The postwar Second Red Scare successfully smashed the American left. But in the midst of its devastation, a small number of old leftists refused to be shut up by the climate of fear. Without their heroism, the New Left could never have emerged.
I believe that my experience, especially as a female, is both timely and relevant as an account of the struggles against the ruling class. I still believe that imperialism and capitalism are the scourges of democracy.
Two new memoirs portray the activist left over the last half-century.
The FBI had played its role as the “political police of the national government,” Noam Chomsky wrote and the government maintained to the bitter end that it had a right to undermine an organization just because of its ideas.
“Max Elbaum has given us an incisive and critical history of the Other New Left – the radicals who brought class struggle and Third World liberation to the forefront, looked to the world for allies, and tried their best to work through the dynamics of race and class.
Rightwing parties in Latin America give themselves populist names, keep the manifesto rhetoric modest and talk of appealing to the street. But they aren’t winning many votes. Meanwhile business is learning to work with governments of the left.
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