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Nonviolence and Social Movements: The Teachings of Rev. James M. Lawson Jr.

Stefanie Ritoper UCLA Labor Center
Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center, recently edited a new book with the Rev. James Lawson Jr., a renowned civil rights activist who worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and helped launch key campaigns for social justice. For generations, he has taught the principles of nonviolence to civil rights leaders, committed activists, community organizers and, in recent years, UCLA students as a guest lecturer.

Notes on the Election

Linda Burnham Portside
Unfolding events of the past several months have confirmed that the presidential contest now underway is the most historically significant in at least the last 50 years. The reasons for this are several according to long-time activist Linda Burnham in this April 2016 piece.

What I Learned From Tickling Apes

Frans de Waal The New York Times
Science nowadays often starts from the assumption of continuity between humans and animals, while shifting the burden of proof to those who insist on differences. Anyone who asks me to believe that a tickled ape, who almost chokes on his hoarse giggles, is in a different state of mind than a tickled human child has his work cut out for him.

How Politics Played a Major Role in the Signing of Jackie Robinson

Chris Lamb The Conversation
Branch Rickey certainly deserves credit for confronting his fellow owners and their racist attitudes by signing Jackie Robinson and, in doing so, advancing the cause of civil rights. However, there is more to this story than Rickey and Robinson. In fact, the desegregation of baseball came after a decade-long campaign by black and left wing journalists and activists.

And a Union

Stephanie Luce Jacobin
After Occupy in 2011, and the wave of fast-food strikes the following year in New York City, the movement to raise wages took a new turn and a bolder stance: $15 an hour and a union. When the campaign first began, that pay demand seemed like a pipe dream. Yet the call for $15 resonated. Now, the movement has scored victories in two of the biggest states in the country.

Bernie Sanders Stresses 'Common Good' in Vatican Attack on Capitalism

Stephanie Kirchgaessner The Guardian
Bernie Sanders delivered one of his most sweeping indictments of modern capitalism and unchecked market forces on Friday at an address at the Vatican. He called for a focus on "the common good" as a moral imperative, drawing on the teachings of the Catholic Church for insights into the plight of the most vulnerable members of society.

Friday Nite Videos -- April 15, 2016

Portside
Berning Ted and Donald on 'NY Values.' Burning Issues: The Money Hidden In Shell Companies. Street Music | Hotel California. The Dirtiest Trade Deal And What's In It. "Because I’m Latino, I can’t have money?" Kids on Race.

Tidbits - April 14, 2016 - Reader Comments: Mine Safety; Panama Papers Fallout; Chicago Police Spying; Minimum Wage Hikes; Bernie, Hillary; whites and the working class; and more

Portside
Reader Comments: Panama Papers fallout; Controversy over whites as part of the working class; Mine Safety and Blankenship Jail Sentence; Minimum wage hikes discussion; Bernie and labor, Wisconsin victory; Wall Street and Glass-Steagall; Hillary and labor, Wall Street and fracking; Pope Francis; Announcements: Gerald Horne book signings - Baltimore, Washington and New York; China Labor Relations; Communists in the Civil Rights Movement

Liberation and Ethics - Is there a connection?

Raymond Suttner Polity (South Africa)
It is no exaggeration to suggest that the legitimacy not only of President Jacob Zuma and the ANC, but also the notion of the liberation struggle itself is in shreds. For some of us, it was unthinkable that such an alliance of forces could degenerate into a moneymaking, lawless and violent operation represented by people who were prepared to trample on the values that we understood the movement to embody. Certainly, this did not happen overnight.