ...4.5 minutes

MARCH 31, 2022 - "You Won't Be Alone," the auspicious feature directorial debut by Goran Stolevski, is a tender folk horror film. More bloody than scary, and at times quite sexy, it often plays like a silent movie, with characters expressing their emotions as they wander through a magnificent rural landscape. (The film is subtitled, and the language is said to be authentic to the period). Stolevski employs a voiceover and tinkling piano score to create a mood more that is precious, but also dangerous. Yes, the sun-dappled farmland is gorgeous but there is a danger lurking at every turn. 

This unusual film is set in Macedonian mountain village in the 19th century where a mother is confronted with a horrible situation. Old Maid Maria (Anamaria Marinca of "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days") is a Wolf-Eateress whose skin looks like the arteries are on the outside. She wants the blood of newborn Nevena and agrees to take the child when she turns 16, but not without first sampling her. Sent to live in a cave for protection, Nevena (Sara Klimos) emerges as a teen, following Maria out in the world. Old Maid Maria teaches Nevena how to live, however, Nevena is a disappointment to Maria, and the teen rebels, hoping to break the prophecy. As is soon revealed, these "witches" can shapeshift into animals and other beings.

"You Won't Be Alone" takes its time telling this story, the origins of which are revealed late in the film. Stolevski immerses viewers in this fabulist world, and his intimate camerawork both follows the characters closely but also admires the wondrous scenery. While the story meanders, Stolevski does have a point: there are discussions of gender roles, such as how women should behave with (and without) men and thoughts about motherhood. There are also many scenes of entrails and bloodletting as Maria or other characters open their chests and remove their insides. 

When Nevena shapeshifts to Bosilka (Noomi Rapace) she comes to understand her powers, seducing a man and luring him for sex where she transforms him. There is a clear reference to vampirism here, with blood-drinking, sharpened fingernails (instead of fangs) and the idea of passing on a curse.

When Nevena becomes Boris (Carloto Cotta), she enjoys the privilege of being a man. Cotta's childlike expressions (which he perfected in "Diamantino") convey Nevena's adaptation. Moreover, the sexual scenes with Boris are quite erotic — he has strong urges — but his behavior forces the villagers to exorcise his demons, creating an allegory about sin.

As "You Won't Be Alone" continues, the film plays up the conventions of marriage as the recounting of Old Maid Maria's tale concerns her efforts to find a husband. There is a horrific episode that reinforces ideas of conformity, followed by a rather moving (and mostly wordless) love sequence between Biliana (Alice Englert) and Yovan (Félix Maritaud). These scenes are sensual but fleeting — the witch will always have her way.

Which makes Stolevski's film compelling but not necessarily suspenseful. While there is a strong sense of dread throughout, the motivation for all the violence, when revealed, seems underwhelming. Bad things do happen in "You Won't Be Alone," but the film deliberately lacks heightened energy. Instead the director relies on emotional connection which can be slippery given how impressionistic it is. The supernatural elements are quite atmospheric, with flesh being ripped, and yet, the horror feels muted. Stolevski's film may be too gory for the arthouse crowd and too arty for horror film fans. For some viewers, the parts will seem greater than the whole.

Likewise, while the filmmaker raises important points about patriarchy and society, he does not investigate them fully. This is good for letting viewers draw their own conclusions, but his approach may prompt some viewers to tune out. The sense of time and place is vivid, but the lack of a strong plot can be frustrating.

The visuals are certainly captivating, with images of Nevena in the cave, or men working in the fields. The copious nudity is also welcome for adding a warm, sensual element in what may be seen a harsh, unforgiving environment. But scenes where Boris helps a young boy tasked with splitting logs does not advance the plot or the film's point much. Stolevski could have tightened his film with some shrewd editing; the unhurried pace is fine, but his film feels overlong. 

 "You Won't Be Alone" is certainly worthwhile for transporting viewers, and it invites multiple readings. (One sequence feels like an homage to "Frankenstein." Other cinematic references abound.) Stolevski delivers on his promise — as evidenced by his fantastic shorts, especially "You Deserve Everything" and "Would You Look at Her" which won a prize at Sundance the year it screened — to be a filmmaker to watch. His film takes considerable risks but it does reward adventurous viewers. 

"You Won't Be Alone" is in theaters April 1. Watch a trailer for it below, via YouTube. ...Read More

A different view of the decade

April 6, 2022 - The 1950s have not had a good press. In the US the decade has long been synonymous with a retreat to political and social conservatism following the upheaval of the second world war.

Senator McCarthy and his House Committee on Un-American Activities is the obvious example here, but there are many more. Women who had taken men’s jobs during the hostilities reconvened in dormitory suburbs to nest, wear pointy bras and full skirts, and raise the next generation of patriotic Americans. Black servicemen who had fought alongside their white compatriots in Europe found themselves returning to a segregated south where they were required to sit at the back of the bus. The 50s, or to be more exact the period from 1946 to 1963, marked what Norman Mailer dubbed at the time the “years of conformity and depression”.

Except it didn’t, or at least not for everyone. As James Gaines shows in this revelatory study, beneath the Pleasantville surface of postwar America there churned all manner of resentment and refusal. Everywhere he looks, Gaines finds individuals who insisted on marching to their own drum, even when that brought them into direct and even dangerous conflict with the newly oppressive status quo. In the process, he sheds light on a whole range of underground movements tackling everything from race relations to working-class feminism by way of non-binary sexuality.

Gaines’s great skill is to use individual life stories to dislodge entrenched narratives about life in postwar America

He starts with Harry Hay, the British-born activist who was gay at a time when neither the political left nor right would have any truck with homosexuals. (Gaines gives a shocking example: when the concentration camps were liberated by the Aallies they did not set free all the prisoners with pink triangles. Those with convictions in the Nazi courts for so much as flirting with another man were required to serve out their sentences, with no credit for time served.) Hay was himself highly conflicted. Early on he had married a “boyish girl” on the advice of a psychiatrist and adopted two daughters in an attempt to “cure” himself. Only later did he start to go against the grain until, at the age of 38 in 1950, he set up the Mattachine Society to advocate for gay rights.

The wider point here is that there was nothing simple or obvious about being a progressive in the 1950s. Hay’s campaigning brought him into direct conflict with his former comrades in the Communist party, who declared homosexuality to be not only “deviant” and “perverted” but, worse still, an expression of “bourgeois decadence”. The Mattachine Society itself split between those conservatives who wanted to run it along the lines of AA (at one point it was going to be called Bachelors Anonymous) and those who were increasingly persuaded of the need for direct political action. Gaines sees his job as not to neaten Hay’s story, making it fit one shape or another, but to point up its idiosyncrasies instead. It is, he suggests, in the stumbling quality of Hay’s journey that we see true heroism, a full two decades before the Stonewall riots and Gay Liberation made it simpler, if not exactly easier, to be out and proud.

Gaines’s great skill is to use individual life stories, with all their messy contradictions, to dislodge entrenched narratives about life in postwar America. Particularly deft is his pairing of two thinkers who never met but whose writing about the frailty of the natural world echoed one another in uncanny ways. Rachel Carson was the popular science journalist whose lyrical account of America’s coastal wildlife The Sea Around Us (1951) was serialised in the New Yorker and remained in the New York Times bestseller list for 86 weeks. Norbert Wiener, meanwhile, was the MIT mathematical prodigy whose pioneering work in weapons guidance had contributed to the allies’ victory in the second world war.

Starting from radically different places, both Carson and Wiener came to the realization that humankind was dismayingly close to destroying itself. Carson’s final book was the apocalyptic Silent Spring (1962), in which she argued that America’s addiction to chemical pesticides was poisoning the ecosystem on which all life depended. Wiener, meanwhile, published a letter under the title A Scientist Rebels in the Atlantic Monthly in 1947, in which he warned of the government’s militarization of scientific research and announced his refusal to participate in projects that could lead to nuclear proliferation. Both Carson and Wiener were pilloried for their apparently abrupt shifts in thinking, and both died before they had any inkling that their radical changes of heart would mark the beginning of the modern environmental movement.

Gaines is a former editor at three magazines – Time, Life and People – whose titles, taken together, provide the key strands for his braided narrative history. By attending to the experience of historical actors as they move through the world, he builds an account that is full of the complexity of lived experience. The result may not make for a simple read, but it is an infinitely rich one.

 The Fifties: An Underground History by James R Gaines is published by Simon & Schuster (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. ...Read More