The Rag Blog | The Latest in News and Views from the Progressive Front

Robert Jensen :
BOOKS | Barking dogs and sinking ships: Journalism’s search for metaphor and meaning

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Dean Starkman explains why journalists often aren’t alert watchdogs, but he can’t see why limiting the profession to the role of a barking dog is, quite literally, a dead end.

The blind biting the blind?

By Robert Jensen | The Rag Blog | April 2, 2014

[The Watchdog That Didn’t Bark: The Financial Crisis and the Disappearance of Investigative Journalism by Dean Starkman (2014: Columbia Journalism Review Books); Hardcover: $24.95; 368 pages.]

The fundamental failure of Dean Starkman’s The Watchdog That Didn’t Bark: The Financial Crisis and the Disappearance of Investigative Journalism — and of mainstream journalism more generally — is hidden in plain sight in the title’s metaphor. Starkman explains why journalists often aren’t alert watchdogs, but he can’t see why limiting the profession to the role of a barking dog is, quite literally, a dead end.

To explain that rather harsh judgment, allow me to mix metaphors: The best the journalistic watchdog can do these days is bark at people rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, and meanwhile the train has left the station.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Accountability Journalism, Books, Dean Starkman, Financial Crisis, Journalism, Mainstream Journalism, Media Criticism, Muckraking, Radical Journalism, Rag Bloggers, Robert Jensen, The Watchdog That Didn't Bark | Leave a comment

Sarah Berlin :
Radical justice and ‘Radical Jesus,’ coming to a bookstore near you

Posted on April 2, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

‘Radical Jesus’ rediscovers Jesus as a radical leftist thinker and traces changemakers inspired by his teachings.

Frame from Paul Buhle’s Radical Jesus.

By Sarah Berlin | In These Times | April 2, 2014

A comic book might be the last place you’d expect to find Jesus. But a recent book edited by Paul Buhle provides just that opportunity, albeit not the Jesus you’d recognize from right-wing Christian depictions.

Using vivid imagery and lively storytelling, Radical Jesus: A Graphic History of Faith rediscovers Jesus as a radical leftist thinker. The authors and artists trace the long history of changemakers inspired by Jesus’ teachings of peace, justice, and equality, moving from biblical times to the 16th-century Radical Reformation to modern-day movements like civil rights.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged American History, American Indians, Comics, Graphic History, Graphic Novels, Jesus Christ, Paul Buhle, Peacemakers, Quakers, Radical Gospel, Radical Jesus, Religion, Sarah Berlin, Social Justice | Leave a comment

Harry Targ :
Raise the minimum wage now

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Working people are on the move and grassroots groups are demanding a fair minimum wage.

Political cartoon by Nick Anderson / The Houston Chronicle. Image from Sky Dancing.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | April 1, 2014

The experience of increasing poverty, economic marginalization, and the rise of political reaction against workers, unions, women, people of color, the right to vote, and basic dignity for the 99 percent has stimulated mass mobilizations in protest over the last two years.

From Arab Spring, to protests all across the Midwest in defense of worker’s rights, to the Occupy Movement, anti-racist campaigns in Florida and elsewhere against so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws, and the Moral Majority mobilizations inspired by fight backs against the suppression of voter rights, working people are on the move.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Fair Minimum Wage Act, Grassroots Activism, Harry Targ, Minimum Wage, Poverty, Rag Bloggers, U.S. Economy | 3 Comments

Thorne Dreyer :
PODCASTS | Filmmaking, pupulism, the attack on public education, and Texas politics on Rag Radio

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Al Reinert with singer Sima Cunningham; pundit Jim Hightower; education activists Julian Vasquez Heilig and Mike Klonsky; and politics with Glenn Smith and Jeff Crosby.

Al Reinert, back row in cap, flanked by Rag Radio’s Tracey Schulz, left, and Thorne Dreyer. Front and center: Sima Cunningham with accompanist Dorian Gehring to her right. At the KOOP studios in Austin, March 14, 2014. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interviews by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | March 31, 2014

Listen to podcasts of recent Rag Radio shows, featuring guests Al Reinert (with performance by Sima Cunningham); Jim Hightower; Julian Vasquez Heilig and Mike Klonsky; and Glenn Smith with Jeff Crosby.

Rag Radio is a weekly hour-long syndicated radio program produced and hosted by long-time alternative journalist and Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer. The show is recorded at the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas. It is broadcast live on KOOP every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CST) and streamed live on the web.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Al Reinert, Educational Reform, Filmmakers, Glenn W. Smith, Interviews, Jeff Crosby, Jim Hightower, Julian Vasquez Heilig, Mike Klonsky, Podcast, Populism, Progressive Politics, Public Education, Rag Radio, Screenwriters, Sima Cunningham, Singer-Songwriters, Texas Politics, Thorne Dreyer, UT-Austin | Leave a comment

Dave Zirin :
SPORT | The Northwestern University Football Union and the NCAA’s death spiral

Posted on March 28, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The NCAA is now in a fight for its life. Its power emanates solely from its position as a cartel.

The porcine athletic establishment and the scent of the slaughterhouse.

By Dave Zirin | The Rag Blog | March 28, 2014

“Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered…” – Mark Cuban

The experts said that the efforts of the Northwestern University football team to form a union would crash and burn. The experts scoffed that these naïve jocks would lose their case before the National Labor Relations Board. The experts all believed that this is what they call “settled law.”

After all, since the 1950s, when the widow of a football player who died on the field of play failed in her efforts to sue the NCAA for Worker’s Compensation, it was clear to the courts that these were not workers but “student-athletes.” The experts were proven wrong on Wednesday and the established order in the sports world has been shaken to its foundations.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged College Athletics, Dave Zirin, Football, NCAA, NLRB, Northwestern University, Rag Bloggers, Student Athletes, Unions | Leave a comment

Lamar W. Hankins :
Aslan’s portrayal of Jesus as revolutionary zealot is fanciful history

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Mistakes in ‘Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth,’ show that Reza Aslan lacks the necessary background to write a historical work about the period and Jesus’s place in it.

Jesus drives money changers from the temple. Image from SF Gate.

By Lamar W. Hankins | The Rag Blog | March 27, 2014

Part one of two.

Just over 78% of adults in the U.S. report that they are Christian, according to the latest Pew Research findings. The thesis of a relatively new book by Reza Aslan should interest them. In Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, Aslan portrays Jesus as a revolutionary zealot intent on the overthrow of the Romans in order to drive them from the land of Israel — land promised to the Jews by God.

It is not a new thesis. I remember Christians and others in the 1960s who viewed Jesus as a revolutionary for other reasons — mainly as a figure who wanted to create a society of equality that was closer to communism than to corporate capitalism.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Bart Ehrman, Biblical Scholarship, Books, Christian History, Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, Jewish History, Lamar W. Hankins, Rag Bloggers, Religious History, Reza Aslan, Zealot, Zealot Series | 1 Comment

Bob Feldman :
A People’s History of Egypt, Part 20, 1990-1992

Posted on March 26, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The Mubarak regime, supported financially and militarily by the United States, was accused of serious human rights violations, including extensive use of torture.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak walks with President H.W. Bush on White House grounds, April 4, 1989. Photo by Doug Mills / AP.

By Bob Feldman | The Rag Blog | March 26, 2014

[With all the dramatic activity in Egypt, Bob Feldman’s Rag Blog “people’s history” series, “The Movement to Democratize Egypt,” could not be more timely. Also see Feldman’s “Hidden History of Texas” series on The Rag Blog.]

The only legal leftist opposition party which the Mubarak regime still allowed in 1990, al-Tagammu, “absorbed many radical Egyptians” who still believed “that significant change” in Egypt “can be accomplished only by assembling democrats, Marxists, Nasserists, and independents into a united force against the present regime,” as the 1990s began, according to Selma Botman’s The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Bob Feldman, Egyptian History, Hosni Mubarak, Human Rights, People's History of Egypt, Rag Bloggers, Torture, World History | Leave a comment

Alan Waldman :
‘Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries’ is a fun, stylish mystery series set in 1928 Melbourne

Posted on March 25, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Delightful flapper detective Miss Phryne Fisher, wonderfully played by Essie Davis, makes this Aussie gem well worth your time.

Essie Davis stars as flapper detective Miss Phryne Fisher.

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | March 25, 2014

[In his weekly column, Alan Waldman reviews some of his favorite films and TV series that readers may have missed, including TV dramas, mysteries, and comedies from Canada, England, Ireland, and Scotland. Most are available on DVD and/or Netflix, and some episodes are on YouTube.]

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries is a terrific recent discovery of mine — a fresh and well-produced detective series featuring a 28-year old female sleuth in 1928 Melbourne, Australia. The first series of 13 episodes began airing Down Under in 2012, has been sold to 120 territories around the world, and has already aired on some PBS stations. A second series of 13 episodes began filming in February 2013.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Alan Waldman, Australian Television, Criticism, Detective Series, Essie Davis, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Rag Bloggers | 1 Comment

Tom Hayden :
The Cold War that threatens democracy

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

The new Cold War doctrine is that democratically elected nationalist or socialist leaders are new dominos threatening the fall of a U.S.-controlled order.

Tom Hayden, left, interviews Mikhail Gorbachev in 2002. Photo courtesy Tom Hayden.

By Tom Hayden | The Rag Blog | March 20, 2014

While the first Cold War was fought against communism, a successor Cold War is steadily unfolding against democratic electoral outcomes unfavorable to America’s perceived interests.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal occupation of Crimea has for now revived raging Western memories of Joseph Stalin’s top-down incorporation of the former Eastern Europe. Lost in the new anti-Russian narrative, however, is the growing U.S. pattern of ignoring democratic electoral outcomes where they are inconvenient, in the name of “promoting democracy.”
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Cold War, Crimean Conflict, Domino Theory, Egypt, interve, Latin America, Muslim Brotherhood, Neoliberalism, New Cold War, Rag Bloggers, Russia, Socialism, Tom Hayden, U.S. Foreign Policy, Ukraine, Venezuela, Viktor Yanukovych, Vladimir Putin | Leave a comment

Beverly Baker Moore :
Finding some happiness nearby South By

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

There may have been insanity downtown but my friendly neighborhood venues were rife with talent all day and all evening all week.

Swedish band Baskery performs at Leeann Atherton’s Full Moon Barn Dance in South Austin, Sunday, March 16, during SXSW. Photo © Per Ole Hagen. See more of Per Ole’s photos at Artists Pictures Blog.

By Beverly Baker Moore | The Rag Blog | March 20, 2014

AUSTIN, Texas — South By Southwest (or South By, as we’re supposed to be affectionately calling it now), has come and gone again. It’s one of the noisier demonstrations of the over-the-top success of the Austin growth machine.

During the festival itself the hype would have one believe it’s everywhere, but it’s not. A friend called to check on us the day after the car careened through the crowd downtown to make sure we hadn’t been run over. We appreciated the concern but of course we didn’t get run over… we know better than to go anywhere near downtown during a hipster invasion.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Austin Growth, Austin Music, Baskery, Beverly Baker Moore, Leeann Atherton, Music Business, Rag Bloggers, South Austin, SXSW | Leave a comment

Robert Sharlet :
Jim Retherford, the ‘Man in a Red Devil Suit’

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Jim has been a fearless New Left editor, a political performance artist, part of a guerrilla theater troupe, and has worked with some of the legendary figures of the ’60s.

Jim Retherford, the Man in a Red Devil Suit, Bloomington, Indiana, 1969.

By Robert Sharlet | The Rag Blog | February 19, 2014

Last summer political scientist Bob Sharlet attended a reunion in Bloomington, Indiana, of New Left activists who had gone to school at Indiana University in the 1960s and early ‘70s. They came to the event from all over the country. “Quite a number had not broken bread or lifted a glass together in at least a quarter of a century,” Bob noted, “while many had neither met nor even spoken for over 50 years.”

Sharlet interviewed several of those in attendance for his blog, Searching for Jeff, which is dedicated to his late brother, Jeff Sharlet, who was a leader of the GI resistance movement during the Vietnam War and also was active in SDS at Indiana in the mid-‘60s. (And who shouldn’t be confused with the award-winning journalist and author of the same name. That Jeff Sharlet is Bob Sharlett’s son.)
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Abbie Hoffman, Austin Activists, Bloomington, Direct Action, Guerrilla Theater, Indiana University, James Retherford, Jeff Sharlet, Jerry Rubin, New Left Reunion, Political Performance Art, Progressive Journalists, Radical Activists, Rag Bloggers, Robert Sharlet, SDS, Sixties, The Rag, The Rag Blog, The Spectator, Thorne Dreyer, Underground Press, Yippies | 5 Comments

Lamar W. Hankins :
Both Democrats and Republicans have it wrong

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Thorne Dreyer

Once the Republicans tried to wrest back welfare reform as a political issue from Clinton, it was a race to see who could pander most successfully to the electorate.

Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton yuk it up in November 1992. Both presidents moved their respective parties to the right. Photo by AP.

By Lamar W. Hankins | The Rag Blog | March 19, 2014

In the age of Obama and right-wing politics, people who share many of my political interests often ask me why I’m so hard on the Democratic Party. I am also criticized frequently for my views toward the Republican Party, but most people seem to understand why I hold these views. The reasons for both sets of opinions are more similar than many might expect.

What I see as important about government is in no small measure a result of my parents living through the Great Depression and World War II. I grew up with an indelible impression that it was possible for government policies to make this society better than it was, both economically and in international relations, just as government policies had led to many of the problems government later corrected.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged American Society, Bill Clinton, Bipartisanship, Conservative Politics, Democratic Party, Lamar W. Hankins, LBJ, Neoliberalism, Obama Administration, Paul Ryan, Rag Bloggers, Republican Party, Ronald Reagan, War on Poverty, Welfare Reform | 1 Comment