DOCSLIB.ORG

GN a Foreign Policy for the Left

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
GN a Foreign Policy for the Left Gaslit Nation A Foreign Policy for the Left: Put Gas Station Dictatorships Out of Business Andrea Chalupa Sarah Kendzior [Audio Clip] FDR: The first is freedom of speech and expression, everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which translated into world terms means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants, everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which translated into world terms means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor, anywhere in the world. [Applause] FDR: This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory. [End Audio Clip] …………………………………………………………………… ……………………………………………………… [Theme Music] Sarah Kendzior: I’m Sarah Kendzior, and I’m a journalist and scholar of authoritarian states. I’m also the author of the book The View From Flyover Country. Andrea Chalupa: I’m Andrea Chalupa. I’m a writer, activist, and filmmaker, and the writer and producer of Agnieszka Holland’s upcoming journalist thriller Gareth Jones. Someone recently reached out to us over our Twitter and said, “Andrea, you promote Sarah’s book more than you promote your own film.” Sarah Kendzior: [Laughs] I will promote your film then. Everyone should go see Andrea’s film, which deals with journalists who are covering Stalin’s era and the famine in Ukraine. Andrea Chalupa: Alright, alright. It’s not even out yet. We’re still fighting over the final cut. It’s not out yet. So, yeah you can… Sarah Kendzior: This is a film that’s set in another era, but it completely reflects the political problems of our own era. I saw the trailer, and I got teary-eyed, and I am not the type who cries at stuff like this, but it was really moving, it was brilliantly done. I’ve read the script, I endorse this, not just because Andrea is my friend, but because it’s really really good. So go see Gareth Jones when it comes out. [Laughs] Sarah Kendzior: Welcome to Gaslit Nation, a self- promoting podcast that examines corruption and the Trump administration and rising authoritarianism around the world. And so today later in the episode we have an interview with Michael Weiss, a foreign policy expert who focuses on Russia, but first we’re going to start by talking about some of the atrocities right here in the US. Yesterday, the Trump administration announced that they are, quote, “Defining transgender out of existence.” According to the New York Times, “the department argued in its memo that key government agencies needed to adopt an explicit and uniform definition of gender as determined, quote, ‘on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective, and administrable.’ The agency’s proposed definitions would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with, according to a draft reviewed by the Times. Any dispute about one’s sex would have to be clarified using genetic testing.” So, there are all sorts of atrocious things about this policy. I really don’t like the kind of discussion I’ve seen online, where people say, “Oh, this is a distraction, this is something that Trump is doing to, you know, rile up liberals before the midterms.” First of all, that’s nonsense, this is part of an ongoing attack on transgender people we saw earlier with the military. And no policy that hurts human beings is a distraction. By its definition, it’s a policy worthy of attention. What’s also notable here is that this kind of targeting of a minuscule and maligned group that already faces a lot of prejudice is very typical for rising dictatorship. You saw this in Nazi Germany, with attacks on gay and lesbians and transgendered people then. It’s an issue that you should pay attention to because trans people are being hurt, and you should also care about it as a sign of increasing autocracy in the US, because it’s not going to stop there. Andrea Chalupa: Yeah, it is going to get worse. And in this world, it’s… the greatest struggle is to be yourself, and surround yourself with people who absolutely adore you and love you for being yourself. And just imagine that battle, and also coming out as transgender, making that transition in America under Trump. Yeah, no, my heart breaks from this story, and I’m also at the same time incredibly inspired by the courage of anyone who can be part of the change we desperately need in this country, to just give greater voice to what it means to be transgender, and the harassment and the suicide rates, and everything, the whole struggle of what they face. And it’s just disgusting to me what Trump is doing. And it’s a lot like how he’s demonizing the people who are flooding from war-zones and famine, coming to our country and coming to the border with Mexico, and it’s gross. All of it is very gross. Sarah Kendzior: It’s cruelty for cruelty’s sake, and, like you said, it’s another example of people who are abused being presented to the public as a threat, which they are not. And I want to read a little bit of a thread from Parker Molloy, who’s a journalist who is trans, and she’s a great person to follow on these issues. She was responding to people asking what they could do to fight back, she says, “Lots of people are asking what they can do to fight back against the Trump administration’s planned anti-trans actions. The answer, honestly, is to elect Democrats. Let me explain why. There’s a bill that’s been floating around Congress for a bit, called the Equality Act, before that there was the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. What it would, basically, is amend the Civil Rights Act to include gender identity and sexual orientation alongside race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, and citizenship. Now, opponents of this like to frame these as ‘special rights’ or ‘extra rights,’ but this addition would literally just be giving LGBTQ the same rights and legal protection everybody else already has. Nothing ‘special’ or ‘extra’ about these rights. Only equal.” And then she goes on to describe how the bill already has 198 co-sponsors in the House. Only two of them are Republicans, the other 196 are Democrats. Because the GOP control the House, the bill has not made it out of committee. If the make-up of Congress changes on November 06, there’s a chance that those sorts of protections can actually be extended, and this bill can actually pass. And I thought this was a really important thread, and I encourage you to read her other threads, just about what this means for trans Americans in general, and also look up other trans writers who are writing about this. Andrea and I are not the main sources on this issue. We really encourage you to look for people with greater expertise, but one of the points I like that she makes is that, you know, this is not about voting for the Democrats to screw over Trump, this is not about voting for the Democrats to just get some kind of win for the sake of winning. This is about people’s real lives. This is about their freedom, about their rights, their dignity. In the case of trans Americans, this is an issue about that, you know, if Trump passes this bill you’re going to see a rise in suicides. You know, lives are on the line here. And that’s true for a lot of bills that are basically lying in wait because the GOP, Congress won’t pass them. We have bills on climate change, bills on healthcare, there’s a bill to protect the Mueller probe. It’s one of things, you know, most likely to actually get Trump, and other criminal members of this administration, out of office. There is a bill from Ted Lieu that will limit Trump’s ability to unilaterally launch nuclear weapons. These are life and death issues. So when you’re casting your votes, I do encourage you to vote Democrat down the line. And, you know, I’m not a registered Democrat. I’m an Independent. But it is so obvious that in terms of our rights, our freedom, our ability to make decisions for our own lives, the Democratic Party is the party that is willing to listen to people on these issues, it is willing to be persuaded in a direction that is far more humane than the Republicans, who are primarily concerned with enacting a one-party state and protecting themselves from criminal litigation. And so, you know, when you vote, don’t just think about the candidate. Think about the make-up of Congress, and what can be possible if there is an actual blue wave on November 06.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Political Pamphlet: the State of the Media
    Annual 2018 Political Pamphlet: The State Of The Media #bylinepoliticalpamphlet Edited by Bethany Usher Contents Introduction: The State of the Media 1. “THE STATE OF THE MEDIA: WHY BYLINE MATTERS AND WHERE THE FESTIVAL GOES NEXT.” Peter Jukes and Stephen Colegrave – Byline Festival. “THE STATE OF THE MEDIA: A POLITICAL PAMPHLET FOR THE 21ST CENTURY”. Dr Bethany Usher - Newcastle University. One: Celebrity, Media and Power 2. “THERE IS NO HOPE – THERE NEVER WAS.” John Cleese on the British press, politics and celebrity muckraking. 3. “BETWEEN FAKE NEWS AND PROPAGANDA, IT IS HARD TO KNOW WHO TO TRUST.” Gary Lineker discusses being a celebrity with opinions and how we can improve the health of public debate. 4. “I ONCE DEVELOPED A BIT OF A CRUSH ON BORIS JOHNSON. NOW I’M DESPERATE FOR JEREMY CORBYN’S ATTENTION.” Alexei Sayle considers the dangers of charismatic politicians and their influence on news agendas. Two: Brexit, Trump, Russia and the Great Data Swindle. 5. “I CALL IT THE TOP GEAR AESTHETIC. THEY THINK OF THE WHOLE THING AS LADDISH BANTER.” The Guardian’s Carole Cadwalladr discusses the Bad Boys of Brexit 6. “I WAS TOLD TO FOLLOW THE SEX AND FOLLOW THE MONEY.” Former Guardian Russia Correspondent Luke Harding talks Trump’s ties with Russia and his own brushes with the KGB. 7. “WE ARE REAPING WHAT WE SOWED AS A SOCIETY.” American journalists Sarah Kendzior and Eileen De Freest lead a range of voices discussing Donald Trump and what his election means for democracy. 8. “BYLINE TALKS CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA, RUSSIAN BOTS AND THE GREAT SILICON VALLEY SWINDLE.” With a leading discussion from Damian Collins MP, chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, key names in the debate around the dangers of tech companies consider whether Silicon Valley is a danger to democracy.
    [Show full text]
  • “John Roberts Gave Us Trump” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse
    Gaslit Nation Transcript 21 October 2020 “John Roberts Gave Us Trump” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: ... to me, pretty big deal. I've never seen this around any court that I've ever been involved with, where there's this much dark money, and this much influence being used. Here's how The Washington Post summed it up: "This is a conservative activist, behind-the-scenes campaign to remake the nation's courts, and it's a $250 million dark money operation." $250 million is a lot of money to spend if you're not getting anything for it, so that raises the question, what are they getting for it? Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: Well, I showed the slide earlier on the Affordable Care Act, and on Obergefell, and on Roe versus Wade. That's where they lost. But with another judge, that could change. That's where the contest is. That's where the Republican Party platform tells us to look at how they want judges to rule. To reverse Roe, to reverse the Obamacare cases, and to reverse Obergefell and take away gay marriage. That is their stated objective and plan. Why not take them at their word? Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: But there's another piece of it. And that is, not what's ahead of us, but what's behind us. What's behind us is now, 80 cases, Mr. Chairman, 80 cases under Chief Justice Roberts that have these characteristics: One, they were decided five to four, by a bare majority. Two, the five to four majority was partisan, in the sense that not one Democratic appointee joined the five.
    [Show full text]
  • Sarah Kendzior
    For more information contact us on: North America 855.414.1034 International +1 646.307.5567 [email protected] Sarah Kendzior Topics Culture and Society, Global Affairs, Journalism, Politics and Pundits Travels From Missouri Bio Sarah Kendzior is a journalist with a Ph.D. in anthropology who lectures on politics, the economy, and the media. Since 2006, she has regularly given talks and keynotes at universities and policy forums around the world. She is the author of the best-selling book The View From Flyover Country, which was re-released in 2018 after originally being published as an eBook in 2015 and becoming a bestseller the following year, and her new book Hiding in Plain Sight. In 2017, Sarah gave dozens of talks in eight countries, mostly focusing on encroaching autocracy and what to expect in the Trump era. Sarah Kendzior received her Ph.D. studying the authoritarian states of the former Soviet Union and has since had to put that expertise to use in explaining what is happening to the United States. After receiving her Ph.D. in 2012, she became a columnist for Al Jazeera English, and also began freelancing for a number of publications including The Guardian, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and Quartz. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and spent much of 2014 and 2015 covering the Ferguson uprising and its aftermath. In 2016, Sarah became a columnist at the Globe and Mail, focusing on the US election, and also covered page 1 / 4 For more information contact us on: North America 855.414.1034 International +1 646.307.5567 [email protected] US affairs for the Dutch outlet De Correspondent.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Foucault: Excursions in Political Genealogy
    Beyond Foucault: Excursions in Political Genealogy Edited by Michael Clifford Printed Edition of the Special Issue Published in Genealogy www.mdpi.com/journal/genealogy Beyond Foucault: Excursions in Political Genealogy Beyond Foucault: Excursions in Political Genealogy Special Issue Editor Michael Clifford MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade Special Issue Editor Michael Clifford Mississippi State University USA Editorial Office MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 Basel, Switzerland This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal Genealogy (ISSN 2313-5778) from 2017 to 2018 (available at: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/genealogy/ special issues/After Foucault) For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below: LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. Journal Name Year, Article Number, Page Range. ISBN 978-3-03897-244-0 (Pbk) ISBN 978-3-03897-245-7 (PDF) Cover image courtesy of Michael Clifford. Articles in this volume are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. The book taken as a whole is c 2018 MDPI, Basel, Switzerland, distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Contents About the Special Issue Editor ...................................... vii Michael Clifford Introduction: Beyond Foucault: Excursions in Political Genealogy Reprinted from: Genealogy 2018, 2, 34, doi: 10.3390/genealogy2030034 ..............
    [Show full text]
  • Help Protect Our Democracy Andrea Chalupa Sarah Kendzior Deborah
    Gaslit Nation Election Hacking: Help Protect Our Democracy Andrea Chalupa Sarah Kendzior Deborah Porder [Media Clip] John Oliver: But the fact is, unless you happen to personally know everyone ​ who votes for you on a paperless DRE machine, there is no way to verify the results. It's a pretty good case against them, which makes it, frankly, completely insane that New Jersey not only still uses them, but plans to keep using them for the 2020 election. And it's not just New Jersey. In 2016, 20% of voters voted on paperless DREs, and an estimated 12% will use them in 2020, meaning 16 million Americans spread out across all these states are set to be voting on machines that pretty much everyone agrees are deeply, deeply flawed. And if they malfunction, there could be no way of knowing, which is absolutely terrifying, because what we have to do here is obvious. It's so obvious, in fact, even this guy understands it. Donald Trump: One of the things we're learning is it's always good—it's old fashioned, but it's always good—to have a paper backup system of voting. It's called paper, not highly complex computers, paper, and a lot of states are doing that. John Oliver: Yeah, he's right. That's it. He's just all the way completely right. It is called paper. Paper is not a computer. It's paper. And a lot of states are doing it. Now, I'm sure everything he said around those 16 seconds was some combination of wrong, racist and horny.
    [Show full text]
  • Gaslit Nation Crystal Marie Fleming Andrea Chalupa Sarah Kendzior Crystal Marie Fleming on White Supremacy Theme Music Sarah
    Gaslit Nation Crystal Marie Fleming Andrea Chalupa Sarah Kendzior Crystal Marie Fleming on White Supremacy Theme Music Sarah Kendzior: I'm Sarah Kendzior, a journalist, scholar, and the author of the essay collection The View from Flyover Country and the upcoming book Hiding in Plain Sight. My co-host is Andre Chalupa, a writer and the screenwriter of the journalistic thriller Mr. Jones. And together we are Gaslit Nation, a podcast covering corruption in the Trump administration and the rise of autocracy around the world. This week marks two years since the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in which anti-racist activist Heather Heyer was murdered, so it's fitting that we are airing an interview with an expert on white supremacy and global racism, Dr. Crystal Fleming, who is a sociologist and the author of How to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide. She is also an associate professor of sociology at Stonybrook University, with affiliations in the Department of Africana Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Andrea spoke with Dr. Fleming: in May, and their conversation will comprise the bulk of this episode. We're very excited to have Dr. Fleming as part of our Gaslit Nation Reading Series, and we encourage you to go buy her books. But before we get to her interview, I want to say a few words about Charlottesville, racism, and authoritarianism. The day that Trump was named President-elect, I tweeted out some advice on what subjects to study if you wanted to understand how his administration would operate.
    [Show full text]
  • SPOTLIGHT 073 Wordtrade Reviews: Hiding Time
    Wordtrade.com| 1202 Raleigh Road 115| Chapel Hill NC 27517| USA SPOTLIGHT ph 9195425719| fx 9198691643| www.wordtrade.com 073 Wordtrade Reviews: Hiding Time Table of Contents HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: THE INVENTION OF DONALD TRUMP AND THE EROSION OF AMERICA by Sarah Kendzior [Flatiron Books, 9781250210715] THE END OF OCTOBER: A NOVEL by Lawrence Wright [Knopf, 9780525658658] BREAKING THROUGH SCHIZOPHRENIA: LACAN AND HEGEL FOR TALK THERAPY by Wilfried Ver Eecke [New Imago, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 9781538118009] KRISHNAMURTI IN AMERICA: NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE MAN AND HIS MESSAGE by David Edmund Moody [David E Moody, 9781734227819] C. G. JUNG AND THE DEAD: VISIONS, ACTIVE IMAGINATION AND THE UNCONSCIOUS TERRAIN by Stephani L. Stephens [Routledge, 9780815366126] THE REALITY GAME: HOW THE NEXT WAVE OF TECHNOLOGY WILL BREAK THE TRUTH by Samuel Woolley [PublicAffairs, 9781541768253] THE COST OF LOYALTY: DISHONESTY, HUBRIS, AND FAILURE IN THE US. MILITARY by Tim Bakken [Bloomsbury Publishing, 9781632868985] THE RULE OF FIVE: MAKING CLIMATE HISTORY AT THE SUPREME COURT by Richard J. Lazarus [Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 9780674238121] THE POWER WORSHIPPERS: INSIDE THE DANGEROUS RISE OF RELIGIOUS NATIONALISM by Katherine Stewart [Bloomsbury Publishing, 9781635573435] BROKEN FAITH: INSIDE THE WORD OF FAITH FELLOWSHIP, ONE OF AMERICA'S MOST DANGEROUS CULTS by Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr [Hanover Square Press, 9781335145239] DANIEL JOHNSTON: A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A POTTER IN NORTH CAROLINA by Henry Glassie, Photography and Drawings by the Author [Indiana University Press, 9780253048431] RECOLLECTIONS OF MY NONEXISTENCE: A MEMOIR by Rebecca Solnit [Viking, 9780593083338] SURREALISM, OCCULTISM AND POLITICS IN SEARCH OF THE MARVELLOUS edited by Tessei M.
    [Show full text]
  • Final Programme 0.Pdf
    NOTES Director’s Welcome — 4 Message du Directeur — 5 Thank you / Remerciements — 6 Our Sponsors / Nos Partenaires — 7 I N D E X Summary | Day 1 — 8 Sommaire | Jour 1 — 9 Summary | Day 2 — 10 Sommaire | Jour 2 — 11 Programme 9/02/2017 | Day 1 — 12 Programme 9/02/2017 | Jour 1 — 13 Programme 10/02/2017 | Day 2 — 14-15 Programme 10/02/2017 | Jour 2 — 16-17 Speaker Biographies | — 18-46 Biographies des conférenciers MISC Staff / Équipe IÉCM — 47 NOTES Director’s Welcome — 4 Message du Directeur — 5 Thank you / Remerciements — 6 Our Sponsors / Nos Partenaires — 7 I N D E X Summary | Day 1 — 8 Sommaire | Jour 1 — 9 Summary | Day 2 — 10 Sommaire | Jour 2 — 11 Programme 9/02/2017 | Day 1 — 12 Programme 9/02/2017 | Jour 1 — 13 Programme 10/02/2017 | Day 2 — 14-15 Programme 10/02/2017 | Jour 2 — 16-17 Speaker Biographies | — 18-46 Biographies des conférenciers MISC Staff / Équipe IÉCM — 47 Dear Friends and Colleagues, NOTES In celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary, I am delighted to welcome you to the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada’s 22nd annual conference. The annual conference is the centrepiece initiative of MISC’s public outreach mandate, and is tasked with investigating themes and topics that bear on pressing matters of public policy. These confer- ences are non-partisan events, open to the public, and are designed to stimulate debate and encourage frank and open dis- cussion in an atmosphere of honest intellectual inquiry. With Donald Trump now in the White House and Britain’s plan to exit the EU underway, the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment that fueled both shows every sign of expanding across Europe.
    [Show full text]
  • Melancholia and Mania on the Trump Campaign Trail Christina Tarnopolsky
    Melancholia and Mania on the Trump Campaign Trail Christina Tarnopolsky Theory & Event, Volume 20, Number 1, January 2017, pp. 100-128 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/646847 Access provided by Hunter College Libraries (30 Jul 2018 19:59 GMT) Melancholia and Mania on the Trump Campaign Trail Christina Tarnopolsky A commentary on “American Overabundance and Cultural Malaise: Me- lancholia in Julia Kristeva and Walter Benjamin” by Mary Caputi, Theory & Event, Vol 4, No. 3 (2000) https://muse.jhu.edu/article/32596 ublished in 2000 at the very beginning of the twenty-first centu- ry, Mary Caputi’s article “American Overabundance and Cultur- Pal Malaise: Melancholia in Julia Kristeva and Walter Benjamin” examines what she saw then as a prevailing condition of melancholia in America in the midst of opulence and overabundance. One of the characteristics of this melancholia was a nostalgic reaching back to the past in order to redeem the present, which was perceived as saturat- ed with a dizzying array of signifiers, symbols, and commodities that seem hollowed out or vacuous when compared to the fullness of the past. According to Caputi, this nostalgic reaching back to the past had in fact started well before the beginning of the twenty-first century and was a key element of the neo-conservative movement that began in 1980, and which was epitomized by Ronald Reagan’s campaign and his slogan, “Let’s Make America Great Again”. Here a notion of a more
    [Show full text]
  • Gaslit Nation Episode 01 Andrea Chalupa Sarah Kendzior Theme
    Gaslit Nation Episode 01 Andrea Chalupa Sarah Kendzior Theme Music My name’s Andrea Chalupa. I’m a writer and a filmmaker. I’m Sarah Kendzior. I’m a writer and the author of the book The View From Flyover Country. ​ ​ This is Gaslit Nation, with Dame Magazine. [Theme music] Andrea Chalupa: Here we are. Why are we going to have a conversation looking back on 2016 and Russia and Trump and how we got here? What’s the point now? Sarah Kendzior: Well, I think we’re among many who are doing that. ‘Cause 2016 was a lie. If they say journalism is the first draft of history, we had then propaganda as the first draft of history and we have to unravel that propaganda - both in real time and look back now. Andrea Chalupa: [Is] what you mean on propaganda the Harvard study on how mainstream media like the New York Times, namely the New York Times, amplified right wing propaganda. Sarah Kendzior: There’s a lot we can do, we will do in an entirely different podcast, on what defines propaganda, but we have a unique situation in that we had a candidate, who was a demagogue, who lied constantly, who was given an unprecedented amount of airtime Andrea Chalupa: -- a free reality show on CNN. Sarah Kendzior: Yeah! We had a reality show candidate, who’s been embedded with corruption, and when you have that, you have to strip away multiple layers of that lie. And you also have to look at how did that lie affect people.
    [Show full text]
  • Improvisational Unionism
    California Law Review Copyright © 2016 by California Law Review, Inc., a California Nonprofit Corporation Improvisational Unionism Michael M. Oswalt Recent fights for a $15-an-hour minimum wage at Walmart and in the fast-food industry have interested academics, captivated the press, and energized the public. For good reason. The campaigns upend conventional wisdom about what unions do (help workers win collective bargaining rights) and why they do it (build the membership). Scattered flash strikes for seemingly impossible or idiosyncratic goals on no obvious timeline have shattered that mold. Though much has already been said about these developments, scholarship has yet to provide a rigorous theoretical frame to categorize and explain the new form of activism. This Article argues that improvisation—long the engine of comedy and jazz but more recently a topic of serious academic inquiry—does both. Improvisational unionism is an intentional social practice that galvanizes courageous conduct, inspires new relationships, and, most importantly, spreads. It also functions as a legal strategy selected for its unique potential to unlock worker militancy amid law and DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15779/Z38G567 Copyright © 2016 California Law Review, Inc. California Law Review, Inc. (CLR) is a California nonprofit corporation. CLR and the authors are solely responsible for the content of their publications. Assistant Professor of Law, Northern Illinois University College of Law. I am indebted to Catherine L. Fisk, Cynthia Estlund, Douglas NeJaime, Judith Scott, Dan Schneider, Michael C. Duff, and Eli Naduris-Weissman for important insights on early drafts. My appreciation also goes to Steven L. Willborn and Timothy P.
    [Show full text]
  • Gaslit Nation Episode 002 [Theme Music] Sarah Kendzior​: Hi, I'm
    Gaslit Nation Episode 002 [Theme Music] Sarah Kendzior: Hi, I'm Sarah Kendzior. I'm the author of the book "The View from Flyover Country", ​ which studies the erosion of social trust and the collapse of institutions in the years leading up to the election of Donald Trump. I'm also an anthropologist with a Ph.D. I studied the former Soviet Union and use of digital media in propaganda. These are all, unfortunately, topics and skills that came into play as I was studying the 2016 campaign, in a very unexpected way. Andrea Chalupa: Hi, I'm Andrea Chalupa. I'm a writer, filmmaker and activist. I've been writing about ​ Ukraine and speaking about Ukraine since 2011, with a focus on Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine in 1933, and the information war by the Kremlin that covered it up. And also the revolution in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014, and the Kremlin's information war that tried to cover up what was really happening in Ukraine at the time. So all of this has prepared me for the rise of Trump, the big welcome mat for the Kremlin in the White House. Sarah Kendzior: Yeah. Really fun times, really fun podcast lies ahead for you. ​ If you're new, this is Gaslit Nation. This is the second episode of our podcast. We taped it a month ago, so ​ ​ what you're going to hear later on is the second part of our overview of 2016. Throughout 2016, Andrea and I futilely tried to convince the American public that Donald Trump was a Kremlin asset; that he, Manafort, and others were implicated in a vast international scheme to subvert US democracy.
    [Show full text]