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The Nobel Committee Got It Wrong: Ngugi wa Thiong’o Is the Writer the World Needs Now

Rajeev Balasubramanyam The Washington Post
"When I first heard about Bob Dylan’s selection for the prize, I wasn’t concerned that the award had gone to a musician; I was disturbed that the committee had demonstrated an apparent obliviousness to the times we are living in. The US is saddled with a presidential candidate who peddles in misogyny and appeals to white supremacists. In many other countries, neo-liberals are vying with the far right for power, and the left is at its weakest." This decision felt myopic.

Mass Incarceration And Its Mystification: A Review Of The 13th

Dan Berger African American Intellectual History Society
The 13th effectively demonstrates that criminalization has been a persistent feature of anti-Black racism. The film does not discuss the policies that gave greater power to police, prosecutors, and prisons in those critical years.

How to Win a Strike - Harvard Students Support Dining Workers

Brandon J. Dixon, Hannah Natanson, and Leah S. Yared, CRIMS The Harvard Crimson
1. Roughly 500 students walked out of classes and rallied in Harvard Yard, more than 100 students and supporters of Harvard’s picketing dining services workers sat in the lobby of 124 Mt. Auburn St., singing, and chanting—and, eventually, doing homework—for nearly seven hours. 2. Tentative agreement reached after a day of intense picketing and rallying by both HUDS workers and student supporters.

Tom Hayden and the Unfinished Business of Democracy

The Nation The Nation
 From helping to found the New Left in the 1960s right up to this turbulent election season, Hayden was a pillar of Democratic politics, a brilliant strategist and political thinker, and a leading advocate for a more just and equal society.

How Much More Environmental Injustice Must Uniontown, Alabama, Bear?

Ellis Long Facing South
It is with deep concern that I write to address the ongoing travesty inflicted on the residents of one small, impoverished community: Uniontown, Perry County, in Alabama's Black Belt. My family has lived in Uniontown for many generations and, as a longtime resident, I have observed with sadness the harmful effects, distress, and heartache Uniontown citizens have experienced since the establishment of Arrowhead Landfill.

Oil Refinery Merger in California Underscores Risks of Petro-Economy Nationwide

Daniel Ross Truthout
In a region known for being among the worst nationally for its air quality, plans are marching briskly forward on a proposed integration project that will combine operations at two sprawling oil refineries near Southern California's Long Beach area, expanding it into the single largest oil refinery by far on the nation's West Coast.

Public Sector Pensions Under Attack -- From the LA Times

Bill Raden Capital and Main
Call it the tale of two pension crises. In June, the Los Angeles Times’ business pages looked at the looming retirement savings disaster caused by the nearly 40-year transition from traditional employer-sponsored defined-benefit pensions to individual 401(k) plans — a sea change in retirement insecurity, it noted, that “has been a failure for all but the wealthiest Americans.”