Municipalist campaign in Finland
A new post on the New Compass website describes the campaign of several municipal candidates in northern Finland who are running as part of a broader “Free Left” alliance. The article is an interview with Svante Malmström, who attended the ISE during the mid-2000s. Svante states that the group’s program … states that the decision-powers […]
New blog from ISE alum Andrea del Moral
From the lead essay, The ateneu of me, at http://andreadelmoral.wordpress.com/the-ateneu-of-me: The what? you ask. An ateneu is a community center-café-bar-meeting room-dance hall-library-theatre-gymnasium rolled into one. Ateneus dot the city of Barcelona, and like the lively, layered city itself, they are filled with multiple activities and people of many ages. Unlike Barcelona, they’re often visually uanssuming places, […]
Occupy your Neighborhood, by Dan Chodorkoff
A new essay from Dan Chodorkoff, co-founder of the ISE: Occupy your Neighborhood by Dan Chodorkoff Summer fades to Fall and more than one year has passed since Occupy Wall Street entered the public arena. Occupy’s message highlighted capitalism’s inherent injustices, and resonated with a broad cross section of the public. The initial media frenzy […]
Remembering Barry Commoner, 1917-2012
From The Nation online today, by Occidental College professor, Peter Dreier: http://www.thenation.com/article/170251/remembering-barry-commoner. At the ISE, we especially remember Barry Commoner for his pioneering advocacy for renewable energy and against nuclear power, his socially and politically conscious approach to environmental sustainability, his work against waste incineration and dioxin contamination in the late 1980s, and his return […]
Rise & evolution of Occupy: An international view
We recommend the latest tour de force of reporting and analysis by Jerome Roos of ROAR Magazine. Titled “Beyond Occupy: Liberating Ourselves From Debt Slavery,” Roos’ essay examines the evolution of the Occupy movement in the context of the evolving global uprising against monopoly capitalist domination of our lives.
Seven Left Myths about Capitalism
G. B. Taylor is a former student and long-time supporter of the ISE, currently living in Berlin. Comments and discussion are appreciated: 7 Left Myths about Capitalism G.B. Taylor Occupy Wall Street has renewed hope for a left political renaissance by challenging economic inequality and the neoliberal discourse that legitimated it, and reintroducing the word […]
Rethinking nature and culture
ISE board member Eleanor Finley recommends this interview with philosopher and Rice University literature professor, Timothy Morton. In his new book, The Ecological Thought, Morton examines prevailing assumptions about nature and culture in mainstream society and ecological activism. Using metaphysics and object-relations theory, he concludes that nature is “no more” than a social construction. The […]
Rediscovering Kropotkin
At the recent social ecology colloquium, Peter Prontzos drew our attention to the renewed interest among scientists in understanding the potential evolutionary basis for human cooperation. Among other developments, this has encouraged some evolutionary biologists to reconsider the work of Peter Kropotkin. Kropotkin’s best known book, Mutual Aid, pioneered the study of cooperation in animal […]
Imboden: In search of a broad, coherent social ecology
This short essay, by Arizona-based social ecologist Charles Imboden, raises some provocative questions about the evolution of social ecology and proposes a reconciliation of some currents that have often been in conflict. Comments, as always, are strongly encouraged. This originally appeared on the author’s blog at http://socecology.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/in-search-of-a-broad-coherent-social-ecology. Recently, someone immersed in Murray Bookchin‘s late-period works […]
Carmelo Ruiz on Vavilov’s Legacy
Vavilov’s legacy by Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero Every modern society needs a substantial public investment in agricultural research. And such research requires the acquisition of useful plant and seed specimens from all over the world. It is no different in the case of socialist societies. During the first half of the twentieth century the Soviet Union was […]
