My Politics

John Halle

Political Writing

Relatively Recent Short Pieces:

Occupy Wall Street, Composers and the Plutocracy: Some Variations on an Ancient Theme (1/8/12)

Title says it all.

(Rejected for publication based on subject matter-as commissioner of piece explicitly stated. In other words, censored.)

Our Nakba and Theirs: Music, Modernism and the Twilight of the Elites (11/8/11)

Composers' cultural marginalization as a symptom of a widespread and by now familiar pathology.

(To be published in Jacobin Spring 2012. Comments appreciated.)

Standing With Occupy Wall Street (11/15-17)

A first person report of the aftermath of Bloomberg's raid on OWS, and the subsequent Wall Street Shut-Down and Foley Square Rally

(Published in Counterpunch)

To Supporters of President Obama (9/17/11)

Short Poem

(Published in Counterpunch, Poet's Basement)

Music of Change: Politics and Meaning in the Age of Obama (8/16/11)

Making sense of the Bush era wave of political music and it's quick dissipation in the age of Obama.

(To be published in New Politics, Winter 2012)

Notes of a Wall Street Demonstrator (7/25/11)

Reflections on the Sept 24th march from Zuccotti Park, violently dispersed by a now notorious exercise of police brutality. In retrospect, the turning point for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

(Published in New Poltics, Counterpunch, Unrepentant Marxist, Blue Cheddar, among others.)

Left to Bernie: Will Sanders Answer the Call (7/24/11)

Even Jeffrey Sachs now believes that "America needs a third party movement to break the hammerlock of the financial elites." Why Bernie Sanders should step up to plate. Unpublished elsewhere.

A Polemic (4/5/11)

Short poem responding to all-too-typical Obama apologetics in the New York Review.

Where the Fish Rots From: Racist Thuggery Rears its Head at Bard College (2/20/11)

The Price Bard College pays for Martin Peretz serving on its Board of Trustees

(unpublished)

Exchange with Walter Benn Michaels

Left Establishment Censorship in the Age of Obama (1/7/11)

Published at Dissident Voice.

(Final piece dealing with fall out from the Open Letter to the Left Establishment.)

Why Johnny Can't Protest: December 16th Reflections (12/22/10)

(Reflections on the Dec 16th Veterans for Peace White House Protest and Civil Disobedience. Solicited and then rejected by Truthout-to be discussed in forthcoming piece on left internet censorship.)

Open Letter: A Pre-Post Mortem (12/18/10) (posted at Louis Proyect's Unrepentant Marxist, As it Ought to Be and elsewhere)

Selected responses to the Open Letter to the Establishment Left (annotated index of links)

An Exchange with Tom Hayden on the Open Letter (posted at Louis Proyect's Unrepentant Marxist, As it Ought to Be and elsewhere.

Hayden: Letter is "a vile, toxic diatribe". Halle: "Your response demonstrates why you are a worthy recipient of the letter.")

An Open Letter to the Establishment Left (12/10/10) (drafted in collaboration with Paul Street and Josh Frank)

An Exchange with Robert Parry of Consortium News

Parry: The Teach the Dems a Lesson Myth (Commondreams 10/15/10)
Halle responds (10/16/10): "A hostile attack on the left, and should be treated as such."
Parry to Halle (10/17/10) "The Greens refuse to accept responsibility . . . for Bush's presidency."
Halle to Parry (10/18/10): "Completely contrary to your claim, the third party strategy has never been seriously attempted in the last 42 years."
Parry to Halle (10/20/10):"To this day, many on the left . . . resist moving to address these dangerous shortcomings."
Halle to Parry (10/22/10): "It is a shame that the solution you are proposing-unconditional support for Democratic candidates-is the essence of the problem."
Halle to Parry (11/5/10): "Given your evident inability to address substantive criticisms of your positions, it is understandable that you have chosen to stop responding."