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The Forgotten World of Communist Bookstores

Joshua Clark Davis Jacobin
Communist bookstores provided a critical public space for radicals, operating in virtually every major American city. Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York had several apiece. Smaller and ostensibly less radical locales such as Birmingham, Houston, and Omaha, had communist bookstores, too. Some radical bookstores operate today. Venture into one of these shops in which left bookstores helped customers envision radical worlds that were often otherwise unimaginable in America

Tidbits - June 8, 2017 - Reader Comments: Paris Climate Withdrawal a Crime; Free Speech on Campus; China Labor; Unexpected Afterlife of American Communism; Jews Against Settlements; Whole Foods; Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor; Union-Worker Coops; Korea; and more

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Reader Comments: Paris Climate Agreement - Withdrawing is a Crime; Free Speech on Campus; Ivanka's Shoes in China; The Unexpected Afterlife of American Communism; Jews Against Settlements; Hate Crimes; Wonder Woman; Whole Foods; Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Attacked; Resources: Labor Activism; Immigration politics; Announcements: Union-Worker Coop - tomorrow; Webinar: Korea, Labor and Anti-Militarism; Women's March to Ban the Bomb; and more...

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The Stubborn Optimist: Following the Persevering Example of the Writer and Activist Grace Paley

Nicholas Dames The Atlantic
Writer, poet, college teacher, political activist, peace agitator and feminist,Grace Paley was a well-known and highly respected commodity to those of us active in left protest during the 1960 and much later. This new collection of her writings should remind us of what we justifiably admired most, not just her talent as a writer but her commitment to the struggle and the long haul.

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Across the Color Line: Interview with Author of new Du Bois Biography

Scott McLemee Insider Higher Ed
The interviewer doesn't exaggerate in ranking W.E.B Du Bois as the 20th century's pre-eminent African-American author and thinker, crediting his founding and stewardship of the NAACP's The Crisis with granting him not just an agenda-setting role in civil-rights history but also international influence. Before going into detail with the biographer, he also praises Mullen for a work that is a timely introduction to this impressive and somewhat imposing figure.

 American Radicals and the Change We Could Believe In

Eric Foner The Nation
The Obama era reminded us all that popular movements play an essential role as catalysts for political action. The enthusiasm generated by the Sanders campaign was a surprise, but it did not spring from the void. Any new radicalism needs to learn from the past, but not simply to reenact it. The new American radicalism must be open and multifaceted, speaking the language of American society but receptive to insights from an increasingly interconnected world.

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Lessons From the Leveller Revolution

Dominic Alexander Counterfire
A look at the English Revolution's first decade, where radicals forced parliamentary leaders to complete the revolt against the monarchy, creating a some two decades-long republic through a genuine social revolution. The book's author is credited with bringing an activist's perspective to it and situating the uprising and the corresponding invention of the pamphlet as the basis for English popular sovereignty, despite the Glorious Revolution's return to a monarchy later.

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Lost Illusions:The Americans Who Fought in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

Caleb Crain The New Yorker
Based on personal stories of Abraham Lincoln Battalion survivors, Hochschild writes of their courage in an unequal contest where the Fascists had the unstinting support of German and Italian governments while the Democracies embargoed all arms to the Spanish government, an alliance of centrist and leftist parties-this while the Soviets worked to tamp down popular land and factory seizures for fear of inciting those capitalist Democracies to outrightly side with the Right

Bringing Socialism Back: How Bernie Sanders is Reviving an American Tradition

Joseph M. Schwartz In These Times
The Sanders campaign is resurrecting socialist electoral politics and paving the way for a more radical public discourse. Only the revival of a decimated labor movement and the rebirth of socialist political parties that can bring them all together could result in the major redistribution of wealth and power that would allow real movement on these individual issues.

Vera B. Williams, 88, Dies; Brought Working Class to Children's Books

Margalit Fox New York Times
Vera B. Williams the award-winning writer, illustrator, children's book author and social justice activist, died last Friday. Her best-known picture book, A Chair for My Mother, was named as a Caldecott Honor Book. Long active in antiwar, antinuclear and environmental causes, Ms. Williams was a past member of the executive committee of the War Resisters League.

Socialism with an American Face

Gar Alperovitz Aljazeera America
Bernie Sanders calls himself a socialist, but the US needs its own version, not Denmark's. Socialism, on the other hand, historically has gone far beyond progressive welfare state measures by asserting that a democratic society can be achieved only if it includes democratic ownership of the economy. The steadily evolving localist forms of democratic ownership confront the traditional socialist questions and begin to answer them in novel ways.
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