Ideas for Action
226 pages
English

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226 pages
English

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Description

Written in an engaging and accessible style, Ideas for Action gives activists the intellectual tools to turn discontent into a plan of action. Exploring a wide range of political traditions—including Marxism, anarchism, anti-imperialism, postmodernism, feminism, critical race theory, and environmentalism—Cynthia Kaufman acknowledges the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of political movements and the ideologies inspired by or generated through them. Kaufman incorporates elements of her own activist experiences and presents a coherent analysis without pretending to offer “the final word” on complex issues. Instead, she helps orient a critical understanding of the social world and a glimpse of the excitement and rewards of serious intellectual engagement with political ideas.


Fully updated to confront pressing issues of today—from mass incarceration to climate change, from the war on terror to the national security state, from rising inequality to a global shortage of care, Ideas for Action also examines the work of diverse thinkers such as Adam Smith, Paulo Freire, Grace Lee Boggs, and Stuart Hall. Kaufman’s insights break the chains of cynicism and lay a foundation for more effective organizing.


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Publié par
Date de parution 01 juillet 2016
Nombre de lectures 0
EAN13 9781629632544
Langue English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0025€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Praise for Ideas for Action
There s a long-running conversation about what s wrong with our world and how to fix it. Ideas for Action fills in on the backstory that can help you to join that conversation.
-Jeremy Brecher, author of Strike! and Globalization from Below
The world is in dire need of hope. Right now people are encouraged to be suspicious, authoritarian, belligerent, and hateful rather than to be hopeful. As intellectuals and scholars we are needed more than ever, especially by young people, to shine a light on the possibility of social change. Professor Kaufman does just that in this book. In her own words, she hopes to stimulate thought and encourage wondering -two things we are in desperate need of. A wonderful book well worth reading and giving to others.
-A da Hurtado, author of The Color of Privilege
Ideas for Action makes it plain! This is an excellent and very readable overview of what s wrong with the world and about how we can work to make it better. Kaufman explains a great deal-capitalism, globalization, racial and gender inequality, the threatened environment-in a way that is both accessible and sophisticated. She never loses sight of the practical issues: the need for change, and ways to make change for the better. I particularly liked her treatment of racism as an injustice to everybody. Ideas for Action will be a great textbook for many courses in many subject areas.
-Howard Winant, author of The World Is a Ghetto
Having cut her teeth in the 1980s Central American solidarity movement and continuing today as a local tenant rights activist, Cynthia Kaufman weaves her story into a brilliant and seamless theoretical work on radical activism in the United States. Although Kaufman holds a doctorate in philosophy, and her deep and extensive knowledge of political theory from Karl Marx to Stuart Hall is clearly presented, this book is no academic monograph, rather a manual for organizers and for the people. Kaufman s modest yet sure voice is that of the best of feminist and social justice writing today.
-Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Outlaw Woman
What is remarkable about Cynthia Kaufman s book, Ideas for Action , is how it steps back from our day-to-day struggles to gain historical and theoretical perspective, and then moves forward again to use these perspectives for the solution of specific, immediate problems. The book ranges broadly over many contemporary problems, and manages to be both theoretical and practical in the analysis of these problems.
-Howard Zinn, author of A People s History of the United States
This is an extraordinary book, made attractive by its optimism, passion, and brainpower. Ideas for Action is unblemished, stimulating and unusually bold in its critiques and alternatives. It s a profound and panoramic exploration work of the most powerful and practical ideas needed for a true, radical social change. Professor Kaufman not only points us to the right direction, but also articulates those practical steps in the context of a troubling globalized neoliberal politics.
-john a. powell, Director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, UC-Berkeley, and author of Racing for Justice

Ideas for Action: Relevant Theory for Radical Change, 2nd Edition
Cynthia Kaufman
Cynthia Kaufman 2016
This edition PM Press 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be transmitted by any means without permission in writing from the publisher
PM Press
PO Box 23912
Oakland, CA 94623
www.pmpress.org
Cover design by John Yates/stealworks.com
Layout by Jonathan Rowland
ISBN: 978-1-62963-147-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016930957
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the USA by the Employee Owners of Thomson-Shore in Dexter, Michigan. www.thomsonshore.com
This book is dedicated to the students I work with at De Anza College. Their passion for a better world, intellectual curiosity, and love of life continue to inspire me.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface to the Second Edition
Introduction to the First Edition
1. Thinking about Liberation
2. Capitalism, Freedom, and the Good Life
3. Capitalism and Class
4. Transnational Capital and Anticapitalism
5. Theorizing and Fighting Racism
6. Theorizing and Fighting Gender-Based Oppression
7. People, Nature, and Other Animals
8. Whose Side Is the Government On?
9. What Do We Want and Why Do We Want It? Media and Democratic Culture
10. Organizing to Make a Difference
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
I D LIKE TO THANK SOME PEOPLE FOR READING AND COMMENTING ON drafts of this book. Some gave extensive comments on many drafts, others pointed out errors or weaknesses of analysis, still others simply gave encouraging feedback that kept me going. I m grateful for all of it. My network of supportive readers included: Carlos Davidson, Kai Lundgren Williams, Marcy Darnovsky, Michael Goldhaber, Ren Francisco Poitevin, Greg Smithsimon, Wickie Stamps, Jed Bell, Adam Welch, Chad Makaio Zichterman, Binh Ly, Gene Coyle, Blair Sandler, Michael Rubin, Jan Arnold, Tom Athanasiou, Eddie Ytuarte, Raj Jayadev, Jackie Reza, David Kim, Nicky Gonz lez Yuen, Mimi Ho, Rebecca Gordon, Nora St. John, Elizabeth Mjelde, Jed Mattes, Loie Hayes, Jen Myhre, Isaiah Nengo, Maximus Grisso, Josef Ferreira, and my editor at PM Press, Romy Ruukel. Special thanks to Carlos Davidson for his infinite faith in this project and my ability to do it, and to Rosa B. Davidson for helping me to finish on time.
Preface to the Second Edition
W HEN S OUTH E ND P RESS WENT OUT OF BUSINESS IN 2014, AND I GOT A new contract with PM Press, I was thrilled to be able to take this as an opportunity to do a second edition and update this book. For me, it has been an interesting experience thinking about what has changed significantly in the past fifteen years.
The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center happened just as I was finishing the first edition. I added a bit about that, knowing that big changes would come as a result. At that time, many of us suspected that there would be a chilling of social movement and a clamping down on civil liberties. None of us could have predicted, though, just how devastating the war on terror would be, or the extent of government spying, state-sanctioned torture, and Guantanamo. Also horrific has been the way that attack would be used to unleash major ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the ways that has led to a deep destabilization of the region.
At that time, the war on drugs had been in place for many years, and the age of mass incarceration of black and brown people had begun, but few of us saw the depth of that problem. Now as I complete this second edition, there is widespread understanding of the extremely high levels of incarceration in the United States and a broader understanding of its causes. It looks as though we may be seeing the beginning of the end of mass incarceration. And a movement to challenge the widespread killing of black and brown people by police is growing.
At the time of the first edition, I was very clear that capitalism needed to be named and challenged by social justice advocates in ways that it had not been in the United States for many years. As I write this, there is a growing sense that there needs to be large-scale and rapid change in the economic structure of society.
When I wrote the first edition, I had a sense that the world was beginning to change and I was beginning to believe that, as the Zapatistas say, another world is possible. But at that time, it seemed as much wishful thinking as hardheaded analysis. I now see a world full of crisis and trauma, but also a world increasingly unmoored from old structures and stabilities, and one where the crises, especially the climate crisis, make it such that serious change has to happen in a very short period of time.
People are beginning to talk about a great turning as people all around the world are busy challenging capitalism and building solidarity economies; setting up structures of accountability to limit the actions of multinational corporations; electing governments that stand up against global capital; and undermining the influence of the fossil fuel industry. It no longer seems unrealistic to posit an alternative to capitalism. In fact viable, socially just, and environmentally sustainable alternatives are growing quickly in many countries, including in the United States.
Whether things work out well or not, the next twenty years will likely be significantly different from the recent past. Just as the Soviet Union and many of the neighboring states it had dominated changed their political structures significantly in a period of a few years beginning in 1989, so we may be entering a period when change that seemed unimaginable a few years ago becomes our lived reality.
I hope this book will be a helpful guide for some of the people working to birth that new and better world.
Introduction to the First Edition
W HEN I WENT TO MY FIRST MEETING ABOUT THE GROWING WARS IN Central America, I was nineteen years old and had never been involved in a political group before. At that time, my reaction was a simple humanitarian horror that people were being murdered and that my government was on the side of the murderers. Before I knew it, I was being recruited to form a chapter of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador in the area north of Los Angeles where I lived.
I had no idea what I was doing, or how to go about forming an organization. Fortunately, I was put in touch with a few other young and inexperienced people from the local community college who had already begun to organize. They had

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