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Delegitimize the Court

Elie Mystal, Nikolas Bowie, Rhiannon Hamam The Nation
On the final episode of Contempt of Court, Elie Mystal is joined by legal experts Nikolas Bowie and Rhiannon Hamam to understand how we might strip the court of its presumed legitimacy.

The Black Working Class Can No Longer Be Ignored

Akil Vicks Jacobin
Across the political spectrum, Americans whitewash the working class and exclude labor struggle from black history. Blair LM Kelley’s Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class is a necessary corrective — and provides lessons for struggle today

Ships Going Out

James Oakes The New York Review
In American Slavers, Sean M. Kelley surveys the relatively unknown history of Americans who traded in slaves in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

This Week in People’s History, Aug. 28 – Sept. 5

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Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans wading through waist-deep floodwater Deadly weather in 2005. KKK run out of town in 1923. FBI informers mess up in 1973. The telephone industry discovers women workers in 1878. TV news is ready for prime time in 1963. Frederick Douglass frees himself in 1838. Ethnic cleansing in 1838.

This Week in People’s History, August 22 – 28

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Cartoon of a Wanted Poster for Jesus, "Wanted for Sedition" "First Amendment, what's that?" in 1918. GIs sit-in, go to jail in 1968. An invasion is an invasion in 1968. KKK run out of town in 1923. Lead paint deadly in 1983 (and it still is). Trying to outlaw war in 1928. March on Washington in 1963.

Sunday Science: Forging Connections

Andrew Curry Science
DNA from enslaved Black workers at a 19th century iron forge links them to living descendants. But the research swirls with ethical questions

Constrain the Court—Without Crippling It

Laurence H. Tribe New York Review
Critics of the Supreme Court think it has lost its claim to legitimacy. But proposals for reforming it must strike a balance with preserving its power and independence, which remain essential to our constitutional system.

This Week in People’s History, August 8 – 14

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Advertising poster for the documentary "People's War" about the Vietnam War Documenting the Vietnam War in 1969. War crime in Yemen in 2018. Face-masks protect from pandemic in 1918. Hip-hop is born in 1973. White House report doesn't see race in 1938. Blowin' In the Wind dropped in 1963. Springfield Massacre in 1908.

This Week in People’s History, August 1 – 7

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Monument for murder victims Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit Pinochet's men accused of Letelier murder in 1978. Dick Cheney's hypocrisy in 2000. Reagan's racist dog-whistle in 1980. Dixiecrats defend the poll tax in 1948. Chicago Freedom Movement in 1966. Birth of a hero in 1848. Toxic-waste emergency in 1978.

Why Capitalism Is Leaving the US in Search of Profit

Richard D. Wolff CounterPunch
The economic consequences of capitalism’s profit-driven movement out of its old centers (Western Europe, North America, and Japan) brought capitalism there to its current crisis.
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