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Ending the U.S. Embargo on Cuba at the Grassroots

Peter Miller and Rita Barouch NACLA
With Cuba policy under the Trump administration still uncertain, Cuba solidarity activists seek to turn the tide against the embargo at the local and state level.

Harvesting Union Rights in the Field

Sonia Singh Labor Notes
Unlike most guestworkers, many in North Carolina have a say in their working conditions and seniority rights because they belong to a union, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee.

American Poets, Refusing to Go Gentle, Rage Against the Right

Alexandra Alter The New York Times
There seems to be a growing audience for poetry that speaks to the anxieties of our era. Traffic to the academy’s online poetry archive has surged in recent months. Maya Angelou’s poem, “Still I Rise,” has been viewed nearly 470,000 times since Nov. 8, compared to about 280,000 times in that period the previous year, while Langston Hughes’s poem, “Let America Be America Again,” has been viewed some 280,000 times, up from about 88,000 times.

The Bernie Sanders Show is interactive TV talk for the era of Facebook activism

Adam Gabbatt The Guardian
The Bernie Sanders show, which is filmed in the Democratic party’s DC-based studio, is atypical in ways beyond just presentation. Sanders has decided to bypass traditional media and broadcast exclusively on Facebook. And it is attracting – to borrow a Sandersism – a huge audience.

Science for the People

Science for the People editorial team Science for the People
By reorganizing Science for the People, we aim to revitalize its legacy of documenting the use and abuse of science and to organize scientists to contribute to human liberation and transformative social change. As a coalition of progressive and radical science workers and supporters, Science for the People finds the alternatives of “science for science’s sake” and “science for the progress of capitalism” equally unacceptable.

A New Beginning

Clémentine Autain and David Broder Jacobin
Early results place left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon third, behind Macron and Le Pen. But his campaign, under the banner of France Insoumise, has succeeded in shifting the debate in France’s presidential election to the Left, forcing discussion of democracy and redistribution into a terrain previously dominated by the Right. What does it mean for France’s left?

Kicking Them While They’re Down: Trump’s Plan for Appalachia

Kenneth Surin CounterPunch
Appalachia, the federally defined region that consists of 490 counties in 13 states, is one of the poorest regions in the U.S., beset with unemployment but more importantly, with desperately low income levels among those with jobs. In 2016, 63% of Appalachian voters supported Donald Trump. And his proposed budget would reward them by making them even poorer, while eliminating the agency that compiles the statistics on Appalachian poverty, income, and employment.