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The Writers Who Went Undercover To Show America Its Ugly Side

Samuel G. Freedman The Atlantic
In the 1940s, a series of books tried to use the conventions of detective fiction to expose the degree of prejudice in postwar America. Their books — along with Sinatra’s song and film; Richard Wright’s memoir, coincided with a surge of activism.

Partisans Had the Courage To Invent a New World

Luciana Castellina Il Manifesto Global
Can it be enough to denounce the evils of the past? I believe it’s not enough if we fail to rise up in protest against the fact that democracy -- in the name of which so many young partisans went to fight, has become marked by inequality and arrogance of the powers-that-be – is unable to make obvious the reasons why it was the bitter enemy of Fascism.

books

Comic Books as Propaganda

Hank Kennedy New Politics
The author is strongest when he deals with the government’s direct attempts to influence public opinion through comics either through the Writers’ War Board (WWB) of World War II or the creation of propaganda comics during the early Cold War.

The Ukraine War

Bruce Hartford Civil Rights Movement Archive
Putin's invasion of Ukraine is not an isolated event. It's part of a broader attack against democracy that echoes events of the twentieth century.

Tidbits - Jan. 20, 2022 - Reader Comments: Supreme Court Spreads COVID, Children, Schools, Omicron; Capitol Armed Coup Plotters; Voting Rights; Real Martin Luther King; Harry Belafonte; Don’t Look Up; Student Activist Scholarships; more....

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Reader Comments: Supreme Court Spreads COVID, Children, Schools, Omicron; Progressives and Democrats; Capitol Armed Coup Plotters; Voting Rights; Real Martin Luther King; Housing and Profits; Don’t Look Up; Student Activist Scholarships; more....

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Has the Myth of the ‘Good War’ Done Us Lasting Harm?

Ben Rhodes New York Times
“Has the prevailing memory of the ‘Good War,’ shaped as it has been by nostalgia, sentimentality and jingoism, done more harm than good to Americans’ sense of themselves and their country’s place in the world?”

Tidbits - Nov. 18, 2021 - Lots of Reader Comments: Kenosha Killer; White Supremacists Attack on Democracy; Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan, Red Army Did; The Harder They Fall; New resource on Black films; Howard Zinn; Announcements; more ....

Portside
Lots of Reader Comments: Kenosha Killer; White Supremacists Attack on Democracy; How Textbooks Taught White Supremacy; Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan, Red Army Did; The Harder They Fall; New resource on Black films; Howard Zinn; Announcements; more ....

Bringing the Supply Chain Back Home

Robert Kuttner New York Review of Books
Is Biden ready to insist that national economic planning is not just ideologically permissible but urgently necessary?
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