[Marxism] Michael Heinrich on RTP Bolivia
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Discussing the complete edition of Marx's London notebooks of 1851. https://twitter.com/rtp_bolivia/status/1169447352047931392 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Navigating the Zeitgeist | Socialist Review
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Louis Proyect wrote One important point to make about Helena Sheehan’s political odyssey — from a conservative Catholic upbringing through the radicalism of the US left in the 1960s and early 70s, on to Official Sinn Fein and the Communist Party of Ireland, and then into the Irish Labour Party — is that it demonstrates with crystal clarity the importance of the theory of state capitalism for revolutionary politics. [...] full: http://socialistreview.org.uk/449/navigating-zeitgeist Helena Sheehan's earlier book "Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: A Critical History" is a must-read by a remarkable person, a chronicling of the dialectics of nature debate, beginning with Engels and Marx's ideas on the developmental history and the structure of natural science. Sheehan describes their impact on 20th century historians and philosophers of human and other natural sciences. She has chapters on the Marxism of the 2d International, that of Russian Marxism and pre-revolutionary debates, the debate that took place in the period following the October Revolution, and the Dialectics of Nature debate during the Comintern period. In the 2017 afterword, when this book originally published in 1985 was republished by Verso, among other things she discusses the crucial role of Bukharin in the shaping of the debates, in works that have subsequently come to light, and Bukharin's cri de couer for socialist humanism. Sheehan writes with much feeling for Marx's view of science in a "more contextual, sociohistorical" context, probing into the role of ideology in relation to science and the philosophy of science. She has informative profiles of the major discussants in this debate, including not only Engels and materialism and dialectics but Liebnecht, Kautsky, Max Adler, the Polish Marxists, the Russian Machists , Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Pavlov, Lysenko, Lukacs, Korsch and the neo-Hegelian revival, Gramsci, Bernal, JBS Haldane, Joseph Needham, Maurice Cornforth, and most interestingly, the brilliant flash of intuition and intense study on the part of the ill-fated Christopher Caudwell, killed in his first battle encounter in Spain, then the Frankfort School, Lefebvre, Brecht, Reich, Hook, Eastman and Hermann Muller. A fascinating read, and one which among other things prompted in me a new appreciation of the need to jettison the linear in favor of a dialectical approach to our most important theoretical/practical problems, and not only in science - an immense but essential task. In her new book among other topics she tells the story about writing this book and the political climate in which she conducted her research in the International Lenin School in Moscow. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Nationalism, Borders, and the State – The Brooklyn Rail
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Making life better for migrant workers would thus come at the expense of “[making] everybody in America poorer,” in Sanders’s view. Corbyn, his counterpart across the pond, evidently concurred with this view. Asked what a “Jobs First Brexit” would look like, in terms of free movement, the Labour leader replied: “What there wouldn’t be is wholesale importation of underpaid workers from Central Europe in order to destroy [working] conditions, particularly in the construction industry.”11 Hence the campaign slogan to “Build it in Britain,” with its complaints about international capital and cheap foreign labor.12 It would be too much to equate this with the recycling of the old fascist slogan of “British jobs for British workers” by Gordon Brown, Corbyn’s predecessor, but it is not far off.13 https://brooklynrail.org/2019/09/field-notes/Nationalism-Borders-and-the-State _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Death Blow Is Coming for Syrian Democracy
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * NY Times Op-Ed, Sept. 4, 2019 The Death Blow Is Coming for Syrian Democracy By Leila Al-Shami. The Syrian regime is determined to reconquer all of the territory it has lost. Aided by Russian bombers and Iranian troops, and emboldened by its success in terrorizing the populations of Ghouta and Daraa into submission, President Bashar al-Assad’s government is now preparing to attack Idlib, the last remaining province outside of his control. Idlib is home to some three million people, about half of them displaced, or forcibly evacuated, to the province from elsewhere. Many are crowded into unsanitary camps or sleeping in the open. In recent days, regime troops have massed on Idlib’s border and leaflets have been dropped on residential areas calling on Syrians to accept “reconciliation” or face the consequences. Meanwhile, Russia has been sending reinforcements to its naval base in Tartus. The Syrian troika — Russia, Iran and Turkey — designated Idlib a “de-escalation zone” last year. But what happens there next could potentially undermine the so-far mutually beneficial agreement among the three countries. De-escalation in Idlib genuinely serves Turkey’s interests: It keeps both the Syrian Kurds and the Assad regime away from the border, it preserves Turkey’s relevance to a long-term settlement, and it houses Syrians who would otherwise try to join the 3.5 million refugees already in Turkey. Turkey has shown its commitment by setting up observation posts around the province and by establishing the National Liberation Front, an amalgam of Free Army and Islamist militias that follow Turkish orders. Russia and Iran, on the other hand, have always seen the de-escalation zones as tactical and temporary. Just as Daraa and Ghouta were abandoned, so (they hope) Idlib will be returned to Mr. Assad’s control. The Syrian regime and its allies justify their coming attack on Idlib by saying that they want to root out jihadists. Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham, which is led by the Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, dominates some 60 percent of the province and has an estimated 10,000 fighters, according to the United Nations special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura. The repeated descriptions of Idlib as a “terrorist hotbed” support the regime’s narrative that all opposition to its rule consists of terrorist groups; it also absolves the international community of any responsibility to protect civilians. But this characterization of the province is inaccurate. The people of Idlib have been at the forefront of the struggle against Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham, or H.T.S. Since Idlib’s liberation from the regime — partially in 2012 and then fully in 2015 — many of its citizens worked to build a free society that reflected the values of the revolution. According to researchers, more than 150 local councils have been established to administer basic services in the province; many held the first free elections in decades. Long-repressed civil society witnessed a rebirth. Independent news media, like the popular Radio Fresh, were set up to challenge the regime’s monopoly on information. Women’s centers grew, empowering women to participate in politics and the economy. H.T.S. has threatened these hard-won achievements. The group has tried to embed itself within the local population. Since the fall of Aleppo in 2016, it has intensified its attempts to impose its ideology by taking over local institutions and establishing Shariah courts. It’s been ruthless with its perceived opponents. In December, it arrested four prominent activists displaced to Idlib from Madaya, ostensibly on charges of “media work against H.T.S.” Raed Fares, one of the founders of Radio Fresh, survived an assassination attempt, as did Ghalya Rahal, who established the Mazaya Organization, which runs eight women’s centers. Fighting between H.T.S. and other rebel groups has left many civilians dead, and a spate of assassinations and kidnappings for ransom has left the local population fearful and angry. Syrians did not risk their lives and rise up against Mr. Assad’s dictatorship to replace it with another. Many local councils issued statements rejecting H.T.S.’s authority in local governance or declaring their neutrality in fighting between rebel groups. Hundreds of local activists coordinated opposition to H.T.S.’s control and called for demilitarization of their communities through media campaigns and public demonstrations. Courageously, they replaced the black jihadist flag with the flag of the revolution. In April, medical workers held protests against infighting and kidnapping. Women organized
[Marxism] Aerial footage shows total devastation in Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian - The Washington Post
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[Marxism] Four Points on the Hong Kong Protests
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[Marxism] bellingcat - The “Hardcore” Russian Neo-Nazi Group That Calls Ukraine Home - bellingcat
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[Marxism] The Educated Working Class – The Brooklyn Rail
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * For the first half of the 20th century, a college education was largely reserved for the wealthy, but the post-war boom brought changes to American higher education. Government assistance programs like the GI Bill and federal student loan programs allowed for a great expansion of college enrollment. A college degree was seen as a ticket to a good-paying job and a rise in social standing. Things changed again, though, as the post-war economic boom came to an end. By the 1970s the trajectory of upward mobility was no longer guaranteed by the possession of a degree and by the 1980s the era of the educated underclass had begun. In The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility, Gary Roth leads us through this history and, with thorough research, exposes the numerous myths and misconceptions that abound in the connections between education, class, and upward mobility. His goal is to show that a recreation of the working class is taking place as expanded numbers of college students enter into the world of work. full: https://brooklynrail.org/2019/09/field-notes/The-Educated-Working-Class _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Answering some questions about Robert Brenner | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Recently a dissertation student in Brazil asked me I’d be willing to answer some questions he had about Robert Brenner. I replied that I would be happy to but would like to do so on my blog since others might be interested in my replies. https://louisproyect.org/2019/09/04/answering-some-questions-about-robert-brenner/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Paradox of Syria’s Reconstruction - Carnegie Middle East Center - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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Re: [Marxism] Fascism--What Is It Anyway?
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Quite a critical review. I wonder if Roberto has responded anywhere? Amith R. Gupta On Wed, Sep 4, 2019 at 8:51 AM Louis Proyect via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > POSTING RULES & NOTES > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > * > > Review of: > > The Coming of the American Behemoth > The Origins of Fascism in the United States, 1920-1940 > By Michael Joseph Roberto > Monthly Review Press, 2018, 413 pages plus 33 pages of notes, $20 > paperback. > > https://solidarity-us.org/atc/202/what-is-fascism/ > _ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com > _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: In the mafia, there is a name for what Pence and Barr did
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * (From a friend.) FYI: I learned a new vocabulary item today: Kicking up. In case you haven't seen this already: From the opening paragraph: "As a federal organized crime prosecutor, I learned that the mafia uses a practice known as "kicking up" or "paying tribute" to the boss. Essentially, all members of a mafia family must make sure that some of their earnings end up in the boss' pocket." In the mafia, there is a name for what Pence and Barr did https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/04/opinions/pence-barr-money-trumps-pocket-honig/index.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] ISIS exerting its influence in camps in NE Syria
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * While we rightly keep in mind the rise of fascist and far right forces in the US and Europe, there is also the continued threat of fascism in the Islamic world. I'm referring to the Islamic State. Here's one example of how it's a ticking time bomb. From the article: Half a year after the territorial defeat of the Islamic State, the vast sprawl of tents at the al-Hol camp is becoming a cauldron of radicalization. About 20,000 women and 50,000 children who had lived under the caliphate are held in dire conditions at the camp, which is operated and guarded by 400 U.S.-supported Kurdish troops. With the men of ISIS imprisoned elsewhere, the women inside the fences of al-Hol are reimposing the militant group’s strictures, enforcing them upon those deemed impious with beatings and other brutality and extending what residents and camp authorities call a reign of fear. Several guards have been stabbed by women who concealed kitchen knives in the folds of their robes. Women are threatened for being in contact with lawyers who might get them out of the camp or for speaking with other outsiders. A pregnant Indonesian woman was murdered, medical officials say, apparently after speaking to a Western media organization. Images of her body suggest she might have been whipped. “It’s happening at night and it’s happening in the shadows, but no one informs on who did it,” said a senior member of the camp’s intelligence department. “They’re afraid of each other here.” Kurdish security officials, affiliated with the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), say they have the troops to guard the facility but do little else. “We can contain the women, but we can’t control their ideology,” the intelligence official said. “There are many types of people here, but some of them were princesses among ISIS. There are spaces inside the camp that are like an academy for them now.” Nor is this growing menace confined to al-Hol. Aid workers from the smaller al-Roj camp, an hour’s drive away, describe frequent disputes between Iraqi and other foreign residents: In one instance, an Iraqi woman was barred from communicating with her neighbors after she removed her veil. In another, the children of alleged Islamic State fighters tried to bury a young Iraqi boy alive. As conditions deteriorate, the inhabitants remain in limbo. Some of the women want to return to their home countries, but few foreign governments are eager to take them back, fearing in part the risk that unrepentant ISIS adherents might pose and that evidence against them might not hold up in court. The SDF says it cannot be counted on to hold the camp residents indefinitely. But neither the United States — which ultimately holds sway in this corner of Syria — nor European and Arab allies have advanced a workable solution. “Given that ISIS had women’s units and also taught them how they should still spread the idea and ideals of the caliphate once they are back in their countries of origins, they are a serious risk to the society, so their children could be also,” said an Arab intelligence official In a video posted online in July, several women, fully veiled and holding the Islamic State’s black-and-white banner, said they were delivering a message from al-Hol. “Brothers,” one urges, “light the fire of jihad and free us from these prisons.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/at-a-sprawling-tent-camp-in-syria-isis-women-impose-a-brutal-rule/2019/09/03/3fcdfd14-c4ea-11e9-8bf7-cde2d9e09055_story.html -- *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black Jacobins" by C. L. R. James Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Apartheid Had Always Been the Plan - CounterPunch.org
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * What do wealthy capitalists do in response to the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation or a biosphere teetering on the edge of collapse? Why they build enormous, fortified bunkers deep underground, of course. Here they can live like the descendants of the mammals that survived the extinction of the dinosaurs in the late Cretaceous and early Paleocene around 65 to 100 million years ago. The long deceased necrolestes patagonensis, whose shockingly appropriate meaning for this comparison is “grave robber,” are the descendants of the cronopio who narrowly escaped the dinosaurs’ fate by burrowing deep under the earth’s soil. But these modern day mammals will apparently live in far greater luxury than these furry predecessors when the planet suffers from the next cataclysmic event. Several of these soon to be denizens of the lavish underworld are showcased in a recent article by Julie Turkewitz in the New York Times entitled “A Boom Time for the Bunker Business and Doomsday Capitalists.” And their lairs, while devoid of anything remotely tasteful, are bedecked in the latest technological conveniences and comforts, including movie theatres, swimming pools and yoga studios. What would it feel like to be doing a hatha stretch beneath a deadened world? full: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/04/apartheid-had-always-been-the-plan/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Bring down the government | Richard Seymour on Patreon
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[Marxism] The Twittering Machine V: We Are All Liars | Richard Seymour on Patreon
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[Marxism] Stop Killer Cops: Police Brutality, Mass Incarceration, and the Liberal Establishment | Editors | AAIHS
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[Marxism] The Gospel of Oil | Boston Review
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Oil’s grip on U.S. society is as much religious as economic, a new history shows. http://bostonreview.net/philosophy-religion/kim-phillips-fein-gospel-oil _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Competition, Inequality
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Kim Moody reviews: Persistent Inequalities: Wage Disparity Under Capitalist Competition By Howard Botwinick Haymarket Books, 2018, 370 pages, $28 paper. https://solidarity-us.org/atc/202/inequalities-persist/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fascism--What Is It Anyway?
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Review of: The Coming of the American Behemoth The Origins of Fascism in the United States, 1920-1940 By Michael Joseph Roberto Monthly Review Press, 2018, 413 pages plus 33 pages of notes, $20 paperback. https://solidarity-us.org/atc/202/what-is-fascism/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Top Interior official who pushed to expand drilling in Alaska to join oil company there
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Washington Post, September 4, 2019 Top Interior official who pushed to expand drilling in Alaska to join oil company there By Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson Last summer, Scott Pruitt left his job heading the Environmental Protection Agency and within a few months had started consulting for coal magnate Joseph W. Craft III. Three weeks after leaving the Interior Department, energy counselor Vincent DeVito joined Cox Oil Offshore, which operates in the Gulf of Mexico, as its executive vice president and general counsel. Now, Joe Balash — who oversaw oil and gas drilling on federal lands before resigning from Interior on Friday — is joining a foreign oil company that’s expanding operations on Alaska’s North Slope. Balash, who had served as the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for Land and Minerals Management for nearly two years, confirmed in a phone interview Tuesday night that he will begin working for the Papua New Guinea-based Oil Search, which is developing one of Alaska’s largest oil prospects in years. The company is drilling on state lands that lie nearby — but not inside — two federal reserves where the Trump administration is pushing to increase oil and gas development: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. During his time at Interior, Balash oversaw the department’s work to hold lease sales on the coastal plain of the 19.3 million-acre refuge and to expand drilling on the 22.8 million-acre reserve to the west of the refuge. Both sites are home to large numbers of migratory birds as well as caribou, polar bears and other wildlife. Balash declined to disclose his specific role and said that while he would oversee employees who would work with the federal government on energy policy, he would abide by the Trump ethics pledge barring appointees from lobbying their former agencies for five years. “I’ll supervise those who do,” he said, referring to Oil Search staffers with business before the federal government, “but I have a ton of restrictions dealing with the Department of Interior. Most of Oil Search’s properties are state lands. There isn’t really the federal nexus.” Oil Search has been expanding aggressively in Alaska, where it says it has acquired more than 700 million barrels of crude reserves. In May, the company received the go-ahead from the Army Corps of Engineers and it plans to ramp up production operations this year and over the winter. Balash noted that Interior “was not even a cooperating agency” in the decision to grant Oil Search the recent permit under the Clean Water Act. Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, said in an interview that the fact that Balash has been working to make more land available for exploration near Oil Search’s ongoing development raises concerns. “If this ends up being legal, it’s further confirmation to me that our laws are simply inadequate,” Brian said. “It is hard to have confidence that decisions he was making while he was working for the taxpayers were not impacted by his aspirations or hopes to go work for a company that was materially affected by his work.” [After the high life at EPA, Scott Pruitt embarks on a job hunt] Asked about Balash’s job plans last week, neither Oil Search nor Interior would comment on the matter. “As a matter of policy, I’m unable to comment on business rumors,” Oil Search spokeswoman Amy Burnett said in an email. Balash has extensive experience in Alaska state politics. He served as the deputy commissioner for Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources and ran the agency on an acting basis for just over a year, before becoming chief of staff for Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska). He joined Interior in December 2017. Earlier, Balash served in the governor’s office as a special assistant on energy and natural resource development. And prior to that, he worked on the joint legislative budget and audit committee and served as chief of staff to the state Senate president. Balash also attended high school in Fairbanks. Ethics experts said that regardless of the Alaskan’s job description, his decision to join an oil company raises potential conflict of interest issues, although part of it would depend on the nature of his negotiations with the firm before he left public office. Under 18 U.S. Code Section 208, a federal official is barred “from participating personally and substantially in a particular Government matter that will affect his own financial interests, as well as the financial interests of” his spouse, children and “a person with whom he
[Marxism] Fighting Fossil Fuels in South Africa: Campaigners Invoke Specters of Climate Chaos - CounterPunch.org
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[Marxism] Andrew Luck and the NFL’s Looming Crisis of Race and Class | Dave Zirin | The Nation
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