thenation--2020-04-17--The Liberation of Fiona Apple

The Liberation of Fiona Apple

The first time I heard Fiona Apple , all she had to say for herself was that she ’ d been a bad , bad girl : “ Heaven help me for the way I am / Save me from these evil deeds before I get them done.
” “ Criminal ” sounded like the pop hit it became in the 1990s , an introduction not to a person but to a persona .
The manufactured image ( wary chanteuse for that heroin chic micromoment ) was subverted by the artist ’ s innate ability : that beyond-her-years contralto , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Her debut , Tidal , released in 1996 , is juvenilia—she was 19 !
—and if Apple has spent the ensuing years racing away from that persona , she ’ ll never outrun it , nor should she wish to .
At her most creatively fertile , Joni Mitchell ( it ’ s required when talking about a genius woman musician to summon her ) released a masterpiece a year from 1974 to 1977 .
Apple is no less urgent or searching , but she needs time .
Three years after Tidal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the full title a long poem ) , then 2005 ’ s Extraordinary Machine , then 2012 ’ s The Idler Wheel… ( the full title is 23 words ) , and now , eight years on , Fetch the Bolt Cutters .
One can not chart this rake ’ s progress by an album ’ s evolving concerns , because those do not change for her .
The albums are soundtracks , with a meaning particular to the person listening .
Her fans ’ feelings about the work have to do with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Because Apple is always reassuringly herself .
The jaunty piano , tamed with aplomb ; that voice , less sweet with age and maybe the better for it ; lyrics that look like middling verse—something my teen self would have inscribed on my history notebook—but delivered with brio .
Take “ Extraordinary Machine ” : You need to hear it—the staccato , show-tune-y delivery , the way she lands on the rhymes , including that embedded “ way , ” then gives that last contraction a pretty little flourish .
And that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mature albums ( those last three ) Apple is not contrite for being a bad , bad girl ; she wants to reveal the more complex truth .
“ I know I ’ m a mess he don ’ t wan na clean up , ” she sings in “ Paper Bag.
” “ I ’ m a frightened , fickle person / Fighting , cryin ’ , kickin ’ , cursin ’ / What should I do ?
” she laments on “ A Better Version of Me.
” “ Oh @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I can love the same man in the same bed in the same city / But not in the same room .
It ’ s a pity , ” she sings on “ Left Alone.
” I think we misunderstand this as confessional , as we often do with women .
Maybe “ autofictional ” is the word we want—Apple burnishing the stuff of her life into art .
Still , the excitement that attends the arrival of Fetch the Bolt Cutters is the frisson of seeing an old friend .
A recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was borrowed from a cop show , but its meaning is clear : “ Fetch the bolt cutters , I ’ ve been in here too long.
” You must take Apple at her word .
She is ready for liberation .
But there ’ s a disconnect , the lamentation of being silenced from an artist who has , for half her life , so publicly articulated who she is .
Maybe she means it this time , or perhaps she had never said what she meant .
Or this is the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most invested in .
This is the Apple we demand to see .
Thematically , Fetch is familiar .
The unruly woman ( “ Kick me under the table all you want , I won ’ t shut up ” ) , negotiating the line between idiosyncrasy and mental illness ( “ People like us , we play with a heavy balloon / We keep it up to keep the devil at bay , but it always falls way too soon ” ) , with so much love to give ( “ When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cease to exist , because I only like the way I look when looking through your eyes ” ) .
She ’ s that friend : the oversharer who tells a great story , the unlucky in love who ’ s always willing to give it another shot , the wicked gossip who makes you laugh but whom you respect and fear in equal measure .
It ’ s wonderful to be back in her company again .
But musically , Fetch astonishes , the work of an artist absolutely confident in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ objective aligning happily with the listener ’ s pleasure .
This is a true rarity , the artistic advancement that offers joy or surprise or comfort .
( I thought of Mitchell ’ s The Hissing of Summer Lawns or Björk ’ s Vespertine or David Bowie ’ s Station to Station . )
The album ’ s tactics—heavy beats , cut-and-paste vocal play—might frustrate some who prefer Apple ’ s earlier work , waltzy and cutting .
Apple ’ s ambition is evident from the opening—Casio drum !
—of “ I Want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beat ripens into a lush cascade of piano , and the admission , “ Next year , it ’ ll be clear , this was only leading me to that / And by that time , I hope that you love me.
” It could be the ballad at the center of a Broadway show ’ s first act , but it is not .
Drums thunder ; Apple ’ s voice grows thin , out of breath , then resolves into a Yoko Ono chirrup .
The drums are a portent .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ notably on “ Hot Knife , ” from The Idler Wheel , mostly timpani and the artist ’ s voice .
Instead of teasing and flirting , this record pulses and lives .
Sometimes the drums are rollicking ( “ Shameka ” ) , sometimes martial ( “ Relay ” ) , sometimes jazzy ( “ Ladies ” ) , sometimes manic ( “ For Her ” ) .
Of course , the piano , with which Apple is most associated , is but a different kind of percussion instrument .
Her vocal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is less diverted by singing prettily .
( She does that , too .
“ Under the Table ” and “ Ladies ” show her at her most polished . )
But throughout , she explores .
She layers her vocals over one another , so they echo as long-distance phone calls once did .
She lets them trip almost out of sync with the music or blur into abstraction .
( “ Relay ” closes with a spectral postscript , “ I used to go to the Ferris wheel every morning just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” ) Indeed , sometimes she ’ s more speaking than anything , as on the title track , which eventually lifts into homage to Kate Bush .
“ I need to run up that hill , ” she declares , “ I will , I will , I will , I will.
” Then her dogs start barking—the hounds of love , so to speak .
There has always been a discomfiting intimacy to Apple ’ s albums .
She ’ s so unguarded , telling us all these things we believe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that quality is underscored by the record ’ s rawness ; it sounds like an album made at home , which it was .
It ’ s not just about the pet sounds ( those recur , which some people will find charming ) : You can sense the space around the performers , and you feel like a lurker or eavesdropper .
Childlike handclaps echo in a room you can picture if you close your eyes .
You can truly hear Apple ’ s voice , when it ’ s being pretty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Apple ’ s particular magic is in her lyrical ingenuity and how her nimble phrasing manages to get to every word , racing the percussion but not taking all her breath .
She ’ s an extraordinary lyricist , with a flair for odd detail .
In “ Shameka , ” her paean to a maybe-bully from her school days , Apple sings , “ In class I passed the time drawing a slash for every time the second hand went by / A group of five done 12 times was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ potential.
” It tumbles out of her with its own strange logic .
She sings a coy taunt to a lover— “ Check out that rack of his , look at that row of guitar necks / Lined up like eager fillies , outstretched like legs of Rockettes.
” Then she twists this : “ They don ’ t know what they are in for , and they don ’ t care , but I do / I thought you would wail on me like you wail on them , but it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a maturity here , or maybe I ’ m wrong ; that New Yorker profile pointed out that Apple ’ s lyrics might contain snippets written in her youth , as with the refrain from “ Relay , ” “ Evil is a relay sport / When the one who ’ s burned turns to pass the torch.
” Not too shabby for a kid of 15 .
But she ’ s not a kid anymore .
Apple at 42 can reclaim what once were offered as insults : “ I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ / I ’ m a good man in a storm.
” That is exactly why we adore her .
The best song here ( perhaps in her entire oeuvre ) is the first .
Loud , naked , confident , it is the artist not as prodigy but as genius .
It ’ s only the title— “ I Want You to Love Me ” —that rings false .
By now , Fiona Apple should know that we do .

This article appears in the June 29/July 6, 2020 issue.
The first time I heard Fiona Apple, all she had to say for herself was that she’d been a bad, bad girl: “Heaven help me for the way I am / Save me from these evil deeds before I get them done.” “Criminal” sounded like the pop hit it became in the 1990s, an introduction not to a person but to a persona. The manufactured image (wary chanteuse for that heroin chic micromoment) was subverted by the artist’s innate ability: that beyond-her-years contralto, lyrics that unwound with an unpredictable logic. Her debut, Tidal, released in 1996, is juvenilia—she was 18!—and if Apple has spent the ensuing years racing away from that persona, she’ll never outrun it, nor should she wish to.
At her most creatively fertile, Joni Mitchell (it’s required when talking about a genius woman musician to summon her) released a masterpiece a year from 1974 to 1977. Apple is no less urgent or searching, but she needs time. Three years after Tidal, there was When the Pawn… (the full title a long poem), then 2005’s Extraordinary Machine, then 2012’s The Idler Wheel… (the full title is 23 words), and now, eight years on, Fetch the Bolt Cutters.
One cannot chart this rake’s progress by an album’s evolving concerns, because those do not change for her. The albums are soundtracks, with a meaning particular to the person listening. Her fans’ feelings about the work have to do with the moment at which they found it. Because Apple is always reassuringly herself. The jaunty piano, tamed with aplomb; that voice, less sweet with age and maybe the better for it; lyrics that look like middling verse—something my teen self would have inscribed on my history notebook—but delivered with brio. Take “Extraordinary Machine”:
I seem to you to seek a new disaster every day
You deem me due to clean my view and be at peace and lay
I mean to prove, I mean to move in my own way and say
I’ve been getting along for long before you came into the play
You need to hear it—the staccato, show-tune-y delivery, the way she lands on the rhymes, including that embedded “way,” then gives that last contraction a pretty little flourish. And that “I” is key. In the mature albums (those last three) Apple is not contrite for being a bad, bad girl; she wants to reveal the more complex truth.
“I know I’m a mess he don’t wanna clean up,” she sings in “Paper Bag.” “I’m a frightened, fickle person / Fighting, cryin’, kickin’, cursin’ / What should I do?” she laments on “A Better Version of Me.” “Oh, when I try to love / I can love the same man in the same bed in the same city / But not in the same room. It’s a pity,” she sings on “Left Alone.” I think we misunderstand this as confessional, as we often do with women. Maybe “autofictional” is the word we want—Apple burnishing the stuff of her life into art. Still, the excitement that attends the arrival of Fetch the Bolt Cutters is the frisson of seeing an old friend.
A recent New Yorker profile explained that the title was borrowed from a cop show, but its meaning is clear: “Fetch the bolt cutters, I’ve been in here too long.” You must take Apple at her word. She is ready for liberation. But there’s a disconnect, the lamentation of being silenced from an artist who has, for half her life, so publicly articulated who she is. Maybe she means it this time, or perhaps she had never said what she meant. Or this is the persona she (and we) are most invested in. This is the Apple we demand to see. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Related Article The Essential Ferrante Vivian Gornick
Thematically, Fetch is familiar. The unruly woman (“Kick me under the table all you want / I won’t shut up”), negotiating the line between idiosyncrasy and mental illness (“People like us, we play / With a heavy balloon / We keep it up, to keep the devil at bay, but it always / Falls way too soon”), with so much love to give (“When you resist me, hon, I cease to exist, because / I only like the way I look, when / Looking through your eyes”). She’s that friend: the oversharer who tells a great story, the unlucky in love who’s always willing to give it another shot, the wicked gossip who makes you laugh but whom you respect and fear in equal measure. It’s wonderful to be back in her company again.
But musically, Fetch astonishes, the work of an artist absolutely confident in the experiment she’s conducting, her objective aligning happily with the listener’s pleasure. This is a true rarity, the artistic advancement that offers joy or surprise or comfort. (I thought of Mitchell’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns or Björk’s Vespertine or David Bowie’s Station to Station.) The album’s tactics—heavy beats, cut-and-paste vocal play—might frustrate some who prefer Apple’s earlier work, waltzy and cutting.
Apple’s ambition is evident from the opening—Casio drum!—of “I Want You to Love Me.” The jokey beat ripens into a lush cascade of piano, and the admission, “Next year, it’ll be clear, this was only leading me to that, and by that time, I hope that you love me.” It could be the ballad at the center of a Broadway show’s first act, but it is not. Drums thunder; Apple’s voice grows thin, out of breath, then resolves into a Yoko Ono chirrup.
The drums are a portent. We’ve heard this before, notably on “Hot Knife,” from The Idler Wheel, mostly timpani and the artist’s voice. Instead of teasing and flirting, this record pulses and lives. Sometimes the drums are rollicking (“Shameika”), sometimes martial (“Relay”), sometimes jazzy (“Ladies”), sometimes manic (“For Her”). Of course, the piano, with which Apple is most associated, is but a different kind of percussion instrument.
Her vocal ability has not changed, but Apple is less diverted by singing prettily. (She does that, too. “Under the Table” and “Ladies” show her at her most polished.) But throughout, she explores. She layers her vocals over one another, so they echo as long-distance phone calls once did. She lets them trip almost out of sync with the music or blur into abstraction. (“Relay” closes with a spectral postscript, “I used to go to the Ferris wheel every morning just to throw my anger out the door.”) Indeed, sometimes she’s more speaking than anything, as on the title track, which eventually lifts into homage to Kate Bush. “I need to run up that hill,” she declares, “I will, I will, I will, I will.” Then her dogs start barking—the hounds of love, so to speak.
There has always been a discomfiting intimacy to Apple’s albums. She’s so unguarded, telling us all these things we believe to be about her. Here, that quality is underscored by the record’s rawness; it sounds like an album made at home, which it was. It’s not just about the pet sounds (those recur, which some people will find charming): You can sense the space around the performers, and you feel like a lurker or eavesdropper. Childlike handclaps echo in a room you can picture if you close your eyes. You can truly hear Apple’s voice, when it’s being pretty and when it’s being human.
Apple’s particular magic is in her lyrical ingenuity and how her nimble phrasing manages to get to every word, racing the percussion but not taking all her breath. She’s an extraordinary lyricist, with a flair for odd detail. In “Shameika,” her paean to a maybe-bully from her school days, Apple sings, “In class I passed the time / Drawing a slash for every time the second hand went by / A group of five / Done 12 times was a minute / But / Shameika said I had potential.” It tumbles out of her with its own strange logic.
She sings a coy taunt to a lover—“Check out that rack of his, look at that row of guitar necks / Lined up like eager fillies, outstretched like legs of Rockettes.” Then she twists this: “They don’t know what they are in for, and they don’t care, but I do / I thought you would wail on me like you wail on them / But it was just a coochie-coo-coups.” There’s a maturity here, or maybe I’m wrong; that New Yorker profile pointed out that Apple’s lyrics might contain snippets written in her youth, as with the refrain from “Relay,” “Evil is a relay sport, when the one who’s burned, turns to pass the torch.” Not too shabby for a kid of 15.
But she’s not a kid anymore. Apple at 42 can reclaim an old insult, marrying it to one of her assets: “I’m pissed off, funny, and warm / I’m a good man in a storm.” That is exactly why we adore her. The best song here (perhaps in her entire oeuvre) is the first. Loud, naked, confident, it is the artist not as prodigy but as genius. It’s only the title—“I Want You to Love Me”—that rings false. By now, Fiona Apple should know that we do.


thenation--2020-04-17--How the Military-Industrial Complex Is Using the Coronavirus

There ’ s a battle brewing for the future of national security spending .
On one side , there ’ s a growing bipartisan consensus that the coronavirus has fundamentally changed the way we should think about national security .
Ben Rhodes , former deputy national security adviser in the Obama White House , recently argued in The Atlantic that we have to rethink the orientation and priorities of our government , and “ it makes no sense that the Pentagon budget is 13 times larger than the entire international-affairs budget , which funds the State Department , USAID , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kori Schake , the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute , said the bottom line is that “ we ’ re going to see enormous downward pressure on defense spending because of other urgent American national needs like health care.
” Even conservative commentators like Max Boot , who less than two years ago wrote , “ the United States is losing the ability to defend itself , ” recently wrote that “ Instead of simply pouring more money into the Pentagon , we need to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , transition away from carbon fuels and stop the spread of pandemics.
” On the other side , despite this support from across the political spectrum to reduce the Pentagon ’ s budget and focus more on non-military threats to national security—an argument the Center for International Policy ’ s Sustainable Defense Task Force made long before the coronavirus pandemic—there stands one of the most powerful players in American politics : the military-industrial complex .
Now Is Not the Time to Start an Arms Race If history is any indication , the military-industrial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a fight , nor is the Pentagon budget .
Through their droves of lobbyists , the revolving door between the Pentagon , contractors , and Congress , and the promise of providing jobs to every Congressional district , Pentagon contractors have kept the defense budget artificially inflated for years at the expense of funding for things like the Centers for Disease Control and other agencies that can help fight disease outbreaks .
And , in this new coronavirus era , they ’ re using the same playbook once again .
The power of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ budget artificially high has perhaps never been more apparent than in the last nine years when the Pentagon budget was under perpetual threat of being reduced after passage of the Budget Control Act in 2011 ( BCA ) .
While Pentagon contractors decry the damage wreaked by the BCA , their lobbyists and advocates omit one key fact : The defense budget has actually increased under the BCA to roughly $ 750 billion per year , well above the levels reached during the Vietnam or Korean Wars .
After the BCA was enacted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at an ample $ 5.4 trillion over 10 years , but over that same time period the US actually spent $ 5.7 trillion on the military .
This was largely because Congress and presidents Obama and Trump consistently agreed to lift the caps on defense spending in addition to using the Overseas Contingency Operations account—which has been described as a slush fund—to dodge the spending caps .
The arms lobby is well-positioned to exert influence over Pentagon spending going forward .
Hundreds of former senior government officials—645 in 2018 alone , according to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ revolving door ’ to work for the defense industry as lobbyists , executives , consultants , or board members .
This gives them an inside track on debates over budget priorities .
And , the revolving door swings both ways .
The last three secretaries of defense have been a former board member of General Dynamics , a former Boeing executive , and the former chief lobbyist for Raytheon , respectively .
Most importantly of all , President Trump has been the greatest champion of the arms industry , touting ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ created by arms sales to countries like Saudi Arabia .
This massive influence operation has already led to early wins for the arms makers in the coronavirus era .
Boeing successfully pushed for billions in aid to the arms industry in the $ 2 trillion stimulus bill , and arms industry lobbyists successfully pushed to get weapons makers deemed “ essential ” businesses during the coronavirus pandemic .
While the battle to defeat this pandemic rages , the battle to defeat the next one has already begun , and so far , arms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re making sure that Pentagon contractors continue to thrive , even as much more pressing priorities than bomb making demand our attention .
Instead of protecting contractor profits , Congress must choose to protect the American people from the very real threats that are killing thousands of Americans as we speak .

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There’s a battle brewing for the future of national security spending.
On one side, there’s a growing bipartisan consensus that the coronavirus has fundamentally changed the way we should think about national security. Ben Rhodes, former deputy national security adviser in the Obama White House, recently argued in The Atlantic that we have to rethink the orientation and priorities of our government, and “it makes no sense that the Pentagon budget is 13 times larger than the entire international-affairs budget, which funds the State Department, USAID, and global programs at other agencies.”
Kori Schake, the director of foreign and defense policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said the bottom line is that “we’re going to see enormous downward pressure on defense spending because of other urgent American national needs like health care.”
Even conservative commentators like Max Boot, who less than two years ago wrote, “the United States is losing the ability to defend itself,” recently wrote that “Instead of simply pouring more money into the Pentagon, we need to develop new capacities to combat foreign disinformation, transition away from carbon fuels and stop the spread of pandemics.”
On the other side, despite this support from across the political spectrum to reduce the Pentagon’s budget and focus more on non-military threats to national security—an argument the Center for International Policy’s Sustainable Defense Task Force made long before the coronavirus pandemic—there stands one of the most powerful players in American politics: the military-industrial complex. Defense Spending Now Is Not the Time to Start an Arms Race Michael T. Klare
If history is any indication, the military-industrial complex isn’t going down without a fight, nor is the Pentagon budget. Through their droves of lobbyists, the revolving door between the Pentagon, contractors, and Congress, and the promise of providing jobs to every Congressional district, Pentagon contractors have kept the defense budget artificially inflated for years at the expense of funding for things like the Centers for Disease Control and other agencies that can help fight disease outbreaks. And, in this new coronavirus era, they’re using the same playbook once again. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
The power of the military-industrial complex to keep the defense budget artificially high has perhaps never been more apparent than in the last nine years when the Pentagon budget was under perpetual threat of being reduced after passage of the Budget Control Act in 2011 (BCA). While Pentagon contractors decry the damage wreaked by the BCA, their lobbyists and advocates omit one key fact: The defense budget has actually increased under the BCA to roughly $750 billion per year, well above the levels reached during the Vietnam or Korean Wars. Current Issue View our current issue
After the BCA was enacted, military spending was to be capped at an ample $5.4 trillion over 10 years, but over that same time period the US actually spent $5.7 trillion on the military. This was largely because Congress and presidents Obama and Trump consistently agreed to lift the caps on defense spending in addition to using the Overseas Contingency Operations account—which has been described as a slush fund—to dodge the spending caps.
The arms lobby is well-positioned to exert influence over Pentagon spending going forward. Hundreds of former senior government officials—645 in 2018 alone, according to the Project on Government Oversight—have gone through the “revolving door’ to work for the defense industry as lobbyists, executives, consultants, or board members. This gives them an inside track on debates over budget priorities. And, the revolving door swings both ways. The last three secretaries of defense have been a former board member of General Dynamics, a former Boeing executive, and the former chief lobbyist for Raytheon, respectively. Most importantly of all, President Trump has been the greatest champion of the arms industry, touting (and exaggerating) the number of jobs created by arms sales to countries like Saudi Arabia.
This massive influence operation has already led to early wins for the arms makers in the coronavirus era. Boeing successfully pushed for billions in aid to the arms industry in the $2 trillion stimulus bill, and arms industry lobbyists successfully pushed to get weapons makers deemed “essential” businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.
While the battle to defeat this pandemic rages, the battle to defeat the next one has already begun, and so far, arms industry lobbyists are winning. They’re making sure that Pentagon contractors continue to thrive, even as much more pressing priorities than bomb making demand our attention. Instead of protecting contractor profits, Congress must choose to protect the American people from the very real threats that are killing thousands of Americans as we speak.


thenation--2020-04-17--How Congress Can Seize the Spotlight Back From Trump

Amid mounting frustration with the extent to which the president has been able to frame the discourse about Covid-19 and its consequences , some of the savviest thinkers about politics and governing have been asking , as Fordham Law School professor Zephyr Teachout did recently , “ Where is Congress during a deadly pandemic ?
” Her answer : “ They should be in session every day .
Remotely.
” Meeting remotely is necessary now , as most members aren ’ t in Washington .
Yet the House , which is controlled by the Democrats and thus is the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advanced by the Republican president , has not yet developed a plan for holding virtual sessions in the way that state legislatures and city councils across the country have begun to do .
So the Congressional Progressive Caucus ( CPC ) is stepping up to show how it can—and should—be done .
Next Thursday , April 23 , the CPC will convene the first in a series of remote congressional hearings to highlight bold and necessary proposals for responding to the pandemic and to the economic crisis that has developed as a result @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mass unemployment , with a focus on “ Preventing Layoffs : Keeping People Employed Through Worksharing and a National Paycheck Guarantee.
” A ‘ Jubilee ’ Cancellation of Debt Is Vital to Fighting the Coronavirus “ We think it ’ s really important to look at ways to address the employment issues where President Trump has been such a dismal failure , ” says CPC cochair Mark Pocan .
“ This is a way to show the American people that we have ideas for what needs to be done , and that there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ top of this.
” Representative Ro Khanna , the tech-savvy Democrat who represents the Silicon Valley , said late last month that it is “ time to bring Congress into the 21st century ” with a plan for remote deliberations and voting so that “ no member should risk their health and public safety to come to DC.
” While dozens of members have now signed on to a letter urging the House Rules Committee to “ enact a temporary change to House Rules to allow remote voting by Members of the House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one involving Covid-19 , ” the chamber has remained on the sidelines in recent weeks .
The CPC is setting an example of how Congress can hold session remotely with so much needing to get done .
Pocan and CPC cochair Pramila Jayapal have since March been advocating for proposals that would have the federal government intervene in a major way to help businesses keep workers on the payroll at a point when unemployment claims are surging to record levels .
Last week , Jayapal introduced the Paycheck Guarantee Act , a plan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 100 percent of worker salaries of up to $ 100,000 to ensure employers keep workers on the payroll and continue to provide employer-sponsored benefits .
“ A federal paycheck guarantee is a real solution that matches the scale of the crisis .
Mass unemployment is a policy choice .
We can and should choose differently , ” says Jayapal .
“ A federal paycheck guarantee would stanch more layoffs and unemployment , and quickly and reliably deliver relief to workers .
Workers would not be forced to apply for unemployment insurance , overwhelm @ @ @ @ @ @ @ again find a job .
Businesses of all sizes would be able to keep workers on payroll and benefits—and be able to quickly re-open—partially or fully—without having to rehire and retrain their workforce.
” This is the kind of big , bold response that needs a hearing .
And Pocan , a cosponsor of the Paycheck Guarantee Act and a leading advocate for providing protections for small businesses and their employees with an expansion of existing state workshare programs , says the CPC will provide it .
Organized along the lines of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Layoffs ” hearing will be chaired by Pocan and Jayapal and feature expert testimony from Sharon Block , the executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School , and Amanda Ballantyne , the director of the Main Street Alliance , a group that advocates for small businesses .
“ The president in one of his more recent rambles said that he was thinking about adjourning Congress , ” explained Pocan .
“ That doesn ’ t make any sense .
Article 1 of the Constitution is about Congress .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We have to be in the debate .
It is incumbent upon us to be putting forward ideas , framing them , discussing them and providing forums where they can be examined and discussed.
” On the Need for Dissent and Debate in These Urgent Times In a call this week with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other key players in the House Democratic Caucus , Pocan said , the CPC leaders discussed their plan for the hearing .
The response was encouraging , with talk about standing committees looking at ways @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that has kept so many House members far from Washington .
“ I think that us doing this will show the way for others , ” says Pocan .
“ It ’ s exciting to think that Congress can start speaking to the American people about real alternatives to Trump ’ s haphazard approach .
We ’ re ready to show that we have serious plans for giving people stability and bringing our economy back.
” The CPC ’ s “ Preventing Layoffs : Keeping People Employed Through Worksharing and a National Paycheck @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , April 23 at 12 pm Eastern .
It can be viewed are live on the Progressive Caucus ’ s Facebook Page .

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Amid mounting frustration with the extent to which the president has been able to frame the discourse about Covid-19 and its consequences, some of the savviest thinkers about politics and governing have been asking, as Fordham Law School professor Zephyr Teachout did recently, “Where is Congress during a deadly pandemic?” Her answer: “They should be in session every day. Remotely.”
Meeting remotely is necessary now, as most members aren’t in Washington. Yet the House, which is controlled by the Democrats and thus is the most likely source of alternative approaches to those advanced by the Republican president, has not yet developed a plan for holding virtual sessions in the way that state legislatures and city councils across the country have begun to do.
So the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is stepping up to show how it can—and should—be done.
Next Thursday, April 23, the CPC will convene the first in a series of remote congressional hearings to highlight bold and necessary proposals for responding to the pandemic and to the economic crisis that has developed as a result. Thursday’s hearing will consider mass unemployment, with a focus on “Preventing Layoffs: Keeping People Employed Through Worksharing and a National Paycheck Guarantee.” More From John Nichols A GOP Debate Without Trump Is the Definition of Pointlessness August 11, 2023 A Win for Abortion Rights, a Win for Democracy: Ohio Voters Reject Issue 1 August 9, 2023 The Biggest Threat to Donald Trump Could Be the Constitution Itself August 4, 2023
“We think it’s really important to look at ways to address the employment issues where President Trump has been such a dismal failure,” says CPC cochair Mark Pocan. “This is a way to show the American people that we have ideas for what needs to be done, and that there are people in Congress who are on top of this.”
Representative Ro Khanna, the tech-savvy Democrat who represents the Silicon Valley, said late last month that it is “time to bring Congress into the 21st century” with a plan for remote deliberations and voting so that “no member should risk their health and public safety to come to DC.” While dozens of members have now signed on to a letter urging the House Rules Committee to “enact a temporary change to House Rules to allow remote voting by Members of the House during national emergencies, especially the current one involving Covid-19,” the chamber has remained on the sidelines in recent weeks. The CPC is setting an example of how Congress can hold session remotely with so much needing to get done.
Pocan and CPC cochair Pramila Jayapal have since March been advocating for proposals that would have the federal government intervene in a major way to help businesses keep workers on the payroll at a point when unemployment claims are surging to record levels. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
Last week, Jayapal introduced the Paycheck Guarantee Act, a plan to provide a three-month federal guarantee for 100 percent of worker salaries of up to $100,000 to ensure employers keep workers on the payroll and continue to provide employer-sponsored benefits. “A federal paycheck guarantee is a real solution that matches the scale of the crisis. Mass unemployment is a policy choice. We can and should choose differently,” says Jayapal. “A federal paycheck guarantee would stanch more layoffs and unemployment, and quickly and reliably deliver relief to workers. Workers would not be forced to apply for unemployment insurance, overwhelm that system and then have to once again find a job. Businesses of all sizes would be able to keep workers on payroll and benefits—and be able to quickly re-open—partially or fully—without having to rehire and retrain their workforce.”
This is the kind of big, bold response that needs a hearing. And Pocan, a cosponsor of the Paycheck Guarantee Act and a leading advocate for providing protections for small businesses and their employees with an expansion of existing state workshare programs, says the CPC will provide it. Organized along the lines of a traditional House hearing, the “Preventing Layoffs” hearing will be chaired by Pocan and Jayapal and feature expert testimony from Sharon Block, the executive director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, and Amanda Ballantyne, the director of the Main Street Alliance, a group that advocates for small businesses.
“The president in one of his more recent rambles said that he was thinking about adjourning Congress,” explained Pocan. “That doesn’t make any sense. Article 1 of the Constitution is about Congress. We are a co-equal branch of government. We have to be in the debate. It is incumbent upon us to be putting forward ideas, framing them, discussing them and providing forums where they can be examined and discussed.” Virtual Congress On the Need for Dissent and Debate in These Urgent Times John Nichols
In a call this week with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other key players in the House Democratic Caucus, Pocan said, the CPC leaders discussed their plan for the hearing. The response was encouraging, with talk about standing committees looking at ways to conduct business remotely during the shutdown that has kept so many House members far from Washington. “I think that us doing this will show the way for others,” says Pocan. “It’s exciting to think that Congress can start speaking to the American people about real alternatives to Trump’s haphazard approach. We’re ready to show that we have serious plans for giving people stability and bringing our economy back.”
The CPC’s “Preventing Layoffs: Keeping People Employed Through Worksharing and a National Paycheck Guarantee” hearing will take place Thursday, April 23 at 12 pm Eastern. It can be viewed are live on the Progressive Caucus’s Facebook Page.


thenation--2020-04-17--The Radical ’70s Magazine That Shaped the Hong Kong Left

When Ng Chung-yin met Augustine Mok Chiu-yu , they were doing a sit-in protest on the steps of Chu Hai College in Hong Kong .
It was August 1969 , and 12 students had just been expelled from the college for criticizing the administration—namely , its censorship of student newspapers , corruption , and ties to the Nationalist Party in Taiwan .
Ng , then 23 , was a former student leader who had just graduated from Chu Hai .
Mok , 22 , had recently returned to the city after studying in Australia .
“ I was a youth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says Mok now , “ basically looking for people with whom I could work to develop a ‘ revolutionary ’ movement.
” The Chu Hai protests were the first in Hong Kong history in which student unions from schools across the city took to the streets together .
The protests ended in failure , and local newspapers smeared the students , claiming they were disrupting public order .
Nonetheless , the short-lived movement marked the beginning of a new generation of activism .
It had politicized young Hong Kongers , getting them ready @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s when Ng and Mok—influenced by their exposure to leftist publications from Australia and the United States—decided to launch a publication that could support a revolutionary upsurge .
On January 1 , 1970 , the two activists and a group of other like-minded leftists published the first issue of a magazine called The 70 ’ s Biweekly ( 70年代雙週刊 ) .
Filled with political essays , book and film reviews , and reportage—mostly written in Chinese , with some English—and illustrated with photographs , drawings , and collage , The 70 ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It was only published for a few years .
But its radical politics , and the networks of students and workers it helped to form , had an outsized impact that survives to this day .
The collective ’ s members and those inspired by the magazine have helped to define what the Hong Kong left could be .
Last June , a controversial bill that would ’ ve allowed mainland China to extradite people from Hong Kong triggered perhaps the biggest social movement the city has ever seen .
Although there have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Covid-19 , the resistance has nonetheless continued for more than ten months—including an upsurge of new unions , formed as an anti-establishment tactic by rank-and-file workers .
With the left ’ s history of activism in Hong Kong , one might expect that it would take a big part in the protest movement .
But aside from the interest in unionization , traditional leftist groups have mostly been unable to make their mark .
Looking back at The 70 ’ s Biweekly—both its rise , and its fall—helps us understand why that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ founded , Hong Kong was a British colony , and leftist discourse was dominated by pro-Chinese Communist Party Maoists .
But The 70 ’ s Biweekly did not support the CCP .
Instead , its ranks were split between Trotskyists and anarchists , committed to a left internationalism that centered on local issues .
Members of the collective played an important role in the campaign for Chinese to be adopted as an official language , at a time when the British colonial government only recognized English ; they became a central force during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after the magazine was defunct , its members and readers continued to participate in activism through the 1980s and ’ 90s , from advocating for Hong Kongers ’ right to participate in the handover negotiations , to solidarity actions with dissidents in mainland China .
‘ I Am Willing to Take a Bullet for You .
Are You Willing to Go on Strike for Me ?
’ Hong Kong activists have been waging the battle of their lives for self-determination .
Yet structural , economic critiques against the system have been largely delinked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demands for human rights .
Since the days of The 70 ’ s Biweekly , China has joined the United States as one of the world ’ s most inequitable and exploitative economies , and Hong Kong has become one of the most expensive cities in the world .
The China-US trade war has put extra pressure on Hong Kongers , making them feel as if they need to choose between global superpowers .
The city ’ s residents desperately need a radical , working-class-centered movement against globalization and class inequality—especially as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ US-flag-waving and anti-mainland Chinese sentiments , threatens to grow in influence .
Fifty years after it first hit newsstands , The 70 ’ s Biweekly ’ s fight against structural oppression and state power—whether it comes from Beijing , Washington , or Hong Kong itself—feels newly relevant .
Hong Kong was a much smaller place before 1949 .
At the close of the Chinese Civil War , a large influx of working-class refugees and immigrants from the mainland entered the city , more than tripling its population between 1945 and 1951 .
Hong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the middle of the 19th century , and its ruling class was made up of both British and Hong Kong business elites .
But low wages , poor working conditions , racism , and a lack of civil liberties stimulated a new political opposition to British rule—split between the left-leaning Communists and the Nationalists , or Kuomintang .
Maoism quickly became the key political framework for many Hong Kong leftists .
And , like many Third World movements emerging around the world , the Hong Kong left ’ s local struggles were bound @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that pitted the People ’ s Republic of China against Western imperialism .
The Cultural Revolution was underway on the mainland , and CCP sympathizers in Hong Kong attempted to extend this struggle into the city .
Maoists established a presence in Hong Kong schools and factories , and in 1967 , a small labor dispute ballooned—with the CCP ’ s encouragement—into citywide anti-colonial demonstrations .
Much like today , police violence against protesters was rampant .
But CCP supporters also planted bombs around the city in an attempt to murder some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ended up hurting uninvolved civilians .
By the time the protests ended after six months , more than 50 people had died , and more than 800 had been injured—both by the Hong Kong police and by Communists ’ bombs .
By the time Ng and Mok launched The 70 ’ s Biweekly in 1970 , the left ’ s reputation was in tatters , and Hong Kong was still struggling to find its own identity .
Nonetheless , Ng , Mok , and the other founders managed to fund the first issue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from a young monk , one of the 12 students who had been expelled from Chu Hai .
Ng was the only paid staff member , while Mok worked as a social worker .
The others supported themselves playing music in nightclubs , processing herbs as assistants to Chinese herbal doctors , and selling cheap shoes and slippers in small shops .
From the beginning , The 70 ’ s Biweekly covered a wide range of subjects , including everything from reviews of translations of Bertolt Brecht ’ s poetry , to a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ newly independent country of Bangladesh against what was then called West Pakistan .
In that 1971 issue , pseudonymous writers called out the CCP ’ s complicity in the genocide of Bengalis the year before .
“ The CCP ’ s support of West Pakistan is counter-revolutionary !
” wrote one , above a kitschy reproduction of Chinese premier Zhou Enlai ’ s letter to West Pakistani president Yahya Khan .
The collective members printed and distributed the publication themselves from the beginning , delivering it to newsstands around the city on foot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a publication called The Seventies Monthly founded around the same time , but that magazine was then aligned with the CCP . )
Beyond publishing a magazine , members of The 70 ’ s Biweekly helped organize public actions and assemblies .
By late 1970 , its members had formed an organizing network called the Worker-Student Alliance , drawn from the publication ’ s readership and divided into local political dialogue and action committees .
The collective ’ s members hoped that these committees would help connect the campaign to make Chinese an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ These platforms saw workers as agents of revolutionary change , ” says Mok .
( One prominent organizer at the time was Lau Chin-shek , who later helped found and became president of the prominent , pro-democracy labor group the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions . )
Then , in August 1970 , the Japanese government reiterated its claim over the Diaoyutai or Senkaku Islands , granting Western oil companies and its own government the right to defend the island chain from foreign encroachment .
These uninhabited islands had been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ end of World War II , but their sovereignty has long been disputed by China , Japan , and Taiwan .
( The discovery of oil reserves near the islands had made their ownership even more contentious . )
The struggle over Diaoyutai reignited nationalistic , anticolonial sentiments among everyone from Chinese and Taiwanese nationalists to American student groups .
The 70 ’ s Biweekly played an integral part in what Hong Kongers called the Baodiao ( short for Bao Diaoyutai , or “ Protect Diaoyutai ” ) movement , building on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before .
Members of the collective sympathized with the outrage aimed at Japan and organized one of the first Baodiao rallies to take place in Hong Kong , as well as many others later that year .
But instead of supporting the Kuomintang or the CCP , both of which laid claim to the islands , The 70 ’ s Biweekly emphasized how imperialist forces exploited local communities—no matter which nation-state was in charge .
Their actions included a rally on July 7 , 1971 , that marked a turning point in public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a group congregated at Victoria Park , which included over 3,000 leftists , student organizers , and journalists .
Meanwhile , the collective began corresponding with leftists from mainland China who had been exiled after 1949 , such as Chinese Trotskyist Wang Fanxi in Macau .
Starting in 1970 , members including Ng , Mok , and now-eminent film director John Shum took several trips to Paris , a hub for Chinese Trotskyist exiles such as former CCP member Peng Shuzhi .
Some also visited the UK , where they met with staff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Socialist Workers Party .
Hong Kong Is Still Waiting for Its Feminist Uprising And yet , despite its successes , The 70 ’ s Biweekly collective was plagued by internal disagreements between its Trotskyist and anarchist elements .
It was also having financial issues ; the publication had been supported only by its sales , Mok ’ s salary as a social worker , and some inconsistent donations from allies .
The Baodiao movement was imploding around them , crumbling under the tensions between those who supported the CCP and those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , The 70 ’ s Biweekly stopped regular publication .
Some members departed for personal or political reasons ; others shifted their activism to other issues .
The publication would later start up again for a few issues in 1975 , then again in 1978 , before being completely discontinued .
The same loose structure that allowed for vibrant debate and participation had also made it difficult for the collective ’ s members to keep the energy going long-term .
However , The 70 ’ s Biweekly ’ s brief appearance had already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would play foundational roles in the Hong Kong left .
Au Loong Yu was a teenager when the Baodiao movement kicked off .
He has said that those protests changed his life ; by the time he met people from the 70 ’ s Biweekly crowd in 1974 , he was radicalized .
“ A majority of the key themes of today ’ s political debates came up before , in the 1970 ’ s , ” said Au , who is still an activist organizing around Chinese labor and local Hong Kong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Hong Kong magazine The Initium .
“ The problem of Hong Kongers ’ identity , the need for an anti-colonial movement , how to perceive the politics of the PRC , and how to negotiate China-Hong Kong relations.
” The 70 ’ s Biweekly had operated on the idea that colonial exploitation transcended borders , and resistance should be led by the masses—not by paid revolutionaries and union bureaucrats .
By the time Au entered the scene , former members of the magazine collective had turned their attention to activism .
One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Loo-bing , led factory workers in a hunger strike over low wages .
He was arrested for causing a public disturbance and held for a few days , then released after more than a thousand people surrounded the police station .
Others got involved in a mass campaign against a former Royal Hong Kong Police superintendent who had been accused of corruption .
In 1975 , Ng , Au , and some former 70 ’ s Biweekly members formed a Trotskyist collective called the Revolutionary Marxist League ( RML ) and turned toward @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1976 , Mao Zedong died .
Within two years , Deng Xiaoping was leader of China .
As Deng consolidated power , he began to undo many Mao-era job protections , such as the right to strike and guaranteed lifetime employment for workers at state-owned enterprises .
China ’ s economy was thrust into rapid , free-market liberalization , lifting millions of working-class people out of extreme poverty but entrenching them in class antagonism and deeper exploitation .
Solidarity with workers in China soon became a natural avenue for former 70 ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ respective organizations .
In 1980 , Au and other organizers formed a grassroots collective called the Pioneer Group ; they became one of the earliest organizations to publish leftist writing about China ’ s capitalist development , and they advocated for Hong Kongers ’ right to be involved in handover negotiations .
In 1981 , Ng and other Hong Kong activists were arrested in Beijing and forced to confess to doing underground organizing work there .
Meanwhile , other individuals associated with The 70 ’ s Biweekly , including John Shum and Leung @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organizations to support dissidents and workers in mainland China .
Leung cofounded an organization that would eventually become the Neighbourhood and Workers ’ Service Centre , now a small but influential left-wing political force .
The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China was another such group , albeit one dominated by liberal democrats ; it helped launch underground operations after the Tiananmen massacre on June 4 , 1989 , rescuing mainland dissidents by bringing them to Hong Kong .
Despite these initiatives , leftist ideas weren ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had in the past .
Working and living conditions were becoming more precarious ; manufacturing jobs sharply declined , while real estate prices skyrocketed .
Hong Kong—which had industrialized just a couple decades before—was becoming a global financial hub , just in time for the handover in 1997 .
As the city transformed , the left struggled to reach an audience .
Leung “ Long Hair ” Kwok-hung is a long-time activist and former member of Hong Kong ’ s law-making body , the Legislative Council .
His penchant for direct action and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recognizable figure on the anti-authoritarian left .
As a young teenager growing up in a lower-class family , Long Hair read The 70 ’ s Biweekly and participated in some of the actions it organized .
He credits the publication and its members with making him abandon his former Maoist ideology , and with framing a commitment to local , grassroots causes that still inspires him to this day .
But he ’ s not sure it would convince many Hong Kongers now .
“ It was easier to capture people with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says Long Hair .
“ While you can talk about it now , the language wouldn ’ t resonate with many.
” Since the 1980s , most leftist movements in Hong Kong have failed to attract mass participation , or imploded soon after appearing .
When Au ’ s Pioneer Group tried to rally Hong Kongers to demand a say during Sino-British handover talks , they were actively shut out by liberal democrats ; the latter preferred a more conciliatory approach to negotiating with China , rather than demanding universal suffrage right away @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kongers and international allies protested a World Trade Organization conference held in the city , opposing the policies of neoliberal globalization—but the momentum didn ’ t extend beyond the conference .
In 2013 , there was a dockworkers ’ strike , supported by many students and workers ’ organizations , but internal strife and attacks from the right shattered hopes for a mass movement .
Then , in 2014 , the Umbrella Revolution began , in response to electoral reform that increased Beijing ’ s power in Hong Kong ’ s election process @ @ @ @ @ @ @ participating in protests .
But the reform was upheld , and again , momentum dissipated ; some key protest leaders were later jailed .
Many were still debating Umbrella ’ s legacy when protests began last summer—especially because of the localist right-wing factions that grew in its aftermath .
These groups , while still small , have become more influential in promoting pro–United States views and xenophobic anti-mainland sentiments .
Long Hair ’ s political party , the League of Social Democrats ( LSD ) , has perhaps been the most visible and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since its inception in the mid-2000s .
Long Hair himself lost his seat in 2017 , when he and other elected officials were disqualified for protesting the CCP ’ s authority .
But LSD was nonetheless pivotal in organizing against the extradition bill last summer , as protesters rallied around what they call the “ Five Demands.
” When pro-democracy candidates swept Hong Kong ’ s district council elections in November , it was seen as a clear show of support for the protesters .
Still , Long Hair and other LSD leaders @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people around deeper structural issues such as class exploitation .
“ The Hong Kong left ’ s biggest problem isn ’ t determining whether capitalism has any fatal problems , ” says Long Hair , “ but how to build an effective socialist movement anew.
” The Hong Kong left is still experimenting .
Last August , protesters called for a general strike to pressure the government over the Five Demands ; the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions reports that over 350,000 workers from more than 20 sectors participated .
This triggered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and political strikes , and dozens of small-scale unions have since been organized by everyone from theater professionals to workers who manufacture medical equipment .
Pro-strike messaging channels on the encrypted app Telegram now have tens of thousands of subscribers .
The recent outbreak of Covid-19 saw the quick mobilization of thousands of unionized medical workers , demonstrating the growing willingness of rank-and-file workers to use labor tactics to directly challenge the government .
“ Resist tyranny , join a union , ” is now a protest slogan .
The people who founded @ @ @ @ @ @ @ longer on the front lines .
After his arrest by the Beijing government in 1981 , Ng worked as a journalist ; he died of cancer in 1994 .
Mok is now an artist working in film and underground theater .
He eventually created a theatrical production based on his late friend ’ s life .
The collective they cofounded may not have been able to sustain a mass movement .
Nonetheless , The 70 ’ s Biweekly ’ s dedication to organizing students and workers , its demands for new kinds of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scene far beyond the publication ’ s brief lifetime .
Its most enduring lesson may be that the model for liberation can only be found in solidarity with all marginalized people—that no single dogma or past experience can show us how to do that best .
In a fight that involves millions , the Hong Kong left is still finding its way forward .

When Ng Chung-yin met Augustine Mok Chiu-yu, they were doing a sit-in protest on the steps of Chu Hai College in Hong Kong. It was August 1969, and 12 students had just been expelled from the college for criticizing the administration—namely, its censorship of student newspapers, corruption, and ties to the Nationalist Party in Taiwan. Ng, then 23, was a former student leader who had just graduated from Chu Hai. Mok, 22, had recently returned to the city after studying in Australia.
“I was a youth [social] worker then,” says Mok now, “basically looking for people with whom I could work to develop a ‘revolutionary’ movement.”
The Chu Hai protests were the first in Hong Kong history in which student unions from schools across the city took to the streets together. The protests ended in failure, and local newspapers smeared the students, claiming they were disrupting public order. Nonetheless, the short-lived movement marked the beginning of a new generation of activism. It had politicized young Hong Kongers, getting them ready for a larger fight.
That’s when Ng and Mok—influenced by their exposure to leftist publications from Australia and the United States—decided to launch a publication that could support a revolutionary upsurge.
On January 1, 1970, the two activists and a group of other like-minded leftists published the first issue of a magazine called The 70’s Biweekly (70年代雙週刊). Filled with political essays, book and film reviews, and reportage—mostly written in Chinese, with some English—and illustrated with photographs, drawings, and collage, The 70’s Biweekly was a profoundly DIY operation. It was only published for a few years. But its radical politics, and the networks of students and workers it helped to form, had an outsized impact that survives to this day. The collective’s members and those inspired by the magazine have helped to define what the Hong Kong left could be.
Members of the 70’s Biweekly collective and friends, during a visit with leftist allies in France, 1972. (Courtesy of Augustine Mok)
Last June, a controversial bill that would’ve allowed mainland China to extradite people from Hong Kong triggered perhaps the biggest social movement the city has ever seen. Although there have been few protest actions since the outbreak of Covid-19, the resistance has nonetheless continued for more than ten months—including an upsurge of new unions, formed as an anti-establishment tactic by rank-and-file workers. With the left’s history of activism in Hong Kong, one might expect that it would take a big part in the protest movement. But aside from the interest in unionization, traditional leftist groups have mostly been unable to make their mark.
Looking back at The 70’s Biweekly—both its rise, and its fall—helps us understand why that might be. When the collective was founded, Hong Kong was a British colony, and leftist discourse was dominated by pro-Chinese Communist Party Maoists. But The 70’s Biweekly did not support the CCP. Instead, its ranks were split between Trotskyists and anarchists, committed to a left internationalism that centered on local issues. Members of the collective played an important role in the campaign for Chinese to be adopted as an official language, at a time when the British colonial government only recognized English; they became a central force during other anti-imperial protests, too. Even after the magazine was defunct, its members and readers continued to participate in activism through the 1980s and ’90s, from advocating for Hong Kongers’ right to participate in the handover negotiations, to solidarity actions with dissidents in mainland China. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Related Article ‘I Am Willing to Take a Bullet for You. Are You Willing to Go on Strike for Me?’ Jun Pang and Nickolas Tang
Hong Kong activists have been waging the battle of their lives for self-determination. Yet structural, economic critiques against the system have been largely delinked from the current movement’s legitimate demands for human rights. Since the days of The 70’s Biweekly, China has joined the United States as one of the world’s most inequitable and exploitative economies, and Hong Kong has become one of the most expensive cities in the world. The China-US trade war has put extra pressure on Hong Kongers, making them feel as if they need to choose between global superpowers. The city’s residents desperately need a radical, working-class-centered movement against globalization and class inequality—especially as the small, localist right, with its US-flag-waving and anti-mainland Chinese sentiments, threatens to grow in influence.
Fifty years after it first hit newsstands, The 70’s Biweekly’s fight against structural oppression and state power—whether it comes from Beijing, Washington, or Hong Kong itself—feels newly relevant.
Hong Kong was a much smaller place before 1949. At the close of the Chinese Civil War, a large influx of working-class refugees and immigrants from the mainland entered the city, more than tripling its population between 1945 and 1951. Hong Kong had been a British colony since the middle of the 19th century, and its ruling class was made up of both British and Hong Kong business elites. But low wages, poor working conditions, racism, and a lack of civil liberties stimulated a new political opposition to British rule—split between the left-leaning Communists and the Nationalists, or Kuomintang.
Maoism quickly became the key political framework for many Hong Kong leftists. And, like many Third World movements emerging around the world, the Hong Kong left’s local struggles were bound up in the larger struggle of anti-colonialism—one that pitted the People’s Republic of China against Western imperialism.
The Cultural Revolution was underway on the mainland, and CCP sympathizers in Hong Kong attempted to extend this struggle into the city. Maoists established a presence in Hong Kong schools and factories, and in 1967, a small labor dispute ballooned—with the CCP’s encouragement—into citywide anti-colonial demonstrations. Much like today, police violence against protesters was rampant. But CCP supporters also planted bombs around the city in an attempt to murder some of the movement’s critics, and ended up hurting uninvolved civilians. By the time the protests ended after six months, more than 50 people had died, and more than 800 had been injured—both by the Hong Kong police and by Communists’ bombs.
By the time Ng and Mok launched The 70’s Biweekly in 1970, the left’s reputation was in tatters, and Hong Kong was still struggling to find its own identity. Nonetheless, Ng, Mok, and the other founders managed to fund the first issue of their magazine with a generous donation from a young monk, one of the 12 students who had been expelled from Chu Hai. Ng was the only paid staff member, while Mok worked as a social worker. The others supported themselves playing music in nightclubs, processing herbs as assistants to Chinese herbal doctors, and selling cheap shoes and slippers in small shops.
From the beginning, The 70’s Biweekly covered a wide range of subjects, including everything from reviews of translations of Bertolt Brecht’s poetry, to a special edition on the struggles of the newly independent country of Bangladesh against what was then called West Pakistan. In that 1971 issue, pseudonymous writers called out the CCP’s complicity in the genocide of Bengalis the year before. “The CCP’s support of West Pakistan is counter-revolutionary!” wrote one, above a kitschy reproduction of Chinese premier Zhou Enlai’s letter to West Pakistani president Yahya Khan. The collective members printed and distributed the publication themselves from the beginning, delivering it to newsstands around the city on foot. (Confusingly, there was also a publication called The Seventies Monthly founded around the same time, but that magazine was then aligned with the CCP.)
Beyond publishing a magazine, members of The 70’s Biweekly helped organize public actions and assemblies. By late 1970, its members had formed an organizing network called the Worker-Student Alliance, drawn from the publication’s readership and divided into local political dialogue and action committees. The collective’s members hoped that these committees would help connect the campaign to make Chinese an official language with other Hong Kong issues. “These platforms saw workers as agents of revolutionary change,” says Mok. (One prominent organizer at the time was Lau Chin-shek, who later helped found and became president of the prominent, pro-democracy labor group the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions.)
Then, in August 1970, the Japanese government reiterated its claim over the Diaoyutai or Senkaku Islands, granting Western oil companies and its own government the right to defend the island chain from foreign encroachment. These uninhabited islands had been governed by the United States since the end of World War II, but their sovereignty has long been disputed by China, Japan, and Taiwan. (The discovery of oil reserves near the islands had made their ownership even more contentious.) The struggle over Diaoyutai reignited nationalistic, anticolonial sentiments among everyone from Chinese and Taiwanese nationalists to American student groups.
The 70’s Biweekly played an integral part in what Hong Kongers called the Baodiao (short for Bao Diaoyutai, or “Protect Diaoyutai”) movement, building on the Chu Hai youth movement of the year before. Members of the collective sympathized with the outrage aimed at Japan and organized one of the first Baodiao rallies to take place in Hong Kong, as well as many others later that year. But instead of supporting the Kuomintang or the CCP, both of which laid claim to the islands, The 70’s Biweekly emphasized how imperialist forces exploited local communities—no matter which nation-state was in charge. Their actions included a rally on July 7, 1971, that marked a turning point in public sentiment: Police violently cracked down on a group congregated at Victoria Park, which included over 3,000 leftists, student organizers, and journalists.
Meanwhile, the collective began corresponding with leftists from mainland China who had been exiled after 1949, such as Chinese Trotskyist Wang Fanxi in Macau. Starting in 1970, members including Ng, Mok, and now-eminent film director John Shum took several trips to Paris, a hub for Chinese Trotskyist exiles such as former CCP member Peng Shuzhi. Some also visited the UK, where they met with staff of the New Left Review and members of the Socialist Workers Party. Related Article Hong Kong Is Still Waiting for Its Feminist Uprising Jessie Lau
And yet, despite its successes, The 70’s Biweekly collective was plagued by internal disagreements between its Trotskyist and anarchist elements. It was also having financial issues; the publication had been supported only by its sales, Mok’s salary as a social worker, and some inconsistent donations from allies. The Baodiao movement was imploding around them, crumbling under the tensions between those who supported the CCP and those who did not.
After July 1973, The 70’s Biweekly stopped regular publication. Some members departed for personal or political reasons; others shifted their activism to other issues. The publication would later start up again for a few issues in 1975, then again in 1978, before being completely discontinued.
The same loose structure that allowed for vibrant debate and participation had also made it difficult for the collective’s members to keep the energy going long-term. However, The 70’s Biweekly’s brief appearance had already woken up many young readers—including some who would play foundational roles in the Hong Kong left.
A Hong Kong street circa 1976. (Pierre Barbier / Roger Viollet via Getty Images)
Au Loong Yu was a teenager when the Baodiao movement kicked off. He has said that those protests changed his life; by the time he met people from the 70’s Biweekly crowd in 1974, he was radicalized. “A majority of the key themes of today’s political debates came up before, in the 1970’s,” said Au, who is still an activist organizing around Chinese labor and local Hong Kong issues, in a recent interview with the Hong Kong magazine The Initium. “The problem of Hong Kongers’ identity, the need for an anti-colonial movement, how to perceive the politics of the PRC, and how to negotiate China-Hong Kong relations.”
The 70’s Biweekly had operated on the idea that colonial exploitation transcended borders, and resistance should be led by the masses—not by paid revolutionaries and union bureaucrats. By the time Au entered the scene, former members of the magazine collective had turned their attention to activism.
One former 70’s editor, Fu Loo-bing, led factory workers in a hunger strike over low wages. He was arrested for causing a public disturbance and held for a few days, then released after more than a thousand people surrounded the police station. Others got involved in a mass campaign against a former Royal Hong Kong Police superintendent who had been accused of corruption. In 1975, Ng, Au, and some former 70’s Biweekly members formed a Trotskyist collective called the Revolutionary Marxist League (RML) and turned toward workers’ organizing.
Then, in 1976, Mao Zedong died. Within two years, Deng Xiaoping was leader of China. As Deng consolidated power, he began to undo many Mao-era job protections, such as the right to strike and guaranteed lifetime employment for workers at state-owned enterprises. China’s economy was thrust into rapid, free-market liberalization, lifting millions of working-class people out of extreme poverty but entrenching them in class antagonism and deeper exploitation.
Solidarity with workers in China soon became a natural avenue for former 70’s Biweekly members, readers, and their respective organizations. In 1980, Au and other organizers formed a grassroots collective called the Pioneer Group; they became one of the earliest organizations to publish leftist writing about China’s capitalist development, and they advocated for Hong Kongers’ right to be involved in handover negotiations. In 1981, Ng and other Hong Kong activists were arrested in Beijing and forced to confess to doing underground organizing work there.
Meanwhile, other individuals associated with The 70’s Biweekly, including John Shum and Leung Yiu-chung, helped build big-tent networks and organizations to support dissidents and workers in mainland China. Leung cofounded an organization that would eventually become the Neighbourhood and Workers’ Service Centre, now a small but influential left-wing political force. The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China was another such group, albeit one dominated by liberal democrats; it helped launch underground operations after the Tiananmen massacre on June 4, 1989, rescuing mainland dissidents by bringing them to Hong Kong.
Despite these initiatives, leftist ideas weren’t resonating with the public the way they had in the past. Working and living conditions were becoming more precarious; manufacturing jobs sharply declined, while real estate prices skyrocketed. Hong Kong—which had industrialized just a couple decades before—was becoming a global financial hub, just in time for the handover in 1997. As the city transformed, the left struggled to reach an audience.
Leung “Long Hair” Kwok-hung is a long-time activist and former member of Hong Kong’s law-making body, the Legislative Council. His penchant for direct action and Che Guevara shirts have made him a recognizable figure on the anti-authoritarian left.
As a young teenager growing up in a lower-class family, Long Hair read The 70’s Biweekly and participated in some of the actions it organized. He credits the publication and its members with making him abandon his former Maoist ideology, and with framing a commitment to local, grassroots causes that still inspires him to this day. But he’s not sure it would convince many Hong Kongers now. “It was easier to capture people with a left and Marxist analysis then,” says Long Hair. “While you can talk about it now, the language wouldn’t resonate with many.”
Since the 1980s, most leftist movements in Hong Kong have failed to attract mass participation, or imploded soon after appearing. When Au’s Pioneer Group tried to rally Hong Kongers to demand a say during Sino-British handover talks, they were actively shut out by liberal democrats; the latter preferred a more conciliatory approach to negotiating with China, rather than demanding universal suffrage right away. In 2005, thousands of Hong Kongers and international allies protested a World Trade Organization conference held in the city, opposing the policies of neoliberal globalization—but the momentum didn’t extend beyond the conference. In 2013, there was a dockworkers’ strike, supported by many students and workers’ organizations, but internal strife and attacks from the right shattered hopes for a mass movement. Related Article The American Left Is Failing Hong Kong Rosemarie Ho
Then, in 2014, the Umbrella Revolution began, in response to electoral reform that increased Beijing’s power in Hong Kong’s election process. Soon, over 200,000 people were participating in protests. But the reform was upheld, and again, momentum dissipated; some key protest leaders were later jailed. Many were still debating Umbrella’s legacy when protests began last summer—especially because of the localist right-wing factions that grew in its aftermath. These groups, while still small, have become more influential in promoting pro–United States views and xenophobic anti-mainland sentiments.
Long Hair’s political party, the League of Social Democrats (LSD), has perhaps been the most visible and effective left-leaning force in the Legislative Council since its inception in the mid-2000s. Long Hair himself lost his seat in 2017, when he and other elected officials were disqualified for protesting the CCP’s authority. But LSD was nonetheless pivotal in organizing against the extradition bill last summer, as protesters rallied around what they call the “Five Demands.”
When pro-democracy candidates swept Hong Kong’s district council elections in November, it was seen as a clear show of support for the protesters. Still, Long Hair and other LSD leaders see less of an opening to politicize people around deeper structural issues such as class exploitation. “The Hong Kong left’s biggest problem isn’t determining whether capitalism has any fatal problems,” says Long Hair, “but how to build an effective socialist movement anew.”
Protesters use umbrellas to shield themselves from police teargas, November 2019. (Stanton Sharpe / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images)
The Hong Kong left is still experimenting. Last August, protesters called for a general strike to pressure the government over the Five Demands; the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions reports that over 350,000 workers from more than 20 sectors participated. This triggered a new, ongoing interest in unionization and political strikes, and dozens of small-scale unions have since been organized by everyone from theater professionals to workers who manufacture medical equipment. Pro-strike messaging channels on the encrypted app Telegram now have tens of thousands of subscribers. The recent outbreak of Covid-19 saw the quick mobilization of thousands of unionized medical workers, demonstrating the growing willingness of rank-and-file workers to use labor tactics to directly challenge the government. “Resist tyranny, join a union,” is now a protest slogan.
The people who founded The 70’s Biweekly are no longer on the front lines. After his arrest by the Beijing government in 1981, Ng worked as a journalist; he died of cancer in 1994. Mok is now an artist working in film and underground theater. He eventually created a theatrical production based on his late friend’s life.
The collective they cofounded may not have been able to sustain a mass movement. Nonetheless, The 70’s Biweekly’s dedication to organizing students and workers, its demands for new kinds of engagement, informed the Hong Kong political scene far beyond the publication’s brief lifetime. Its most enduring lesson may be that the model for liberation can only be found in solidarity with all marginalized people—that no single dogma or past experience can show us how to do that best. In a fight that involves millions, the Hong Kong left is still finding its way forward.