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Tidbits - October 30, 2014 - Two Week's Worth

Portside
Reader Comments- Ebola, Capitalism, Cuba, Disease Control; Elections- Black Vote, Voter Restrictions; War against Islamic State; Detroit; U.S. Jews Debate Israel; Berkeley Free Speech Movement, Education- Philadelphia and Common Core; Mexico, NAFTA; Wealth Inequality; New Voters in Ferguson; Announcements- Black & Brown Unity Event-Los Angeles-Nov 8; New York City Labor Chorus Honoring Pete Seeger-New York-Nov 15; SHE'S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE'S ANGRY-New York showing-Nov 16

In Cold War, U.S. Spy Agencies Used 1,000 Nazis

By Eric Lichtblau The New York Times
U.S. agencies directly or indirectly hired numerous ex-Nazi police officials and East European collaborators who were manifestly guilty of war crimes. Information was readily available that these were compromised men. The wide use of Nazi spies grew out of a Cold War mentality and McCarthyism. Mr. Hoover, the longtime F.B.I. director, and Mr. Dulles, the C.I.A. director.believed "moderate" Nazis might "be useful" to America, records show.

Will Catalonia Secede From Spain?

Andy Robinson The Nation
Catalonia has decided to recast its planned November 9 referendum on independence as a nonbinding consultation.Why are so many Scots (45% in September's referendum) and Catalans (50% in recent polls) set on leaving now? The answer is surely a desperate search for sovereignty with longstanding resentments over discrimination by the power centers in their respective states. Like many other Europeans, they feel cheated by their governments' response to the Great Recession.

Nurses Emerge as Front Line 'Climate Workers'

Tamanna Rahman, Brendan Smith Truthout
Many of the most deadly diseases on earth - malaria, dengue and yellow fever, encephalitis and cholera - are highly climate sensitive, and are thriving as patterns of temperature, precipitation, and sea levels shift in their favor. They are spreading to new parts of the globe, including the US. Instead of celebrating the bravery of the nursing profession, politicians and media reacted to the Ebola outbreak by blaming nurses for their carelessness.

Edward Snowden and the Golden Age of Spying - A TomDispatch Interview with Laura Poitras

Laura Poitras and Tom Engelhardt TomDispatch
Citizenfour, Laura Poitras's new film on Edward Snowden, with breaking news at film's end: there is indeed at least one new, post-Snowden whistleblower who has come from somewhere inside the U.S. intelligence world with information about a watchlist (that includes Poitras) with "more than 1.2 million names" on it and on the American drone assassination program. No matter how fiercely the government may set out after whistleblowers, there will be more. It's unstoppable.

How Labor Can Save Itself

Michael Hirsch The Indypendent
A book review by Michael Hirsch of Stanley Aronowitz's latest book, The Death and Life of American Labor: Toward a New Workers’ Movement, Verso 2014. Stanley Aronowitz is a former factory worker and organizer with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the Oil,Chemical and Atomic Workers. Mr Hirsch writes that Aronowitz argues for direct action, workplace democracy and that unions become partners in job and community struggles. He calls this a book of wonder.

Blocking the Youth Vote in the South

By Evan Walker-Wells Facing South
These efforts to curb young and minority voters come as youth -- and especially minority youth -- are becoming increasingly larger parts of the American electorate. Voters between 18 and 29 years old were critical to President Barack Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012. In North Carolina in 2008, the only age group of which a majority voted for Obama was voters aged 18 to 29, according to CNN. Obama won the state by just 14,177 votes.

Mississippi, Burned How the Poorest, Sickest State Got Left Behind By Obamacare.

By Sarah Varney Politico
Why has the law been such a flop in a state that had so much to gain from it? When I traveled across Mississippi this summer, from Delta towns to the Tennessee border to the Piney Woods to the Gulf Coast, what I found was a series of cascading problems: bumbling errors and misinformation; ignorance and disorganization; a haunting racial divide; and, above all, the unyielding ideological imperative of conservative politics.

Fanfare Without the Fans

By Sean Dinces Jacobin
Far from signaling the retreat of the state from investment in urban economies, this process has witnessed the shift of robust public spending on cities away from public goods like affordable housing and toward spaces and structures designed to provide the elite with new opportunities to consume conspicuously.