Detroit Idea Factory

I'm writing about independent, left media, and political strategy using the Majority Report podcast as a model. Happy Friday!

In Defense of Sam Seder (as an Abstract Media Concept) It’s hard to know, in this moment of the pandemic, what constitutes real life. So much of what we do, from meetings to parties, happens online. The modern proverb “the internet isn& #821…

Happy Friday! I wrote a new piece for the Detroit Socialist, covering the lies that were told by Rick Snyder and other so-called "public servants," and the utter disregard that the Republican elites in Michigan have for working class people, particularly in majority-Black and majority-minority cities such as Flint.

What happened in Flint wasn't a tragedy. It was a violent crime. People died. Snyder and his crew did what they did because they thought that their victims were so unimportant that there would be no consequences. And now, six years later, they're being brought up on charges.

I cited them with hyperlinks in the article, but I think that a special shout-out to the the journalism of Ron Fonger at MLive and the academic work of Brett Frischmann is in order.

Fonger wrote many articles that I didn't directly cite, but provided a far deeper context of what was going on in Flint. I cannot recommend Frischmann's book "Infrastructure: the Social Value of Shared Resources" highly enough for anyone wanting to dive into ideas of infrastructure - his work certainly informed my understanding of this issue.

And, as always, join the Democratic Socialists of America and help us fight for a better world.

Refusing Accountability: Rick Snyder’s Crimes of Capitalism in Flint by Michael Stepniak

Taking down Saint Obama is a necessary project - and this article does it well. We were just ripping Jacobin for being too academic, but this piece does the job right. I keep thinking about voices like the late Michael Brooks, as well as others in independent left media who have put the idea of a more unified movement strategy in so many of our heads. And this is where pieces like this come into play.

For many on the left, ripping Obama is like ripping on Trump. It seems obvious. Boring. We often wish we could fast-forward the parts of the Majority Report when Sam Seder goes off on Trump. We know this, and we want to move on. But hold on, because where are we moving on to? Naturally we want media that provides an honest view of the world, and advocates for the dignity of workers - but we should also support media that moves people toward our position.

That's where pieces like this one, and the Majority Report come in. For many of us, it's a bit like watching a movie when we've already read the book, but takedowns of Obama (and Biden) and Trump are necessary for the building of a larger socialist movement. The intended audience isn't those of us who know where we stand. The intended audience is the massive number of people who know that they've been mistreated for their whole lives by both the Democrats and the Republicans, and who are in need of a political education to stimulate their imaginations of the better world that is possible.

Pieces like this (because of course Obama is leaving the dirty s**t he pulled in Central America out of his memoir! Of course he his!) that seem like softballs are in fact a shock to many people who are quite used to defending Obama against Republicans, but not so much against critique from the left. As socialist organizers who are building a movement, we need to have serious conversations about our media strategies going forward. Look for something from me on this soon, either here on at The Detroit Socialist. Or both (sorry if I double dip!)

Barack Obama Has Nothing to Say About Central America In his recently released memoir A Promised Land, Barack Obama has neatly removed Central America from his narrative of the first years of his presidency. Perhaps he thought no one would notice.