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The Fiery Cage and the Lynching Tree, Brutality’s Never Far Away

Bill Moyers Bill Moyers and Company
I couldn't sleep the night we heard the news of the Jordanian pilot’s horrendous end, burned alive in an iron cage. ISIS be damned! I thought. But then I was haunted by the story of our own barbarians, of decades of lynchings. By insiders. Our neighbors, friends, and kin.

Confessions of an Erratic Marxist in the Midst of a Repugnant European Crisis

Yanis Varoufakis Yanis Varoufakis
Yanis Varoufakis is currently the Greek Minister of Finance. In this essay, posted to his website one year ago, he explains why he believes that radicals must work to stabilize the Eurozone on a more equitable basis so as to mimimize human suffering and to provide the time and space to develop a humanist alternative to Corporate Europe. He also describes the influence of Karl Marx on his views and asserts the necessity to embrace -- critically -- Marx's insights.

LBJ Doesn’t Deserve the Credit for Selma

Diane Nash The New Journal and Guide
My husband James Bevel and I conceptualized and wrote the plan that became the Selma Right to Vote movement. We believed that if Negroes in Alabama could vote, they could better protect their children from things like the Alabama church bombing.

Stiglitz: A Fair Solution to the Greek Debt

Joseph Stiglitz Project Syndicate
What is needed is not structural reform within Greece and Spain so much as structural reform of the Eurozone and a fundamental rethinking of the policy frameworks that have resulted in the monetary union’s spectacularly bad performance. Failure to restructure Greece's debt would be a failure of democracy and morality.

Friday Nite Videos -- February 6, 2015

Portside
The Super Bowl commercial you didn't see. The Black Panther Party: Vanguard of the Revolution. The worst trade deal you never heard of. A true story of fast food, immigration and justice. Diane Nash: A Bio.

A Bigger Tent: Can Richard Trumka Save the Labor Movement?

Amy B. Dean Boston Review
Trumka’s ambition to create connections between union members and non-union workers is still far from completely realized. Some say those links barely exist, even in blueprint form. Yet, his analysis points to an economy that is hurting all working people. This translates into a focus on immigration reform, ending mass incarceration and challenging inequality.

Tidbits - February 5, 2015 - Football, Domestic Workers, Greece, Keystone XL, Ukraine, movies, and more...

Portside
Reader Comments- Sports, NFL, Tax Subsidy; Unions Today; Domestic Worker Organizing; Students Against Sweatshops; Greece, Germany & the EU; TPP; Israel, Iran, Iraq; Keystone XL; Cuba; Ukraine; Selma; American Sniper; Resource: Where Do We Go from Here? Mass Incarceration and the Struggle for Civil Rights; After the Greek Elections New York forum- Feb 6 - new location Hold the Date- Fighting Corruption in America and Abroad - Fordham Law School - New York - Mar 6

The Case of the Black Professors Who Vanished from Brooklyn College

Ronald Howell Brooklyn Ron
The film Selma and the murders in Ferguson and New York have re-focused much discussion on civil rights and equality or lack of. Affirmative action programs - a victory from the civil rights movement - have largely been dismantled by judicial rulings. Today there is the attempt to de-fund the historically Black Colleges. In Brooklyn, the largest African American community in the country, there are new reports of 'vanishing African American professors' at Brooklyn College

Net Neutrality Wins: The FCC will propose strong Title II regulation

T.C. Sottek The Verge
'The Internet must be fast, fair, and open.' The biggest revelation from the proposal is the decision to lump wireless networks in with wired broadband, something the FCC has avoided doing for years thanks to enormous pressure from Verizon and AT&T.