Welcome to the third edition of LeftHooked! LeftHooked is a monthly (for now) aggregator and review of the best, or at least most important, writing from major socialist left publications, broadly defined, from the anglophone world, brought to you by the comrades at the Hampton Institute. Especially as I get started with this new and exciting project, with the great support of Colin Jenkins and the whole Hampton team (who are still largely volunteers [to helps us change that, consider supporting our Patreon, as all of our content remains entirely free to access!]), I’m open to suggestions for improvements to the format, structure, and content, as well as interesting articles, podcast episodes, and even books to review and include in future editions of LeftHooked. For all such input, please email me at: LeftHooked[at]protonmail.com. As always, for standard submissions to the Hampton Institute, submit at hamptonthink[at]gmail.com. Beyond your (hopefully ongoing) support for the Hampton Institute and this new project, beyond my deep abiding hope that this project will contribute in some small way to the success of our shared struggle for a truly free, equal, and democratic world, my only request is for your patience as I work to produce and improve LeftHooked over the coming months and (fingers-crossed) years! -Dr. Bryant William Sculos, Founding Editor & Curator of LeftHooked
LeftHooked #4 (April 2020)
This edition—marred by a slight delay due a range of issues that I suspect are not wholly uncommon during a pandemic—offers the opportunity to explore a number of different reflections on a number of different topics, including: many new pieces on COVID-19, the birth of an already- popular new journal, and some excellent contributions to debates about socialist (electoral) strategy from one of the oldest socialist journals in the US. COVID-19
One of the most devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is how it has grossly exacerbated existing injustices and oppressions in our world. As Julian Sayarer powerfully shows, this couldn’t be more true than it is in Palestine. The occupation of Palestine and the horrific, illegal treatment of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli government, during a global pandemic no less, is nothing short of the continuation of a generation of crimes against humanity.
As mentioned above, I’m pleased to include two excellent pieces from SPECTRE, the first time this newest publication on the left has appeared in LeftHooked. The first is a piece by the Marxist Feminist Collective on social reproduction (theory) in the time of COVID-19. The second piece is a creative prosecution of the case against capitalism for generations of social murder and those particularly connected to COVID-19, by Josh Seim.
These two pieces, while only a small sampling, are superb and make me excited for the future of this project. I look forward to featuring more of their work in future editions, and for people to support this project financially.
Speaking from the frontlines of the COVID-19 economic crisis and how that relates to the possibility for a just post-post-industrial world is Connor Harney’s “Coronavirus and the Path Beyond Post-Industrial Society” for the Hampton Institute. While you’re checking out the Hampton Institute, take a look at J.E. Karla’s excellent essay “Capitalism Needs Another Bailout. It’s Time to Let that Sink In.”
One further addition for the March list of superstar COVID-19 takes, we have John Smith’s article for openDemocracy.net entitled “Why coronavirus Could Spark a Capitalist Supernova.”
And lastly, I want to end this section which covered the continued excellent work the left has done analyzing and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic with some shameless self-promotion, sort of. I’m pleased to be a member of the Independent Socialist Group (ISG), a new organization affiliated with the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) in Worcester, MA and beyond. Here is an impassioned and well-reasoned article from their recently launched website on how COVID-19 points to the need for a national health service in the US.
Post-Sanders Socialist Strategy
There is a reenergized debate about socialist strategy in the digital pages of the long-enduring “third camp” socialist journal New Politics in the wake of Bernie Sanders’ concession to Joe Biden and renewed questions about left approaches to electoral politics. The first crucial contribution to this discussion came from Ashley Smith and Charlie Post in their “Facing Reality: The Socialist Left, the Sanders Campaign and Our Future.” In “Building Class Power, Not Electoralism, Is the Future of the Left,” Natalia Tylim continues the conversation in a thoughtful reply to Paul Heideman’s “Mass Politics, Not Movementism, Is the Future of the Left” in Jacobin. This debate will include many more voices that ought to be read and engaged with critically. As it proceeds, it will continue to be covered in future editions of LeftHooked.
Lastly on this topic, there was the already-infamous open letter published in The Nation by many former members of the New Left group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Personally, I found the argument depressing and ultimately conservative. As someone who was greatly influenced by reading the Port Huron Statement and about the radicalism of the 60s and 70s while I was in college the late 2000s, I couldn’t help but being deeply disappointed by this letter. It is, if I may editorialize further, a condescending and overwhelmingly wretched case for lesser-evilism.
Communism: Against War, For Moms—through Struggle
Despite having to deal with some troubling internal problems among their editorial collective (which seem to have been appropriately handled, even if not perfectly from the beginning), Commune magazine was still able to put out three especially strong pieces. The first, on the past year of struggles by the always punchy Joshua Clover. Second, is an excellent anti-war piece by Haider Riaz Khan focusing on how to avoid future forever wars, like the still-ongoing war in Afghanistan. Third is a trenchant defense of moms, wombats, and communism by Madeline Lane-McKinley.
LeftUnheard (Podcast episodes I haven’t listened to…yet)
Two podcast episodes I’m looking forward to eventually getting to are both from A Different Lens with Devon Bowers and the Hampton Institute. I’m trying to expand my podcast game, but despite those efforts, and finding a lot of great work being done related to the ongoing and vital discussion about responses to COVID-19 in the podcast world, these two remain at the top of my list. First, is a conversation with George Ciccariello-Maher on police abolition. Perhaps less provocative than that, unless you’ve found yourself lost firmly within in the “anyone but Trump/Biden isn’t grotesque” camp, is a crucial conversation with Socialist Party USA and likely Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins.
LeftUnanswered
In each edition of LeftHooked I’ll conclude by posing a question or series of related questions for readers to think about. Some will be ones that have been asked (and ostensibly answered in various ways and to varying degrees) by those on the left before, but also ones that I think have renewed relevance or call for updated consideration, for what, in each instance, will be relatively obvious reasons. Other times, hopefully more often than not, these questions will be novel in some way. At the very least, the LeftUnanswered section will reflect questions that are on my mind and to which I’ve not found current or past conversations satisfying or convincing. My primary hope is that they will resonate.
The process of reflecting on the Democratic Presidential primary loss/concession of Bernie Sanders to Joe Biden continues. As it does, as covered in several of the articles mentioned above indicate, there will be rumination and infuriation over the so-called “dirty break” strategy ostensibly pursued by the DSA and adjacent groups and fellow-travelers, such as those in the orbit of Jacobin (though it would be easy to overstate just how representative Jacobin is of the dominant trends within the US Left). It was implied repeatedly, though, to my knowledge never explicitly stated directly that it was the “dirty break” strategy that led to the endorsement and massive campaign efforts for Bernie Sanders (and support for other “democratic socialists” like AOC).
The question for this month is, what exactly does the “dirty break” strategy mean in the context of evaluation the relative success(es) or failure(s) of the Sanders campaign, in 2020 (but also 2016 through 2020)? One of the core elements of the “dirty break” strategy, in my reading, is the tactical use of the Democratic Party ballot-line by open socialists, in order to avoid the supposed trap of running independently of the capitalist parties within a electoral-legal framework that systematically disempowers third party/independent bids. This is of course a more specific manifestation of the broader strategy, which aims at the eventual split of the Democratic Party or mass “DemExit” that leads to the emergence of a strong, independent working class/progressive left party. While it might be tempting to view the strategy and the tactic more distinctly, there is no version of the “dirty break” strategy I’m familiar with that would reject the ballot-line tactic. While there are many on the socialist left, including myself, who are critical of the tactic even when properly implemented (an example of which seems to not actually exist—though I could simply be unaware of the case[s] where it has been implemented strictly), it is clear that the association of the decision to support Bernie Sanders and the “dirty break” strategy most prominently in the pages of Jacobin (though not exclusively) implies that the dirty break is much broader and flexible than the tactical use of the ballot-line, which could itself have many meanings. I say all of this with the hopefully not controversial analytical premise in mind: Bernie Sanders was not tactically using the Democratic Party ballot-line in order to split the Democratic Party, eventually; Sanders wanted to reform the Democratic Party and move it to the left.
So, did I simply read to much into the “dirty break”? Is it simply a strategy for determining who the left should support, in that we should be picking the candidate that increases the changes of a progressive split in the Democratic Party, even if the candidate themselves isn’t consciously aiming at this goal? Or, is it really that Sanders was not actually a representative of this strategy in any way? Is the “dirty break” something that supporters practice? The candidates? Both? Either one? -- If you’ve read this far, please do consider supporting the Hampton Institute by becoming a patron, if you haven’t already.
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