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"I grew up in the colonies and I may not have learned politically correct English, but I did learn that imperialism always comes bearing the best intentions. It kindly enlightens the benighted, as it offers to cure their frustrations. But to be cured, savages must first mime the idiocies of their conquerors: trade when they trade, pray where they pray."

It's Keith Haring's birthday today! In celebration and remembrance, here's an excerpt from Clayton Patterson's Resistance, a radical social and political history of the Lower East Side. The excerpt below is quoted from an interview between Resistance contributor James Cornwell and Leonard Abrams, the publisher of the now defunct East Village Eye, about the East Village's now-you-see-it-now-you-don't 1980s gallery scene.

The refrain we hear over and over, in the United States at least, is that people today are apathetic about politics. Yet it turns out that this is far from the case. Voters in the U.S. and in democracies around the world are more engaged in politics than they've ever been. The catch is that they're disillusioned with the democratic process itself. Only 33% of Europeans have faith in the EU. The U.S. Congress has a 69% negative rating. So what gives? In Against Elections, set to be published on April 17th, David Van Reybrouck diagnoses the symptoms of our ailing democracies and comes up with a radical solution: drawing lots, rather than voting, to determine our politicians, just as the ancient Athenians did. Here as an exclusive excerpt on the Seven Stories Blog is the book's introduction, from former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, and the first chapter of Van Reybrouck's book. 

Comedian, activist, and author Barry Crimmins died last month at the age of 64. One of the legends of the Boston comedy scene, as well as a childhood abuse survivor and a vigilante anti-pedophilia watchdog who helped expose the prevalance of child pornography on early AOL chatrooms, Crimmins was as influential as he was inimitable. In 2004, he published his personal and political memoir Never Shake Hands with a War Criminal. Below are two representatively eclectic chapters from a very funny and yet very serious book: the first is about starting Boston's first true comedy club, the Ding Ho, while living homeless on the outskirts of town, and the second is about snubbing the "satanic" architect of the United States government's atrocities in Vietnam. 

The death of Fidel Castro has occasioned mourning, celebration, a New York Times obituary sixty-seven years in the making, and appraisals of El Comandante’s political work from all across the globe.

Castro is man about whom it’s impossible to be objective. There’s no denying that the Times obituary, for instance, is measured and thoughtful, and yet a cold eye can detect The Gray Lady tipping her hand at times.

We sat down with Ivana Bodrožic, author of The Hotel Tito, to discuss why there is no such thing as "displaced children," subconscious literary influences, and her next book from Seven Stories, a political thriller called Pits that will arrive in 2020. Pardon the shakiness of the footage and the vertical video—we're working on our cinematography skills!

When we talk about Black History Month, we talk about the rich, diverse histories of Black politics, cultures, and causes in the United States and abroad. To center these stories for the month of February should serve as a launch point for a full year of investigation into Black histories, and a reminder that the struggle for Black liberation and anti-racist movement building is work that cannot be limited to just 29 days. Celebrate Black History Month every month.

"They are making bourgeois garbage and I have been making revolutionary garbage." Thus quoth Jean-Luc Godard, about his former friends, the "bourgeois" filmmakers Truffaut and Coutard, in this 1970 interview with the Evergreen Review's Kent Carroll. It's a fascinating text, in which Godard, along with Jean-Pierre Gorin, his partner in the class-conscious Dziga-Vertov Group, discuss American students, revolutionary struggle, and "what the Chinese call a bullet wrapped in sugar." We hope you enjoy!

In this excerpt from The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War, and Our Call to Greatness, new in paperback this autumn, Betsy Hartmann discusses what has come to be called "the greening of hate"—that is, the fusion of environmentalism with anti-immigrant bigotry, an ideology which was shared by both the Christchurch and El Paso gunmen. She also touches on modern eugenics in the U.S., and stresses the need to avoid simple dualities in discussing questions of population and environment. 

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