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The Chicago Cubs and Socialism

Harry Targ Diary of a Heartland Radical
ubs in the World Series. Yes it could be! Who would have thought a Brooklyn-born socialist senator from Vermont, would win 13 million votes, capturing 23 primaries and caucuses; that a scrappy senior would inspire the youth of the country, and a whole country? Who would have thunk it? Can the Cubs also inspire their fans, and keep hope alive? Can the Cubs capture the spirit of the country as we prepare for the November elections? Yes we can has new meaning this year!

Tidbits - September 29, 2016 - Reader Comments: 2016 Elections - Left Underestimate Trump?; Protest Vote - Lesson from the Past; Garrison Keillor; Charlotte; Colin Kaepernick; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments: Millennial Sit-in Against GOP Politics of Hate; Call to End Voter Suppression; Does the Left Underestimate the Danger of Trump?; Thinking About a Protest Vote - Lessons from the Past; Garrison Keillor and Trump; Why the Protests in Charlotte; Police Violence and Racism; Prison Strike; Women's Boat to Gaza; Colin Kaepernick; Chelsea Manning; Life After the USSR; Jewish Grandparents Message; Announcements: Standing Rock Call-in; and more....

Building Alliances to End Gender-Based Violence at Work

Tula Connell Solidarity Center AFL-CIO
There is a specific set of behaviors that constitute gender-based violence at work that includes sexual violence, verbal abuse, threats of violence and bullying. A meeting in Brazil sponsored by the International Trade Union Confederation and the Solidarity Center discussed a campaign to shape a worker-driven International Labor Organization standard ending gender-based violence at work, based about successful initiatives by local worker organizations.

Sartre and the Birth of Radical Existentialism

Ray Monk The New Statesman
A granular review of three recent books on the the political and intellectual legacy of French Marxian existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. As the reviewer notes, if you want to know why 50,000 people showed up to pay their respects at the writer/activist's 1980 funeral, these new books may provide the answer.

Blood in the Water

Terry Hartle Christian Science Monitor
This fresh look at the 1971 Attica, New York prison uprising, which was brutally repressed by then-Governor Nelson Rockefeller, is not just a history. It is an intervention into contemporary debates about the U.S. prison system.

The Problem with Trump Isn't His Debating Skills

Adam Gopnik The New Yorker
There was something disturbing in seeing Trump once again being normalized by being made part of an ordinary contest in coherence and “presentation” and “preparation.” In truth, that was the least of it, because what was really outside any norm of decency was what he thought even after you had dutifully distilled away the incoherence and the manic improvisations.

Pronoun Privilege

Elizabeth Reis The New York Times
At some colleges and universities, it’s common for students to introduce themselves, in class or in student group meetings, by name, followed by a string of pronouns. “I’m Lizzie; she/her/hers,” for example. I decided to adopt a compromise solution for this semester: students should list their pronouns along with their names only if they were so inclined. I also said that as a class we will refer to one another by our first names or the pronoun "they" (grammar evolves!).

Making Violence Visible: From #BlackLivesMatter to #StoptheBleeding Africa

Emily Williams and William Minter Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership
The violence plaguing Africa remains far too invisible to most Americans and the world. Unlike the pillage of Africa in earlier periods of the slave trade and colonial rule, illicit financial transactions are most often hidden from public view. They happen through fraudulent invoicing of trade, "creative accounting" by multinational corporations, tax giveaways by African governments, and the use of shell companies based in tax havens around the world.