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#BlackLivesMatter Takes the Field: A Weekend of Athletes Speaking Out

Dave Zirin The Nation
This movement is not only explicitly about the right to live a life with more opportunity, but the right to simply live. As Howard Zinn said, "You can't be neutral on a moving train." The train is leaving the station, even in the world of sports. The marches in the streets are not done. The die-ins disrupting traffic are not done. And, as part of this moment, athletes are speaking out, with African American sports stars in the lead.

Progressive Caucus, Labor, Activist Groups Urge 'No' Vote on Spending Bill

Seung Min Kim; Jordan Fabian; Lindsay Koshgarian
Congressional Progressive Caucus urged members to reject the so-called Cromnibus if a provision which helps big banks trade derivatives in units backstopped by a government guarantee remained in the spending measure. This kind of activity was a cause of the 2008 crisis - it a giveaway to wealthy campaign donors and Wall Street banks. Analysis for more information about key takeaways from the proposed spending bill, as well as a few controversial surprises.

What Does it Take to Have an Open and Honest Conversation About Torture?

Shayna Plaut, Contributing Editor, Human Rights Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership
One thing that I wanted to learn in talking to a torturer - I guess every person is different - but I wanted to see: did this destroy him? Did this destroy his soul? Is he like a broken man wracked with guilt? And he wasn't.

They Fear and They Kill

Marge Piercy MRzine
Official government statistics document that African American young men are killed by the police at a rate quadruple that of the whole population. In the period 1999 through 2011, police officers killed 4,531 people. Marge Piercy, in poem, captures that reality of being young, African American, Hispanic, Asian or Native American Indian, and a police victim.

Tidbits - December 11, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - CIA Lied About Torture; A New Civil Rights Movement?; Grand Jury Injustice - Justice Demanded; Members of Congress (and staffers) join protest; Illegal Cop Murders; Police Reform? - Bolder Steps Needed; Low Wage Workers: 'We Can't Breathe'; Slavery, Founding Fathers and Torture; Congress Plots against Pensions; Pardon Snowden, Manning and Leonard Peltier; Israel Lobby and Ukraine; War on Terror; Israel, U.S. and space weapons; New Republic; Correction

Trade Unions Go On The Offensive In India

David Browne Equal Times
Indian unions protest government plans for massive privatization and deregulation in the name of more ‘flexible’ labour laws that will impact precarious and unprotected workers particularly hard. The proposed changes, which will bring down social standards and social indicators, have been developed without any form of consultation or dialogue with labour unions whatsoever.

Honduras: The Deep Roots of Resistance

By Alexander Main Dissent Magazine
Washington policymakers fail to see that social movements, rather than individual leaders like Zelaya, Chávez, or Morales, are the most enduring and potent force of change in Latin America today. These movements were spurred by the very economic policies that the United States has promoted in the region, and repression won’t make them go away.

Job Announcement: 2014 Moral Freedom Summer Organizer Fellowship

North Carolina NAACP
The North Carolina NAACP seeks to place 50 highly-trained paid Moral Freedom Summer organizers in pairs in local communities across the state to deepen and strengthen the Forward Together Moral Movement. The program will last approximately 12 weeks, from May 15th to August 2nd.

Cowboy Indian Alliance and other Unlikely Environmental Alliances

By Zoltán Grossman Submitted to Portside
The Cowboy Indian Alliance may seem like an unprecedented type of environmental movement--multiracial, rooted in struggling rural communities, and often more effective in its grassroots organizing than traditional urban-based white upper/middle class environmental groups--but it is also part of a long, proud tradition that has been conveniently covered up in American history.

‘Net Neutrality’ Turnaround as F.C.C. Plans for a Fast Lane

By Edward Wyatt The New York Times
The proposed rules are a turnaround for the agency on what is known as net neutrality — the idea that Internet users should have equal ability to see any legal content they choose, and that no providers of legal content should be discriminated against in providing their offerings to consumers.