The Illuminator on the Verizon Building, 2012. Photo by Mark Read.

Today, my review of Manuel Castell’s Networks of Outrage and Hope went up at Public Books, an online curated review. I had wanted to compare the book to a deli’s sandwich, whose filling was more satisfying than the enclosing bread (its introduction and conclusion). But in the end we went for less visceral metaphors. I’ll just add here, quickly, that it’s an intriguing book, both in its own right as a study, and as a kind of concrete political intervention by Castells, a longtime towering figure. My reaction to the book, in brief, is that Castells is a touch off base. In his concern for pinpointing a radical departure from an old left he dislikes, he misses the most promising trends in activist organizing. Speaking of which, I wish I’d said something at the end about indigenous sovereignty organizing and Idle No More. Just goes to show: you always pay a price for leaving out developments North of 49.

March 18, 2013 — “This is the Beginning of the Beginning” flashed in white light on Manhattan’s Verizon Building. The message seemed to jump out of nowhere and Occupy Wall Street marchers crossing the Brooklyn Bridge broke into ecscatic chants. This was the Illuminator’s debut, just two days after New York police had brutally evicted Occupiers from Zuccotti Park. Hours later, we would find out that the Illuminator, aka Mark Read, was projecting from the apartment of Denise Vega, a public-housing resident sympathetic to Occupy. The target was no accident: Verizon was attacking its union, seeking to slash workers’ pay while accumulating record profits. Over a year later, the Illuminator is still active. And a portion of New York’s Occupy movement revived itself as Occupy Sandy after last fall’s hurricane. In the process, some of Occupy’s insurgent edge has dulled, while the larger Arab Spring and the Indignados movements that preceded and inspired it have lost momentum and influence. At least for now.

It is a good time, then, to reflect on whether we have really witnessed a “new species of social movement,” freed from old Left fetters, as sociologist Manuel Castells claims. Or whether these movements are better understood as novel instances of an older, more plural left tradition—characterized by complex relationships with unions, political parties, and community groups. For public social science, the distinction’s political and analytic stakes are high.

Read the rest at Public Books.

Eco-apartheid today – São Paulo-style

I’ve got a new piece up at the Center for Humans and Nature, “Democracy or Eco-Apartheid: Only a powerful, visionary movement can save us from green enclaves for elites and misery for the rest.”

Basically, the argument is that we can’t expect to replace fossil fuels with an endless supply of clean, green energy. At least in the coming decades, there will be limits. The question the essay addresses is, what kind of democracy (and pro-democracy movement) will it take to ensure that everyone has a remotely fair share of limited energy? If there were more room, I’d give a thorough argument for why even eco-aparteid could spell the end for all. The brief version, though, only takes one word to articulate: backlash. And a two-word example should suffice for most Canadians: Rob Ford.

At 12:57 a.m. on November 15, 2011, I got a text message reading, “OccupyNYC: URGENT … Eviction in Progress!” By the time I arrived, I couldn’t even see Zuccotti Park through the moving wall of riot cops. Yes—the filibuster is out of control, and partisan gridlock has seized Washington, DC. But North America’s deeper democratic crisis is its extraordinary inequality of wealth and power, with elites using their share to repress vigorous grassroots movements fighting to level the playing field. As Craig Calhoun, author of a first-hand account of the Tiananmen Square uprising, wrote after Occupy’s eviction, “It sounds melodramatic to say that democracy itself is at stake in the widespread moves to repress its main strategy of public demonstration. But it is true.”

This is the grim context climate activists confront. The stakes are huge. A dystopian eco-apartheid, where a privileged few find a way to hoard pleasant greenery and healthy food while the rest are exposed to dramatic ecological breakdown, lurks just around the corner. In comparison to the threat, the movement for climate justice is miniscule. Why?

Read the rest.

I will blog here occasionally. I also sometimes tweet: @aldatweets.