Skip to main content

United and Popular Front: Lessons from 1935-2017

Paul Krehbiel CCDS-Discussion
Millions of people are protesting Trump's ascension to power, beginning with the powerful Women's Marches the day after Trump assumed office. Street demonstrations, rallies, mass Congressional phone calls and town hall meetings, and much more have continued since. How best to build this resistance movement? While we can learn from many sources, the success of the United Front and Popular Front strategies of the 1930's and beyond provide important lessons for us today.

Calls for Impeachment Grow; Not ‘McCarthyism’ to Demand Answers on Trump, Russia, and the Election

MoveOn.org; Katha Pollitt MoveOn.org
The calls for Impeachment deepen. Some are concerned that we then get Pence, then what. The impeachment process is drawn out, will take us into next year (2018), maybe even 2019. Organizing at the grassroots and nationally will tie into the elections. This can help us build a mass movement to repudiate the politics of Trump and Trumpism. Defeating a sitting President is no small thing. And, Katha Pollitt on why Russia-gate is not same as 50s McCarthyism.

What’s Hidden Behind the Walls of America’s Prisons

Heather Ann Thompsom The Conversation
It is only when there is a particularly dramatic abuse, or a death that can’t be hidden, that the public gets any glimpse of what life on the inside is like for so many Americans. When ordinary citizens learn of atrocities committed behind bars, most are appalled, but the sad reality is that the public has few tools to gain access to those behind bars. Not knowing is what makes it possible for unimaginable suffering to take place in the name of safety and security.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

Natasha Walter The Guardian
The acclaimed Indian novelist and essayist whose first novel, The God of Small Things (1997) was a prize-winning, international sensation, has just published a new novel that reviewer Walter describes as "a bright mosaic."

The Return of Workplace Immigration Raids

David Bacon The American Prospect /Capital and Main
At the end of February immigration agents descended on a handful of Japanese and Chinese restaurants in the suburbs of Jackson, Mississippi, and in nearby Meridian. Fifty-five immigrant cooks, dishwashers, servers and bussers were loaded into vans and taken to a detention center about 160 miles away in Jena, Louisiana.

By Delaying Chemical Safety Rule, Pruitt Endangers First Responders and Refinery Towns

Daniel Ross Truthout
At 8:48 a.m. on the morning of February 18, 2015, an explosion at the ExxonMobil Torrance refinery in Southern California ripped through the facility with such ferocity, the resulting shockwaves registered on the Richter scale. Dust was scattered over the densely populated neighborhood up to a mile away from the blast. Four workers suffered minor injuries.

Students Urge End to US-Israel Police Exchanges

Nora Barrows-Friedman The Electronic Intifada
The movement, spearheaded by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), aims to hold accountable institutions and companies complicit in the Israeli state’s denial of Palestinian rights. The BNC is explicit in its condemnation of all forms of racism and bigotry including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.