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Of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Lewis, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Herbert Marcuse, Joseph Weydemeyer, Karl Marx, Frederick Douglass, Jim Crow, the New Jim Crow, and the New New Jim Crow:Shelby County v. Holder

Mark S. Mishler Portside
Ginsburg attacks the ahistorical character of the majority decision. Quoting Shakespeare, she notes that the majority "ignores that `what's past is prologue'". What a profound observation, `the past is prologue'. It neatly, and with a literary flourish, sums up the deep defect with the Court's decision, its deliberate ignoring of both the contemporary ramifications of historical racism in this country as well as its current vitality.

The Zimmerman Trial: When the Prosecution is the Defense

By Kamau Franklin Organizing Update: Engaging Left Organizers in Strategic Dialogue
The idea that our youth are captured animals who can turn dangerous at any time when they are not under supervision has almost become an instinct to the larger white society.

Obsessed with Turkish Models in Egypt

by Hesham Sallam Mada Masr
In sum, when it first made its debut in political discourse in Egypt, the term the "Turkish model" came to embody a vision for a political system in which Egypt's military would retain its unusual privileges and override conventional modes of accountability and transparency all in the name of preserving democratic stability.

Names Emerge from Shadows of 1948 Crash

By Dana Marcum Los Angeles Times
28 Mexican citizens returning to their homeland perished in a fireball over Central California. Woody Guthrie's poetry protested their anonymity. Who were they?

State Legislative Strategy for Labor

By Richard Kahlenberg & Moshe Marvit Workerist
On the state level, labor has consistently found itself on the defensive against increased intrusions on labor rights. But amending the Civil Rights Act to protect the right to organize could help set the stage for national labor law reform.

Dispatches from the Culture Wars - Heatstroke Edition

Portside
Bert and Ernie Outed; Commie Camp Profiled; The Blind Will Get Their Books; Chipotle Rejects GMO Ingredients; Race and Class in Evidence At the Zimmerman Trial; Kansas Takes a Sharp Turn to the Right

Book Review: Union City Blues

Richard D. Kahlenberg Washington Monthly, July-August 2013
How a poor New Jersey town and its teacher's unions turned around its schools.