Essays & Videos
Reflections
I am not writing this for publication. I will make it available to any family or friends who are interested and might find it helpful to their own development, curiosity or understanding. But I really wrote it for myself in an attempt to answer the question posed by the Talking Heads and David Byrne in the song, Once in a Lifetime: “Well, how did I get here?” So what is written here are a set of reflections rather than a formal memoir.
Eco-socialism or Annihilation: Toward A Green New Deal
This year marks the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day, which also marks the beginning of what I call below the modern environmental movement. In 2019 and the first part of 2020 militant demonstrations seeking an end to global warming were sparked by disastrous events generated by climate change. These included fires, droughts, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. These disasters, long predicted by scientists and environmental activists, are associated with the melting of polar ice caps, which increased sea levels and altered climate patterns. But 2020 will also be remembered for something even more disastrous, also predicted by climate scientists and epidemiologists. A global pandemic is killing millions, closing the global economy and moving the world to the greatest economic collapse in the history of capitalism.
Doug Storm Interviews David Ranney About His New Book “Living and Dying on the Factory Floor”
Host: Douglas Storm interviews David Ranney about his new book “Living and Dying on the Factory Floor”
On Violence and the Value of Life
(The following is a transcription of an address I gave to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Door County.) A few weeks ago, 73 people were shot in three predominantly black neighborhoods of Chicago over a three-day period. 12 of them died. Most of them were black youth. All were probably shot by other black people, although no one has been arrested for any of the shootings. A few weeks prior to this bloody weekend a police officer shot an armed black man in the back sparking rage on the part of people in the community. He was employed as a barber and the father of a five year old. The question all of us ask in the wake of such incidents is why. The answer isn’t simple.
There ain’t no justice, just us
The following is an excerpt from my book which will be released in the coming year. The excerpt was originally published by the journal Hard Crackers: Chronicles of Everyday Life. Hard Crackers is, in the words of its editors, “…a unique publication: political but not absorbed in elections or programs, literary but not pretentious, scholarly but not scholastic.” Please check out the journal by subscribing. Go to www.hardcrackers.com
Foxconn: The Myth and Reality of the Welfare Queen
Both this essay and the previous essay on Foxconn are published in the February, 2018 issue of the electronic journal, Insurgent Notes. www.insurgentnotes.com Readers are encouraged to check out other articles of interest in this journal.
David Ranney
David Ranney is Professor Emeritus in the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois Chicago, author, lecturer as well as actor and director in a small community theater.