Save the Humans? Common Preservation in Action

A longtime left-wing activist reflects on the struggle to save the world in this earnest but muddled memoir-cum-manifesto. Brecher (Strike!) recaps his experiences in the antinuclear, civil rights, antiwar, and feminist movements of the 1950s through the 1970s, and his ongoing work in the labor movement. This sketchy retrospective serves as grist for an analysis of the sociology of protest movements and their prospects for tackling current dilemmas. Drawing on the history of mass wildcat strikes for models of popular revolt and self-direction, he calls for an ethos of unity and “common preservation” against the ills that beset mankind, one in which disparate movements—against climate change, multinational corporations, nuclear weapons, you name it—coalesce into a “global people’s movement to eliminate threats to human survival.” Brecher combines many strands of lefty rhetoric, from high-minded internationalism to sloganeering—he exhorts readers to both “act up” and “keep [their] eyes on the prize”—and turgid wonkery about society’s “multiple interacting levels of systems and subsystems.” Unfortunately, no coherent program emerges from all of this beyond vague gestures toward “interconnected changes in the organization of social power.” Brecher’s grandiose but feckless progressive vision has plenty of movement but no real action. (Dec.)