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This Week in People’s History, May 7–13

Portside
Statue, in Hanoi, commemorating the victory at Dien Bien Phu
Colonialism Is Hard to Kill (in 1954), “It Was the Right Thing to Do” (1929), “Join, Or Die” (1754), Apartheid’s End (1994), Class War in the Midwest (1894), Unsafe at Any Speed (1969), “I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night” (1949)

We Need “Outside Agitators”

Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix Jacobin
Pro-Palestine student protesters are being smeared as puppets of shadowy “outside agitators.” The presence of community members and experienced activists in the protests is nothing to be ashamed of: we need outside agitators to build a better world.

Where’s the Barbed Wire?

John Lahr London Review of Books
Hartigan’s book is the first full-length examination of Wilson’s life and art since his death in 2005 from liver cancer. There is both a need and demand for the story of how he and his work came to be.

Left Unions Were Repressed Because They Threatened Capital

Victor G. Devinatz Jacobin
During the 20th century’s two red scares in US and Canada, Wobblies and Communist-aligned unions faced fierce repression from employers and government. They were targeted because they were seen as posing a real threat to the capitalist social order.

Banned by Germany

Yanis Varoufakis Project Syndicate
Germany prohibited a Palestinian Congress from taking place, arrested its Jewish supporters, and barred one of its organizers, former Greek finance minister, from entering the country: Powerful evidence Germany's pro-Israel Consensus is breaking down

Sunday Science: How Does Gravity Escape a Black Hole?

Sabine Hossenfelder Sabine Hossenfelder
If nothing gets out of a black hole, how does gravity do it? Something with virtual gravitons? Is this really necessary? It's tricky question, but this is what I can say without resorting to equations.

Setting Our Sights on a Third Reconstruction

Max Elbaum Convergence
If our goal is a robust democracy and working-class power, the experiences of the Civil War-Reconstruction era and the Second Reconstruction of the 1950s-’60s provide crucial lessons for breaking out of our current impasse.