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Weekly Toll: The Last Shift

Jordan Barab Confined Space
Fire engine on the street at night.
On average, almost 100 workers are killed every day in the United States due to traumatic injuries suffered at work.   Ten times as many die from occupational diseases. The accounts below give you a taste of the PREVENTABLE carnage.

How Pandemic Inequality Has Killed 21,000 a Day

John Queally Common Dreams
A new report explains how inequality contributed to the death of 21,000 people each day of the pandemic while the wealthiest collectively got $1.2 billion richer every 24 hours.

Small Kindnesses

Danusha Laméris Healing the Divide
As plague years continue, California poet Danusha Laméris writes of “brief moments of exchange” that sustain hope and belief in what is holy.

A 21st Century New Deal for Jobs - Congressional Progressive Caucus and Allies Unveil Principles for Infrastructure and Bold Proposal to Create Millions of Jobs

Congressional Progressive Caucus Congressional Progressive Caucus
A new infrastructure proposal, a 21st Century New Deal For Jobs, boldly invest $2 trillion to fix our nation's crumbling infrastructure, create millions of jobs, reduce inequality, and clean up our environment, was introduced in Congress today by the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). The CPC is the largest caucus within the House Democratic Caucus, with over 70 members standing up for progressive ideals in Washington and throughout the country.

Urgent Call: On Day 40 of Mass Palestinian Hunger Strike, Advocate for a Military Embargo of Israel

Mahmoud Nawajaa Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC)
Hundreds of Palestinian political prisoners are now approaching their critical sixth week on hunger strike, and they have made an urgent appeal for international solidarity. The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) calls for immediate international action towards implementing a comprehensive military embargo on Israel, similar to that imposed against apartheid South Africa in the past.

How the Light Gets In

H. Patricia Hynes Portside
In these times of climate change denial, macho military chest-beating, stagnant wages, and soulless extremes of wealth and poverty, light-bearing cracks are all that we have. The northern Great Plains, likely the richest wind regime in the world, the potential of tribal wind power exceeds 300 gigawatts across six states, according to the Department of Energy. This motherlode is equivalent to about half of the current electrical generating capacity in the United States.

Tidbits - May 25, 2017 - Reader Comments: Impeachment - Differing reader responses; Gerrymandering Racial Segregation; White Working-Class Voters and Future of Progressive Politics; COSATU Bans Zuma from Speaking at its Events; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments: Time for Impeachment - Differing responses from Portside readers; Voting - Gerrymandering, and Racial Segregation - Today; White Working-Class Voters and the Future of Progressive Politics; Chelsea Manning is Free!; News from South Africa -- COSATU Bans Zuma from Speaking at its Events; Jewish Voice for Peace video - Israel Palestine Conflict 101; and more...

In Grim Times, Brazil Young Workers Take Charge of Future

Tula Connell Solidarity Center AFL-CIO
U.S. and Brazilian union activists joined May Day celebrations in São Paulo. More than 14.2 million Brazilians were without a job in March. With young workers and workers of color especially hard hit by rising unemployment and proposed legislation that would undermine fundamental worker rights, they are standing up for the their future by mobilizing in the streets, through their unions and other associations.

Terror in the French Revolution and Today

Samuel Farber International Socialist Review
The author argues that the Terror of the French Revolution was a price worth paying, and that the lessons from overthrowing the old regime should temper today's trend of maligning oppressed people's resort to violence as itself a rationale for ongoing class injustices. The reviewer, no critic of revolutionary struggle, argues that the author overemphasizes the pursuit of vengeance then and now involved at the expense of politics and a weighing of class forces.