Dispatches From the Culture Wars – January 16, 2024
- The Year Labor Took Center Stage in the Climate Movement
- The Epstein List
- Cutting Edge of the Right
- Co-ops Save Small Businesses
- Black Power and Brazilian Soccer
- Assault on Higher Ed
- Asking About the R-word – Racism
- LaPierre Takes His Leave
- ADL and Musk
- GOP State Houses on Culture Warpath
The Year Labor Took Center Stage in the Climate Movement
By Katie Myers
Grist
2023 was marked by symbiosis between the labor and climate movements. Workers across industries and geographies loudly declared that a world in which their safety and well-being are disregarded is even more dangerous to them and to others in a time of energy transition and climate crisis.
By Li Zhou
Vox
The documents reference roughly 150 of Epstein’s associates, including Clinton and Trump, but don’t provide significant new information so much as they offer a more in-depth look at the people in Epstein’s circles and a detailed view of the scope of his abuse. In doing so, they renew scrutiny on some of these associates.
By Paul Rosenberg
Salon
Few Americans have heard of a rapidly-growing, anti-democratic religious movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation. But a new book from Canadian scholar André Gagné, “American Evangelicals for Trump: Dominion, Spiritual Warfare, and the End Times,” could change that, as the NAR seems poised to play an even bigger political role in 2024.
By Jaisal Noor
Yes!
A growing number of cities are recognizing the benefits of worker cooperatives by investing millions of dollars in their growth. Baltimore, though, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars subsidizing large corporations, but has yet to invest in supporting worker cooperatives through financing or training. Common Ground’s workers found the embrace of Baltimore’s thriving cooperative ecosystem.
Black Power and Brazilian Soccer
By Guilherme Silva Pires de Freitas
and Felipe Antonio Honorato
Black Perspectives
José Reinaldo de Lima was one of the most lethal strikers of Brazilian football in the 1970s and is still considered by many fans as the greatest player in the history of Clube Atlético Mineiro, a popular and traditional soccer team of the South American country. He celebrated each goal with a raised arm with a closed fist, the salute of the Black Panthers.
By Fabiola Cinemas
Vox
The political right is increasingly targeting education, with deliberate efforts to “take on” elite schools by stripping them of federal student loan money and undermine diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, and a parallel movement to undo K–12 education with laws that limit the teaching of history or ban books and classroom libraries.
Asking About the R-word – Racism
Instead of the nuances of racial inequality being understood, the issue is portrayed as a simple matter of people saying or doing bad things to each other, and we get a tiresome to and fro between those “playing the race card” and others “in denial”.
By Daemon Fairless and Danny Hakim
CBC News
Wayne LaPierre has been the CEO and executive vice president of the NRA since 1991, but he’ll be stepping down from that post as he's set to face a civil trial on allegations of corruption and misuse of funds. It’s just the latest in a series of legal battles, and it has some questioning whether the NRA’s days as the face of American gun rights could be coming to an end.
By Mari Cohen and Alex Kane
Jewish Currents
Yaël Eisenstat’s departure from ADL is the most prominent instance of post-October 7th dissent within the organization. CEO Jonathan Greenblatt’s applause of Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter), allegedly led to Eisenstat’s departure. Greenblatt has repeatedly extolled the billionaire’s business prowess and, recently, his pledge to censor pro-Palestinian phrases on X.
GOP State Houses on Culture Warpath
By Nathalie Baptiste
Huffpost
In the first few days of this year, lawmakers in several states have already introduced, or carried over from previous sessions, bills to continue their assault on progressive ideals — an escalation of the culture wars that have become central to Republican agendas in recent years, despite a lukewarm response from voters.