The Election That Could Break America

If the vote is close, Donald Trump could easily throw the election into chaos and subvert the result. Who will stop him? Let us not hedge about one thing. Donald Trump may win or lose, but he will never concede.

Meaningless Indictment in the Murder of Breonna Taylor

Statement by the Movement for Black Lives after the Attorney General of Kentucky announced a meaningless indictment of first degree wanton endangerment against one of the three police officers who killed Breonna Taylor in her home on March 13.

Ilhan Omar Is Not Here to Put You at Ease

Few members of Congress have been as much of a political lightning rod during the storm-heavy Trump era as Ilhan Omar. She has become a prominent voice on issues like racial justice and police reform.

Julian Bond’s Life in Politics and Protest

Race Man captures the full output of Bond’s long and distinguished career, first as an activist with SNCC, then as a member of the Georgia legislature, then as an academic, finally as a writer and aging lion of the civil rights movement.

Sept 24, 2020-Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements

Reader Comments: Mourn RBG and Fight for the Living; Print your own ‘TRUMP 200,000; Bertolt Brecht on the Super-Rich; The Wages of Whiteness; lots of resources and announcements;

Europe Pursues Bipartisan Approach to Judiciary vs U.S.

By choice and by law, high court justices in those places work together to render consensus-based decisions.

Outrage Over Florida Effort to Criminalize Protest

"This effort has one goal: silence, criminalize, and penalize Floridians who want to see justice for Black lives," said ACLU of Florida executive director Micah Kubic.

California Schools Launch Anti-Racism Plan

The California Department of Education is developing the nation’s first statewide ethnic studies curriculum model.

Prosecutor Faces Off with Portland's Aggressive Police

Portland’s new district attorney said he wouldn’t prosecute most protesters. Police kept arresting them anyway.

Noam Chomsky: Internationalism or Extinction

PI Council Member Noam Chomsky’s keynote speech at the Progressive International’s inaugural summit.
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Culture

books

The Novel and the Secret Police

Peter Coviello Boston Review
In Vineland, Thomas Pynchon's dour 1990 novel, the author of Gravity’s Rainbow anticipated a United States where all available definitions of freedom are channeled through security apparatuses understood as the greatest good. Sound familiar?

books

White Too Long

Lloyd Green The Guardian
This new book analyzes the history of the intertwined relationship in the United States between Christianity and white supremacy.

poetry

Ode to SARS-CoV-2

H.C. Palmer
Kansas City poet H.C. Palmer puts the blame on Trump (where it belongs): “For the past 8 months, the president watched with indifference as hundreds of thousands of Americans died and tens of millions were disabled from COVID-19."

books

The Wages of Whiteness

Hari Kunzru The New York Review of Books
A deep dig into the literature on white supremacy shows how even such salient insurgent movements for social justice and racial equality as Black Lives Matter can be transmuted by corporate manipulation into instruments of ruling class stability.

books

White Women Were Avid Slaveowners

Parul Sehgal The New York Times
This new book offers new insight into how deeply slavery defined the lives of the enslavers and their families. It gives us new data regarding the scope of control that white women and girls, as well as males, had over the enslaved.

Labor

labor

The Labor Movement We Need to Win the Future We Want

Tanya Wallace-Gobern and Steven Pitts The Forge
Unions must root out the racism within their ranks, then leverage relationships members have in their own communities and focus on transforming the lives of workers, both inside and outside the workplace.

labor

Labor Day 2020: California Farmworkers At Risk

Martin Bennett Beyond Chron
A deepening COVID­-19 crisis­­­–now surging in most California agricultural counties–puts farmworkers in the pandemic’s crosshairs.

labor

Trade Unions Need New Strategies

Asbjørn Wahl The Bullet
It is not difficult to understand what employers are after. They want to abolish the welfare state, to privatize and corporatize ever bigger parts of our economies and societies, and to defeat the trade union movement.

Friday nite video

video

'Heat Rays,' Blue State Deaths and Sedition Charges

With President Trump blaming "blue states" for coronavirus deaths and Attorney General William Barr calling for sedition charges against protestors, you might have overlooked the revelation that the U.S. has a secret heat ray weapon and considered using it against demonstrators in Washington DC.

video

Old Man Fibber | Roy Zimmerman

With another Supreme Court nomination looming, Old Man Fibber is back in the headlines. "Ol' Man River" music by Jerome Kern, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, parody lyrics by Roy Zimmerman and Melanie Harby

video

Kajillionaire | Movie

From acclaimed writer/director Miranda July comes a profoundly moving and wildly original comedy about con-artists Theresa (Debra Winger) and Robert (Richard Jenkins) and their only daughter, Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) who to swindle, scam, and steal at every opportunity. Release on September 25.

video

Babylon | Los Pinguos

“Babylon” is the first single from Los Pinguos' new album, Hummingbird. It bridges the gap between roots reggae and a contemporary Latin sound.