college of criminal justice and you see diversity here in new york the left in america and around the world historically has done a masterful self destructive of allowing various parochial factions and schisms within their movements and parties to dominate their message these individuals and their arguments have often insisted that all those on the left follow their particular version of a leftist truth they largely engage among themselves in one upmanship games as to whose message is the purest version of that truth what these true believers of an authoritarian left have managed to do is to turn off large segments of the general public to their cause they divide and conquer destroy the burgeoning movement that could make large progressive differences for vast segments of ordinary people and the general population the st radical imagination show on n aired almost four years ago we've always been interested in having people on the show from all walks of life who are open to exploring and creating ways to intellectually economically spiritually and politically transform themselves and their society and culture they build people like a great majority of americans who have found their voices and aspirations stifled by the traditional politics as usual debate there are people who are tired of the widget interpretations evillest to business and dysfunctionality of a two party political system offering no true alternatives they've been people who are rooted in an american progressive populist tradition that was both political and moral a tradition attempted to transcend parties gender age class race ethnicity religion or geographical and community affiliation they were people who wanted progressive political cultural and economic change that would be and central to a spiritual and psychologically more satisfying freer human existence my co host on that very st show four years ago comes from that same path breaking intellectual moral and activist tradition he's a distinguished professor of sociology at the graduate center city university of sorts of new york for over six decades he's been one of the most prolific passionate vocative academic writer activists on the left he was a former steel worker and labor union organizer and was the green party's candidate for governor of new york state in two thousand and two he's the author of more than two dozen books and hundreds of articles among his many many influential major works applying a radical imagination to transform the independent american the left are left turn forging a new political future the death and life of american labor toward a new workers movement false promises the shaping of american working class movements how class works power and social movements and taking a big sea right mails and the making of political intellectuals he was one of the major inspiration for the iconic port huron statement  show as well i'm so glad to welcome him back look forward to doing many more shows together with him on the radical magination so stanley welcome welcome again to the radical imagination it's great to have  as i said for six decades you've been an intellectual link to the various turns if you will of the left and progressive politics american history what can you tell us about that experience what were some of the traditions that you were influenced by clean people like c wright mills for example in your attempt to  they sacrificed specificity specific ideas for generalities or child no content and he was very sharp about that and people technocratic to the way we do things as much as the way we think about doormen then and he has books taken as a whole the four or five books that he wrote taken understand self immolation shared to the social political economic psychological contents where then where we lived in the way that power arrangements were controlling  science not in some see out into the little science department outright that's interesting all right ok but but again mills comes on the stage in in the fifty's the eisenhower years great acceptance that there was an end of ideology that everything was great with the world and america was the top dog and everybody was prosperous and so on so so he comes on the stage there and just says  particular political science reading this were galvanize and identified tremendously with what was going on campus and feeling themselves so used as colleagues in this endless machine of war and i  very sociology a number one and number two was history not as an arkansas ok i had storylines of the early sixty's began to take a look at the united states yet another time and its history social security that sustained unemployment compensation that sustained a whole variety of legislation which benefited working people and you would denim fight in understood those movements very clearly since you as well thank you and as you brought that sense of history and you're also you understand of the enlightenment to the turmoil that was going on back in campuses too and again like i said you mildred so it's a medal in developing that the so called new left and you are certainly intimately involved with that helping to create this the port huron statement more than  book on the history of black america which became one of the most important influences on american the time dizzy and of course as you know well still cornell west has also tried to make sure we understood that the boy's legacy try and bring it or up to date to the black history and one of those contributions that you can't forget is there's a whole communist ballard's that was written by the sender all robinson that said that freedom lay before the american revolution and after the american revolution they conducted a concerted battle for civil rights before the civil war and wasn't that abraham lincoln and and writing and so on you become as you say part of the march on washington in attempt to bring labor and you literally were the one and that would that brought labor into that unbelievably important carrying out the task although i carried out the task and raised some money from the united auto workers from the international longshore and warehouse union on the west coast from the m for revolutionaries stronger which of course once debatable but also for elementary civil rights and human rights and human rights which they were rarely given credit for one of the most obnoxious things to me obnoxious not because i don't support the anti racism  racist movements of white people as well as some blacks do not talk about working people as part of that movement it is invest the class need and at the bottom of its list i know it's very sad but but the unions also have split on that particular also during the antiwar movement right so there were progressive elements of the afraid but they were afraid of or they were worried about is that they did not want to split the labor movement they want to do labor movement to participate and they thought that if they came out against the war prematurely the neighbor movement would be permanently split i don't believe they were right however i think that they had you know the moral courage to do that did they did so that becomes also part of an understanding that the bureaucratic mechanism controlling american society couldn't really be expected to bring about the sort of revolutionary called himself a plain marxist he did ok then ok but he was also the irony too is that he raised a sort of consciousness and activism that he didn't in fact the most important figure inspiring the new left by c wright mills absolutely yeah i mean there were influences like harvard mark herzog needless to say i and others but mills was in touch people's heart and mind both but again the irony was probably was going to be if he was around then he'd be more aloof from that but it possibly would have been very concerned about the new raft and the antiwar movements and loosened concealing of the war i mean that b is major criticism now i think is major criticism would be that the new left did not sufficiently call for fundamental radical change in the nature of society not just issues once happened to the left since nine hundred and sixty s is it is now i an index of issues specific it's one thing to call for a powerful black freedom movement and or powerful women's movement a powerful youth movement the right movement important very again to push everything else aside which has gone on much too much right and have these movements organize against the power structure i don't try what i have right now are confronted power still within this this parasitic cancerous capitalist society and i want to say it's not enough to call for the social innovation are basic industries you have socialization of basic industries in the old u s s r the soviet union and they turned out to be quite a conservative even in many ways and reactionary regime  at you have to do to make the world different is to address education culture every gain life as relevance production you have to realize that everyday life in america is not so far from the charge of consumerism and if you sufficiently revolutionary but i don't agree with them i don't think you have to be a tangle to be revolutionary i think you have to challenge people's conception of tonality immense talent and because it was ironing out his early stuff seem to be closer to maybe fifty years ago actually so again your point whether it's politics or economics with his music it's poetry whatever it may be we are desperately we're looking at people who are liberals they are considered radical because the press because the media has made them into the left but you're not saying that biden in and sanders are  then i understand you're i understand so again then that leads you to a discussion of transformative movements we're having enough of let me  play devil's advocate so we're having enough trouble people are so worried on the left and everywhere about getting rid of trump so when they're saying to you gosh if biden can do it jesus christ stanley let's do it come on we can't go through another four so what would you say to them i'd say that you don't know whether biden has the young to be a difference establishment of society i would talk about music and art and literature and other aspects of culture like movies and a public good water yes absolutely ok and and as a public guard on the whole in new york city we have very system right being medicare a good thing but of course even medicare for all we only be a part of this it's that would be another just the beginning shit out of people who could follow up on this conversation i i try to i try to we're having stanley another stanley next week stanley nelson i've given you the link to his he's hard to listen to sometimes you know i was going to include him on this show he darn young you're a couple years ago right yeah well so you know what we're getting your we're going to put on strawberry fields forever as the closing clip all right so strawberry the radical magination forever strawberry fields forever as well and i hope very much we can do this again and bill down to the river to the river do what you have you have to include that canadian we are going to do that and in the last thirty seconds i had a tremendous amount of fun and you as always are