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"Cesar Chavez" the Film Premiers in New York City

Melissa Castellanos Latin Post
The new film, which won the Audience Award at SXSW last week, tells the story of the iconic labor leader's fight to unionize farm workers, the inception of the United Farm Workers of America, and highlights the fight for better pay and conditions for farm laborers in the fields of California. "Cesar Chavez," which was screened at the White House on Wednesday, hits theaters March 28th.

Tidbits - March 20, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - Tony Benn; Labor organizing; BDS and American Jews; Seniors; Mayor de Blasio; Education - Charters, Testing, Children's Literature, Adjuncts; Real Irish American history; Keystone XL; Neil deGrasse Tyson on Cosmos; Announcements: GLobal Protests Against Racism and Fascism - this Saturday; Cecily McMillan Trial Update; New books/resources - New Labor in New York; Living Wage Calculator; Getting Back to Full Employment; Truth About Three Mile Island

Why Anti-Choicers Won't Win

Jessica Valenti TheNation.com Blog
Republicans can continue their desperate move to convince Americans that being anti-choice is actually pro-woman. But we are not stupid, and they are not fooling anyone. The more anti-choice politicians, pundits and activists underestimate women by continuing with their rhetorical sleight-of-hand, the more they reveal themselves. The anti-choice movement cannot erase us from our own lives by insisting that abortion isn't necessary.

Israel's War on American Universities

Chris Hedges Truthdig
The banning of Students for Justice in Palestine at Northeastern University, replicates sanctions being imposed against numerous student Palestinian rights groups across the country. Israel's heavy-handed reaction to these campus organizations is symptomatic of its increasing isolation and concern about waning American support and have alienated traditional supporters of Israel, including many young American Jews.

The Cold War that Threatens Democracy

Tom Hayden The Peace & Justice Resource Center
This new Cold War is not about communism taking over the world. It is more about returning to 19th century balance of power interests, borrowing the phrase John Kerry has used against Putin. It is about dividing up the spoils of the first Cold War among the triumphal capitalist democracies, as if Russia is defeated and short-lived. Pushing Western capitalism and NATO towards Russia was sure to touch off the current escalation, and worse may come.

Huge Chicago Vote - 87 Percent Vote for a $15-an-Hour Wage

John Nichols TheNation.com Blog
The results were overwhelming. With 100 of the 103 precincts where the issue was on the ballot reporting, 87 percent of voters were backing the $15-an-hour wage. Just 13 percent voted against the advisory referendum. That huge level of support will strengthen the hand of activists who are encouraging the city council to consider a major wage hike.

The Passion of Rob Ford, or the Neoliberal Making of Toronto’s Municipal Crisis

By Paul Cohen Dissent
The real story in Toronto, then, is not Rob Ford. It is how three decades of creeping neoliberalism have made it possible for one of North America’s most diverse cities in one of the west’s most robust democracies to elect a right-wing populist. It is how successive federal governments—Liberal and Conservative alike—shrank government spending by 20 percent as a share of GDP since the early 1990s and flattened the tax structure.

Budding Liberal Protest Movements Begin to Take Root in South

By Herbert Buchsbaum New York Times
“We have people dying every day just because they don’t have access to health care,” one protester, Shayna Adelman, 32, said in an interview before she was jailed. “It’s morally repugnant to me. Sometimes you have to take dramatic action to get people’s attention.”

Wes Anderson and the Old Regime

by Eileen Jones Jacobin Magazine
With The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson has reached the dizzying point of fantasizing about feeling nostalgic for nostalgia itself.