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Tidbits - March 22, 2018 - Reader Comments: Iraq War - 15 Years Later; Industrial Policy or Tariffs, Teachers; Prisons; Iran War?; Readers Debate Churchill, Stalin; Puerto Rico; Social Movements; Remembering Sharpeville; and more....

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Reader Comments: Iraq War - 15 Years Later; Labor, Industrial Policy, Tariffs, Teachers(West Virginia, Florida, Arizona); Prisons; Iran War?; Readers Debate Churchill, Stalin; Capitalism and Racism; Puerto Rico; Resource-Social Movements; Announcements; Remembering Sharpeville; and more....

Why Europe's Center-Left Keeps Losing Elections

Conn Hallinan Foreign Policy in Focus
Voters can't tell the difference between the center left and the center right, and they don't want either. As the center-left accommodated itself to capital, it eroded its trade union base. Where center-left parties embraced unabashedly progressive policies, on the other hand, voters supported them

How to Organize to Win

Marshall Ganz The Nation
Rebuilding the democratic infrastructure is too important to leave up to the consultocracy. Mobilizers only turn out people with whom they agree. Organizers engage these people in reaching out to other people with whom they don’t agree.

2018 Elections - How to Win; What are the Lessons of Lamb's Victory

By Kate Aronoff; Robert Borosage
Conor Lamb ran as an anti-establishment, labor-backed candidate who defended the welfare state. To keep winning, Democrats will need to embrace a bold, redistributive program. If anything, the problem is that the progressive efforts are too weak, not too strong.

Trump’s Trade Gimmickry

Dani Rodrik Project Syndicate
The imbalances and inequities generated by the global economy cannot be tackled by protecting a few politically well-connected industries, using manifestly ridiculous national security considerations as an excuse. Such protectionism is a gimmick, not a serious agenda for trade reform.

Celebrating the Free Jazz Revolution, in Black and White

Michael J. Agovino The Village Voice
This classic treatment of the 1960s-1970s avant-garde jazz in the United States is an essential guide to one of the most dramatic, significant, and fruitful of modern American artistic movements. That movement's impact is still felt in music played in all styles all over the world.