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Friday Nite Videos -- July 12, 2013

Portside
Movie: Fruitvale Station. Music: 'We Are the 99'. Is Snowden a Hero? -- A debate. Working at Walmart, on food stamps. What you need to know about the secret FISA court. Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) shows what force feeding at Guantanamo is really like.

Elizabeth Warren: Support the 21st Century Glass Steagall Act

Elizabeth Warren elizabethwarren.com
Elizabeth Warren has joined forces with Senators John McCain, Maria Cantwell, and Angus King to introduce the 21st Century Glass Steagall Act of 2013 to reinstate and modernize core banking protections.

A Nearly Hidden Horror of the Sequester

Carl Bloice Black Commentator
The sequester means that most federal budgets must be reduced by as much as five percent. Housing is taking a huge hit. I’ve been stewing about it for days now. I want to ask the important people in Washington – starting with the one in the White House – how could they let something like this happen? How, in the richest, most powerful country on the planet, could they visit such cruelty on people?

Outsourcing, Union Busting, Murder: Who Could Ask for More in a Novel?

Eleanor J Bader, Truthout Book Review Truthout
The sixth in Timothy Sheard's well-established series of Lenny Moss mysteries. In it, hero Moss, a tireless, working-class college dropout, articulates a solid message about worker solidarity and union militancy that is both refreshing and inspiring.

What Dr. King didn't Say - Misremembering the March on Washington

Moshe Z. Marvit Washington Monthly. July/August 2013 issue
The March on Washington grew out of a clear understanding of the problems facing African Americans, and presented a discrete list of demands, including a comprehensive and effective civil rights law that would guarantee access to public accommodations, "decent housing, adequate and integrated education, and the right to vote." Also a "massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers - Negro and white - on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages"

Tidbits - July 11, 2013

Portside
Reader Comments: Citizens United; Zimmerman Trial; Egypt; Plane Wreck at Los Gatos("Deportee"); Elizabeth Warren; Capitalism & Austerity; Voting Rights Act; American Left; Progressive Patriotism & July 4th Songs; Fracking and Greens; Announcements - Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions - New York - Jul 24 - Jewish Voice for Peace; Left Labor Project - New York - Aug 1; Call for articles on building international labor solidarity - Working USA; Paid Internship Opportunity

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.