In August 2017, over 40,000 Bostonians marched on Boston Common to tell a small gaggle of nearly incoherent hard-right louts that they were not welcome in our city. Especially in the wake of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the murder of a left-wing counterdemonstrator by a young Nazi. At […]
BOSTON FIDDLES WHILE THE WORLD BURNS
City government continues issuing reports while UN calls for immediate action When writing about human-induced global warming on a regular basis, it’s a good idea to pace oneself. Because it’s such a relentlessly depressing topic that highlighting it too often can backfire. Faced with an existential threat of such magnitude that human civilization—and […]
PRESSURE FROM BELOW
“People in this country are being taught to think that they don’t deserve pensions, that they don’t deserve good health care coverage … But it doesn’t have to be this way.”
IMAGINING AN AFTER
Exploring the Museum of Capitalism I was looking and looking for a quote that I thought was from the philosopher Wittgenstein about how difficult—how structurally impossible it is—to analyze a cultural phenomenon from inside of it, but I was never able to find the quote and am now not even sure it was […]
THE MERRIMACK VALLEY DISASTER: IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT OLD PIPES
The events of last week in the Merrimack Valley were unfortunate by any measure. Something bad happened to the natural gas distribution system in parts of Lawrence, North Andover, and Andover that resulted in dozens of homes being damaged or destroyed by explosions and fire, at least 25 people getting injured, and one person […]
EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I (COULD HAVE) LEARNED FROM CHAPO
I was relieved and entertained to learn last year that my sympathies lie with a much larger assembly, namely the alleged “Dirtbag Left,” a loosely applied label for fans of the Chapo Trap House podcast and anyone else who genuinely loathes the work of Aaron Sorkin but lets people live at parties when they say they dig his shows because we’re more human than not.
COMMUNITY DISPATCH: ‘WE NEED TO STOP BEING STUCK ON REPLAY’
“[In] our neighborhoods, it feels like … luxury apartments [are being built] faster than Donald Trump tweets … JP, Roslindale, Roxbury, and Mattapan … rent prices are going up. Homelessness is still a huge issue in our city. We are getting kicked out.”
HOUSE PARTY: A MASS CONGRESSIONAL PRIMARY PRIMER
Newly active voters, insurgent outsiders, political unrest, and targeted incumbents in Mass congressional races make for one of the most interesting battlegrounds in America
VOTING AS A SOCIALIST IS STILL HARD (IN THE MASSACHUSETTS OF 2018)
Plus an endorsement for Michael Capuano for Congress (MA 7th District) It’s never easy being a socialist in the United States. And at no time is it more difficult then come election season. Because neither of the two major parties—hard-right ravings to the contrary taken as given—is socialist. Both Republicans and Democrats are […]
HERALD READERS RESPOND TO ANTIFA COVERAGE
Spoiler alert: anti-nazis are somehow nazis On Saturday, a few hundred left-wing activists showed up to protest a tiny ultra-right wing protest held on City Hall Plaza around the anniversary of last year’s tiny ultra-right wing protest on Boston Common. That earlier action being completely dwarfed by the tens of thousands of people […]
