On Mar 20, 2013, at 4:41 PM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > Although I was aware that West Coast radio host Sasha Lilley, a kind of > radical version of Terry Gross, had come out with a book on > “Catastrophism”, I had no plans to read it or comment on it until I > spied a review in Brooklyn Rail, a free monthly you can find at better > bookstores. > > Titled “The Bankruptcy of Doom and Gloom”, reviewer Robert S. Eshelman > writes: > > Lilley observes that while the New Deal did, in fact, originate in > response to the Great Depression, the great American strike waves of > 1898 to 1904 and 1916 to 1920 occurred during periods of relative > economic prosperity. > > I found so many things wrong with this that I decided to have a look at > more of what comrade Lilley had to say.
I wrote the intro to the book, and Sasha is a friend of mine (and the reason I have a show on KPFA), so I'm a little partial. She's a very smart Marxist, and not some kind of pinko Terry Gross, who is aptly named because she is revolting. Lou, you write: "Instead we study what happened in Flint, Michigan in 1936 and 1937 when workers occupied factories and battled the cops and National Guard." 1936-37 was the peak of a strong recovery from the 1933 low. Employment was up over 30%, and GDP over 40%, from its trough. Bad times often provoke reaction, not militancy. Sad to say, the major political beneficiaries of the Greek crisis so far have been Golden Dawn, not Syriza. Doug _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
