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Why Progressives Need a National Electoral Strategy - and Fast

Bill Fletcher, Jr. Alternet
In the current cycle are two related but distinct problems. First, progressives have no national electoral strategy to speak of. Second, elections cannot be viewed simply or even mainly within the context of the pros and cons of specific candidates. Progressives are very divided about the relative importance of electoral politics, and our near exclusive focus on the candidates, that there is no coherent national progressive electoral strategy.

Germany: What Die Linke Should Do

Bernd Riexinger Jacobin
The German right made stunning gains in this month's regional elections. The Left must rise to the challenge. We spend too much time speaking to people instead of with them, we make too many promises to do something for others instead of inviting them to get active themselves, to fight and organize with us.

Hillary Clinton's Win in New York Raises Tough Questions for Bernie Sanders and His Supporters

D.D. Guttenplan The Nation
Bernie Sanders should keep running, but he needs to lay out what exactly he's fighting for. Time and again the Sanders challenge has forced Clinton off dead center. Sanders's supporters can also take comfort in the certainty that it is they - the millions of $27 donors-who represent not only the future of the Democratic Party and the only hope for democracy in this country.

Lost Illusions:The Americans Who Fought in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939

Caleb Crain The New Yorker
Based on personal stories of Abraham Lincoln Battalion survivors, Hochschild writes of their courage in an unequal contest where the Fascists had the unstinting support of German and Italian governments while the Democracies embargoed all arms to the Spanish government, an alliance of centrist and leftist parties-this while the Soviets worked to tamp down popular land and factory seizures for fear of inciting those capitalist Democracies to outrightly side with the Right

Unelectable? Only to the Super-Rich Elite

Conrad Landin Morning Star
Bernard certainly is a socialist and accepts and understands the class division. The very wealthy run the society because of their wealth. They control the economy, and they control politics because the money they get from the economy helps them to do so. It’s not their actions, it’s not even their school that’s the problem, the problem is their function in society.

Keep Harriet Tubman -- and All Women -- Off the $20 Bill

Feminista Jones The Washington Post
There’s no place for women – especially women of color – on America’s currency today. Reprinting this Op-ed from last year in light of the US Treasury's announcement that abolitionist Harriet Tubman will appear on front of the $20 bill, replacing former President Andrew Jackson and becoming the first woman featured on U.S. paper currency in modern times.

"Democracy and Education" at 100

Catharine R. Stimpson Public Books
John Dewey's classic has had a profound impact on how progressives and others think about education. In this review, Catherine R. Stimpson evaluates this landmark book of educational theory and finds that it has a lot to tell us about social life outside the classroom as well.