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The Black Novelist History Forgot

Robert B. Stepto  The Washington Post
Himes was a pivotal and versatile post WW II-era American novelist whose work influenced several generations of African American and other writers. A new biography of the novelist is drawing national attention.

What Ireland Can Teach Europe

Conn Hallinan Foreign Policy in Focus
Europeans who think the current crisis is unique forget that between 1845 and 1848, 1.5 to 2 million Irish fled their famine-blackened land (while another million or more starved to death) in large part due to the same kind of economics Europe is currently trying to force on countries like Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, and Cyprus. Today, the migrants are from Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, but the policies are the same.

China Aims to Spend at Least $360 Billion on Renewable Energy by 2020

Michael L Forsythe The New York Times
The investment commitment made by the Chinese, combined with Mr. Trump’s moves, means jobs that would have been created in the United States may instead go to Chinese workers... Greenpeace estimates that China installed an average of more than one wind turbine every hour of every day in 2015, and covered the equivalent of one soccer field every hour with solar panels.

The Nature of Mass Demonstrations

John Berger Red Wedge
The recreation of the world must be daring, bold, avant-garde even, but it must also be collective. When we speak of "rekindling the revolutionary imagination," that is what we intend to communicate. John Berger was essential in teaching this to us. And for that we are forever in his debt.

The Volunteer Army and What We Really Mean When We Salute the Troops

Barrett Swanson The Guardian
The U.S. has now effectively traded a universal military draft for the far more insidious policy of economic conscription. And while it has become something of a ritual for civilians to address veterans with: “Thank you for your service,” to commend those who have voluntarily put themselves in harm’s way, the ritual also betrays a more profound reality. We are thankful we ourselves aren’t economically desperate enough to have to enlist in this country’s endless wars.