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Dispatches From the Culture Wars – November 21, 2023

The Squad in AIPAC's gun sights

Congress members Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Bowman, Lee, Bush, Tlaib and Pressley. Credit, Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images, Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images, and Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images.
  1. The Far Right Stomped in School Board Votes
  2. Post-Roe Abortion Rate 
  3. Colleges: Two Sides
  4. A Worker-Driven Model for Labor Rights
  5. Conservatives and Antisemitism Out of Hiding
  6. Democracy in Danger Everywhere
  7. After 70 Years, Albert Maltz Breaks the Blacklist
  8. The Squad and the Gaza Massacre
  9. Pushing Back Against Disaster Capitalism
  10. Uproar Over World Famous Art Event

 

The Far Right Stomped in School Board Votes

By Jarod Facundo
The American Prospect

Right-wing groups such as Moms for Liberty and the 1776 Project suffered losses in school board elections across the country. Their credibility was burned as they took the mantle of waging war against critical race theory and demanding book bans, revealing themselves to be guilty of the exact same government control and censorship they accused their opponents of favoring.

Post-Roe Abortion Rate 

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By Carter Sherman
The Guardian

The average number of abortions performed each month in the US rose in the year after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade and allowed more than a dozen states to ban the procedure. This stunning finding masks a deep divide in abortion access in the US.

Colleges: Two Sides on Israel and the War

By Kayla Epstein
BBC News

On campuses across the country, students and schools have received an avalanche of criticism, accused by both sides of either justifying extremism or staying silent in the face of it. These arguments have played out over decades, but the unprecedented scale of the Hamas attack and Israel’s military response means tensions and emotions are spiking. 

A Worker-Driven Model for Labor Rights

By Derek Seidman
Truthout

If you consume products from capitalist markets today — and, of course, most of us do — you’ve surely seen your share of labels on name brand items promising that your purchase is “ethical”. One model has built up a proven record of upholding crucial protections for the most at-risk workers within those supply chains: worker-driven social responsibility (WSR).

Conservatives and Antisemitism Out of Hiding

By Matt Shuham
HuffPost

All at once, major American conservative figures seem to be using the Israel-Hamas conflict as an opportunity to flaunt antisemitic views. After Hamas’ deadly incursion into Israel last month, and as the death toll continues to climb in Gaza from Israel’s ongoing retaliatory invasion, right-wing leaders from Charlie Kirk to Elon Musk have found a way to fault Jews worldwide.

Democracy in Danger Everywhere

By Sara Velert
EL PAÍS

Receding, eroding, weakening. These are terms that the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) uses in its latest annual report to describe the global state of democracy after analyzing 173 countries. 

After 70 Years, Albert Maltz Breaks the Blacklist

By Taylor Dorrell
Jacobin

When Communist writer Albert Maltz was blacklisted in the McCarthyist era, no commercial publisher in the United States would touch his novel A Tale of One January. A new edition slated for US distribution means his 70-year blacklist will finally end.

The Squad and the Gaza Massacre

By Alexander Sammon
Slate

One of the biggest, bitterest, and most expensive political battles of the 2024 election cycle has emerged: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of the most powerful, best-funded influence operations in Washington, is planning to go all out to knock the famed “Squad”—the small group of highly visible and popular progressive legislators of color, most of them women—out of office.

Pushing Back Against Disaster Capitalism

By Elena Novak
Yes!

The Immokalee Fair Housing Alliance was formed to address the housing needs of farmworkers in Immokalee, an agricultural community in neighboring Collier County. The alliance is building 128 hurricane-resistant affordable rental units for farmworkers and low-income families

Uproar Over World Famous Art Event

Artnet News

The entire curatorial search committee for Documenta 16 has stepped down in response to the recent resignations of two of its members, Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger and Ranjit Hoskote, each for different reasons relating to the Israel-Hamas conflict. The shock move comes amid wider turmoil within Germany’s cultural sphere over what should be protected as free speech.