Naomi Klein, Kshama Sawant, Dave Zirin, and More: ‘The Nation’ Live! in Seattle

Naomi Klein, Kshama Sawant, Dave Zirin, and More: ‘The Nation’ Live! in Seattle

Naomi Klein, Kshama Sawant, Dave Zirin, and More: ‘The Nation’ Live! in Seattle

An all-star cast brings you a live magazine experience created to mark the magazine’s 150th anniversary.

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On Thursday, October 15, “The Nation Live!”, a live magazine experience created to mark the magazine’s 150th anniversary, played in front of a full house at Town Hall in Seattle.

The program featured some of The Nation’s (and the nation’s) most creative  and radical voices in a mixed-media program of short talks, readings, conversations, and live music.

Watch Naomi Klein bring Wendell Berry’s 1976 musings about energy and development to life with an urgent and soulful contemporary postscript; Dave Zirin relive Muhammad Ali’s 1976 letter to The Nation about the tension between liberal reform and more radical critique; and Richard Kim breathe life into Tony Kushner’s classic 1994 essay, “Socialism of the Skin,” bringing it into a modern space with nuance and appreciation.

Also featured: a conversation between Seattle’s Socialist city council member Kshama Sawant and longtime progressive city council member Nick Licata; Washington State Senator Pramila Jayapal reflecting on Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1940 essay, “Fear is the Enemy,” and its much-needed message today. John Nichols tells a remarkable and largely unknown story about The Nation’s profound influence on American music, illustrated by a live performance by the talented vocalist, Eric Clausell.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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