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The Working Class at the Oscars

By Jack Metzgar Working Class Perspectives
Fences was not alone among Oscar nominees this year in representing working-class life in uncharacteristically sympathetic and insightful ways. Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight, and even Hell or High Water all have extraordinary moments of insightful observation like this. Though each falls under more common rubrics, each is alive to the complexities and bravery of living life within insuperable limits.

The Union Household Vote Revisited

By Jake Rosenfeld and Patrick Denice On Labor: Workers, Unions and Politics
Caveats aside, the evidence thus far cautions against making too much of Trump’s success at wooing union households. What these results do suggest is the need for Democrats going forward to craft a message and groom candidates that might reverse waning enthusiasm among this core constituency.

The Return of the Left

Cédric Durand & Razmig Keucheyan Jacobin
Mélenchon’s election campaign has galvanized the Left by doing what Hamon couldn’t — making a clean break with the political center. In France, history is back. Here as elsewhere, the social tectonics of the great economic crisis of 2008 are doing their work. The routine presidential stables are recomposing at great speed. They are realigning political forces around the three options (Three Monsters) nestled within the infra-world of our political modernity.

Review: “I Am Not Your Negro”

Ernie Tate The Bullet
Through a very clever and subtle weaving together of archival footages, interviews, stereotypic images from racist advertizing from the thirties and forties, and from contemporary TV, we are provided with a historical context and an incredible graphic depiction of the momentous civil rights movement that swept the American south in those years, the lunch-counter sit-ins, the courageous fight to integrate the educational system, the voter registration drives, ...

It's Not Just Syria. Trump is Ratcheting Up Wars Across the World

Trevor Timm The Guardian
Recently, US airstrikes have claimed the lives of 200 civilians in Iraq, dozens were killed in separate strikes supposedly aimed at Islamic State in Syria and several more women and children died in a raid gone awry in Yemen. Those are just a few examples of the many attacks – launched under the pretext of defeating Isis – that wreaked havoc on civilian populations as the US military ramps up its bombing campaigns in multiple counties.

Dine-Out Economy Rests on the Backs of Women

Saru Jayaraman The Gender Policy Report - University of Minnesota
The restaurant industry includes 7 of the 10 lowest paying jobs in the country. Half of the women in the minimum wage workforce are tipped workers. Segregation of women, particularly women of color, in these jobs is a major contributor to the gender pay gap.

Remembering Che on the 50th Anniversary of his Assassination

James D. Cockcroft James Cockcroft's Blog
2017 is the 50th anniversary of the CIA-ordered assassination of Che Guevara. In light of a recent upsurge in denunciations of Che and the Cuban Revolution, it is important to separate fact from fiction. Here are 5 important points to take into account, all in historical context, drawn from countless reliable sources, especially the References at the end of this article.