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L.A. teachers launch union drive at Alliance charter schools

ZAHIRA TORRES Los Angeles Times
Teachers at the largest charter school organization in Los Angeles have launched a drive to unionize, a move that could alter the path of school reform in the city. Nearly 70 teachers and counselors at Alliance charter schools say they intend to partner with UTLA. More than 100,000 students, or 15% of LAUSD enrollment, attend charters, the most of any system in the U.S.

Communists for Austerity

John Carl Baker Jacobin
In criticizing capitalism for mass consumption instead of exploitation, The Americans uses Soviet characters to valorize austerity.

The Evocative Paintings of Chicago's Jazz Age Modernist

Marc Vitali and Linda Qiu WTTW - Public TV in Chicago
Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist, the first retrospective of the American artist’s paintings in two decades, originated at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University on January 30, 2014, the start a national tour. It has now stopped at its rightful home: Chicago.

The Legacy of Frantz Fanon

Hamza Hamouchene CounterPunch
Fanon was not a Marxist but he strongly believed that capitalism with imperialism and its divisions enslave people. His precocious diagnosis of the incapability of the nationalist elites in fulfilling their historical mission demonstrates the continuing relevance of Fanon’s thought today.

The Myth of Voter Fraud

Lorraine C. Minnite Bill Moyers and Company
"I think the phony claims and renewed political chicanery are a reflection of the fact that a century-and-a-half after the Civil War, and 50 years after the signing of the Voting Rights Act, a deeper struggle for democracy, equality and inclusion continues." -- Lorraine C. Minnite

Fight for Black Voting Rights Precedes the Constitution

Van Gosse The Boston Globe
There’s a comforting myth in the United States that suggests African-Americans steadily moved from absolute slavery to complete freedom following the Civil War. This, however, obscures how hard many Americans of every race had fought against racism since the Revolution. It was a struggle that went deeper than slavery and right to the core of who was an American.

Friday Nite Videos -- Feb 28, 2014

Portside
Beethoven in Hong Kong. Big Chill Caused by Polar Vortex. World Science U — Special Relativity Trailer. Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley.

Beethoven in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Festival Orchestra in a flash mob performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - "Ode to Joy"