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Ferguson, Racial Tropes and the Politics of Scarcity

Jonathan M. Feldman CounterPunch
The successes of the civil rights movement were hardly based on simply revealing the racism of the United States. The Black Panthers and civil rights movements were about creating alternative bases of power, e.g. structures be they in law, mass mobilizations or community organizations that went beyond venting a narrative.

Angela Davis: ‘There is an unbroken line of police violence in the US that takes us all the way back to the days of slavery’

Stuart Jeffries The Guardian
The shift of capital from housing, jobs, education, to profitable arenas has meant there are huge numbers of people everywhere in the world who are not able to sustain themselves. They are made surplus, and as a result they are often forced to engage in practices that are deemed criminal. And so prisons pop up all over the world, often with the assistance of private corporations who profit from these surplus populations.

Movie: Selma

One of the decisive battles against segregation took place here, in the heart of the Old South, and in plain view of the whole world. A star cast, and talk of Oscars. Opening soon.

#BlackLivesMatter Takes the Field: A Weekend of Athletes Speaking Out

Dave Zirin The Nation
This movement is not only explicitly about the right to live a life with more opportunity, but the right to simply live. As Howard Zinn said, "You can't be neutral on a moving train." The train is leaving the station, even in the world of sports. The marches in the streets are not done. The die-ins disrupting traffic are not done. And, as part of this moment, athletes are speaking out, with African American sports stars in the lead.

They Fear and They Kill

Marge Piercy MRzine
Official government statistics document that African American young men are killed by the police at a rate quadruple that of the whole population. In the period 1999 through 2011, police officers killed 4,531 people. Marge Piercy, in poem, captures that reality of being young, African American, Hispanic, Asian or Native American Indian, and a police victim.

Tidbits - December 11, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - CIA Lied About Torture; A New Civil Rights Movement?; Grand Jury Injustice - Justice Demanded; Members of Congress (and staffers) join protest; Illegal Cop Murders; Police Reform? - Bolder Steps Needed; Low Wage Workers: 'We Can't Breathe'; Slavery, Founding Fathers and Torture; Congress Plots against Pensions; Pardon Snowden, Manning and Leonard Peltier; Israel Lobby and Ukraine; War on Terror; Israel, U.S. and space weapons; New Republic; Correction

Friday Nite Videos -- December 5, 2014

Portside
Chokehold Death Protests. Economic Agenda for America. Springsteen: My Oklahoma Home. She's Beautiful When She's Angry. The Feather and the Cannonball.

Eric Garner Chokehold Protests in New York

Thousands take to the streets in New York in protest the decision not to prosecute Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who killed Eric Garner using a chokehold.
 
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