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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.

I Am Not Your Negro

Bill Meyer Hollywood Progressive
Raoul Peck's new film 'I Am Not Your Negro' about James Baldwin has a powerful structure utilizing rare videos and photos and personal writings of Baldwin, and at the same time aligning them with contemporary issues of police brutality and race relations, creates a mesmerizing awareness of the continuity in the struggle for civil rights.

First Presidential Debate: The GOP Was MIA

Eric Alterman Bill Moyers and Company
Besides birtherism and anti-Blumenthalism, Donald Trump basically ignored the entire Republican agenda of the past eight years. The upshot of last night is not merely that one candidate is hyper-qualified to be the next president of the United States and the other one is not even a decent beauty-queen host; it’s that the entire Republican Party agenda of the past eight years has been a hoax.

Colombia Peace Deal Resounds in Farc's Heartland

Sibylla Brodzinsky The Guardian
“The horrible night has ceased,” said Santos, quoting a phrase from Colombia’s national anthem. ‘I can’t believe this is really happening. This is a great day for Colombia,’ says Alonso Cardoza from the remote town of Uribe where the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia formally took its name.

Business-Backed ‘Anti-Union Union’ Falters at Volkswagen

Chris Brooks Labor Notes
The American Council of Employees, a business-financed rival to the United Auto Workers at Chattanooga’s VW plant, no longer meets the minimum membership threshold to qualify for meetings with management as part of the company’s so-called “Community Organization Engagement” policy. It could not prove it had a minimum of 15 percent of the workforce as active members.

Volkswagen Faces Bumpy Road in Challenge to 'Micro-Union'

Daniel Wiessner and Bernie Woodall Reuters
The German automaker's U.S. subsidiary earlier this month brought a case in a Washington, D.C.-based federal appeals court seeking to overturn a vote by a group of skilled trade workers at its Chattanooga, Tennessee, assembly plant to join the United Auto Workers. The dispute is a high-profile test of whether unions, an seek new members by targeting smaller groups, rather than organizing whole plants or companies as in the past.