The reference is to DerberC., Money, Murder and the American Dream: Wilding from Wall Street to Main Street, Boston: Faber & Faber, 1993. One example that prompts these statements is that of Governor Pete Wilson in California whose obsessive campaign for the presidency has led him, first, to endorse Prop 187's draconian anti-immigrant measures (after a career of advocating the importation of Mexican farm workers), and then, to promote aggressively, and with extraordinary deceit, the campaign to abolish affirmative action, in the course of which he compelled the University of California Regents to endorse his position, an unprecedented and illegal politicizing of the university. This person is labeled a “moderate” Republican.
2.
See for example, MillerJ., Democracy is in the Streets, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987, for a discussion of early New Left ideological perspectives, and also for the text of the Port Huron Statement, which provided the first political use of the concept of “participatory democracy” as an alternative to both socialism and capitalist democracy. From a British perspective, a parallel effort to revive New Left understandings, and an indispensable discussion of prospects for this: Hilary Wainwright, Arguments for a New Left. Blackwell, 1994.
3.
For example, Republican freshmen who took Democratic seats in 1994 needed fewer votes to win than Republican losers had in those districts in 1992. Millions of black and women voters failed to turn out in 1994.
4.
LeRoyGreg, No More Candy Store, 1994, published by the Federation for Industrial Retention and Renewal and the Grassroots Policy Project is a compendium of current community efforts to attract corporate investment in ways that support community interests. The FIRR (3411 W. Diversey Ave. Rm 10, Chicago, IL 60647) is the primary source for ongoing information about community strategies for development.
5.
RifkinJ., The End of Work, Putnam, 1995. See the Utne Reader, May-June, 1995.
6.
BrecherJ. and CostelloT., Global Village or Global Pillage, Boston: South End, 1994.
7.
New Party, 227 W. 40 St., #1303, NY, NY 10018.
8.
I've also avoided detailed discussion of big questions about political consciousness and culture, although I believe that deep understanding of contemporary political alienation, right-wing populism, collective identity, and the politics of personal meaning all need to be developed by democratic activists. I would, in this connection, plug my book Making History: The American Left and the American Mind (Columbia, 1989), and also, ReinarmanC., American States of Mind (Yale, 1987) and GrossbergL., We Gotta Get Out of this Place (Routledge, 1993). I also want to recommend some material, in addition to what I've cited elsewhere in this piece, that deals with the future of the Left: DerberCharles, What's Left? Radical politics in the postcommunist era, U of Massachusetts Press, 1995; BoggsCarl, The Socialist Tradition, Routledge, 1995; TrendDavid, ed. Radical Democracy: Identity. Citizenship and the State, Routledge, forthcoming.
