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This Week in People’s History, Nov 13–19

An image of Karen Silkwood's face with the text, "Who Killed Karen Silkwood?"
¡Karen Silkwood, Presente! (1974), Whatever Became of William Dawson? (1934), Are You Listening, Nixon? (1969), Ornette Coleman Takes Manhattan (1959), Who Says, Crime Doesn’t Pay? (2019)

House Bill Would Enable Trump To Attack Nonprofits

"The bill could usher in repression on a massive scale," one critic warned.

Is This What Democracy Looks Like?

The real headline of this election isn’t about Trump’s victory. It’s about how the Federalist Society coalition of plutocrats and theocrats has all but completed its mission to repeal and replace the 20th Century by judicial fiat. 

Exit Right: Election Analysis

Trump has remade Americans, and to defeat Trumpism requires nothing less than the left doing the same.

Palestinians Can't Afford To Wait til Next US Election

Palestinians and their allies must build on down-ballot wins, while recognizing the limitations of electoral politics in the face of Israel’s genocidal campaign.

Microbes Drove Methane Growth Between 2020 and 2022

Microbes in the environment, not fossil fuels, have been driving the recent surge in methane emissions globally, according to a new, detailed analysis published Oct 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by CU Boulder researchers

How We Can Defend Ourselves in the New Trump Era

The labor organizer Bill Fletcher says that, to protect our constitutional democracy, “the union movement needs to become an anti-fascist movement.”

When a Multi-Racial Democracy Was Violently Overthrown

A review of the new film 'American Coup: Wilmington 1898,' which premieres November 12 on PBS.

Voters Backed Progressive Policy Measures.

In this year’s election, voters given the opportunity to weigh in directly on questions of economic justice showed policy preferences far more progressive than those reflected in many national and state election outcomes.

Robin D.G. Kelley on the Need for Class Solidarity

We speak with historian Robin D. G. Kelley about the roots of Donald Trump’s election victory and the decline of Democratic support among many of the party’s traditional constituencies.
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Culture

food

The Surprising Story of How Peaches Became an Icon of the U.S. Southeast

Meghan Bartels Scientific American
New research argues that after peaches were introduced by Europeans, they spread across the eastern U.S. with the help of Indigenous peoples who structured the ecology and the land to be appropriate for peaches to grow and they tended the plants.

poetry

A Moment in Gaza

Lola Haskins Porter Gulch Review
Precise as a haiku, with the force of a hand grenade, poet Lola Haskins offers a terrifying glimpse of the war in Gaza.

books

The Original Axis of Evil

Samantha Power The New York Times
This review is 20 years old, but it is nevertheless especially relevant to the United States at this political moment.

film

A Lyd Without the Nakba

Dikla Taylor-Sheinman +972 Magazine
Merging documentary with sci-fi, this new film narrates the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian city in 1948, and imagines what it would look like if the war never happened. So the Israeli government banned it from being screened.

food

Dietary Guidelines Should Be Led by Science—Not Politics

Mary Story, Eric Rimm Center for Science in the Public Interest News
Proposed language in the House Farm Bill would explicitly introduce political interests to and harm the integrity of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans—the foundation of school meal programs, SNAP, WIC, and other necessary nutrition programs.

poetry

Voting Rites in America

Philip C. Kolin White Terror, Black Trauma: Resistance Poems about Black History
Poet and scholar Philip C. Kolin offers a succinct overview of the meanings and mis-understandings of the term “Voting Rights.”

Labor

labor

Can Call Center Workers of the World Unite?

Steve Early Labor Notes
Steve Early reviews Debbie Goldman’s Disconnected: Call Center Workers Fight for Good Jobs in the Digital Age (University of Illinois Press, 2024, 246 pages).

labor

WSLC: ‘Hope Is a Radical Act of Resistance’

President April Sims and Secretary Treasurer Cherika Carter, Washington State Labor Council The Stand
We cannot deny that fascism, fueled by racism and misogyny, has been leveraged to divide and weaken working people. But our movement was built to fight the forces that seek to undermine democracy and enslave the human soul.

Friday nite video

video

Post-Election Call to Action | Maurice Mitchell

Working Families Party, MoveOn, Indivisible, and more than 200 other organizations come together to discuss the path forward to protect our democracy and activatw their local communities

video

Lee Greenwood | John Oliver

John Oliver discusses Lee Greewood, naturalization, and a better song to play at naturalization ceremonies