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Quick Reflections on the November 2016 Elections

Bill Fletcher Jr. billfletcherjr.com
It is important to recognize that the Trump victory was far from a slam-dunk; the election was very close. One might not get that impression, however, when one looks at news headlines as well as Electoral College maps. Bill Fletcher shares some quick reflections.

Politics Is the Solution

M. Erickson, K Hill, M Karp, C Kilpatric, B Sunkara Jacobin
We can’t move to Canada or hide under the bed. This is a moment to embrace democratic politics, not repudiate them.

Harry Belafonte: What Do We Have to Lose? Everything

Harry Belafonte The New York Times
What old men know, too, is that all that is gained can be lost. Lost just as the liberation that the Civil War and Emancipation brought was squandered after Reconstruction, by a white America grown morally weary, or bent on revenge.

The Accident-prone Oil Industry Is a Chronic Threat to the Gulf Coast's Environmental Health

Sue Sturgis Facing South
When we talk about the problem of oil industry accidents, we tend to focus on dramatic events like the deadly 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon explosion off the coast of Louisiana, or the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker crash in Alaska's Prince William Sound. But the industry is far more accident-prone than such relatively rare high-profile disasters suggest.

Seizing Freedom: David Roediger with Peter St. Clair

David Roediger with Peter St. Clair The Brooklyn Rail
The North won the Civil War, but the South won the Reconstruction. The victorious Northern armies preserved the Union and the slaves were emancipated but the Confederates won the historical interpretation of those events by perpetrating the myths that became the accepted story over the next one hundred years.

Oilfield Wastewater Used to Grow Food in California May Contain Toxins

Maureen Nandini Mitra Earth Island Journal
Did you know that some of the fruits and veggies out on supermarket shelves are grown using wastewater from oil and gas operations? For the past several years, many drought-stricken farms in California’s Central Valley, which produces 40 percent of the nation’s fruits and vegetables, have been increasingly irrigating their crops with wastewater. Chemicals present include 16 the state classifies as carcinogens or reproductive toxicants, says EWG report.