Journalism

Jon Wiener: We’re a little late talking about Critical Race Theory (CRT). In the past three and a half months, the Fox News Channel has talked about it nearly 1,300 times. It’s being banned from public schools and colleges in something like 13 Republican states. But what is critical race theory? And why is this happening now? The first thing you ever published on the topic was in the Harvard Law Review a long time ago—in 1988.
Kimberlé Crenshaw: “Race, Reform, and Retrenchment.” The basic point of that article was that wherever there is race reform, there’s inevitably retrenchment, and sometimes the retrenchment can be more powerful than the reform itself. And some of what we are experiencing right now is exactly that.
… continued at TheNation.com, HERE   7-5-2021

Rachel Kushner: “Apartheid, and the constant violence and humiliation that is enacted by Israel to maintain that apartheid, is never peaceful.”
read our interview about her visit to the Shuafat refugee camp, in Jerusalem, at TheNation.com, HERE
5-14-2021

In 2013, Republican strategists were honest about why Mitt Romney lost. They had a chance to heed the lessons—and then Trump blew it all up.
read at TheNation.com HERE   3-15-21

Rennie Davis, who died on February 2, was one of the New Left’s most talented organizers—and also one of the sanest and best-liked.
. . . continued at TheNation.com HERE
2-9-21

Donald Trump has been bad for America but good for American book publishers.  Dozens of books about Trump were published in 2020, some selling millions of copies.  Here is a highly personal assessment.
Best book that doesn’t mention Trump until the end:  “A Promised Land” by Barack Obama.  During the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill crisis, Obama reports, Trump called to suggest that he be put in charge of plugging the well to stop the leak.  Told that the well was almost sealed, he offered instead to build “a beautiful ballroom” on the White House grounds. . . .
continued at LATimes.com, HERE

Forty years after his murder in New York City, we remember John Lennon’s record of political engagement as a champion of the anti-war movement and a self-styled “instinctive socialist” — which brought him into conflict with Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover. 12-8-2020
Read at Jacobin.com: HERE

I know it’s unlikely that Trump would change the channel from Fox to Netflix and watch the new Aaron Sorkin film The Trial of the Chicago 7. . . . But if he did, he might call his attorney general, Bill Barr, and say, “Why don’t we do to the leaders of Black Lives Matter what Nixon did to the Chicago 7?”
. . . continued at The Nation, 10-30-2020, HERE

With the Democratic National Convention meeting virtually this year, the fate of another longstanding political tradition is also in jeopardy.
For decades, protesters have brought their issues to the streets of the Democratic convention’s host city, demanding that the party address controversial issues it might rather ignore. . . .
1960 was the year of the first big demonstrations at a Democratic convention. That year, the event was held in Los Angeles, and the party nominated John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson at the brand-new Sports Arena. Outside the arena, Martin Luther King Jr. joined thousands of marchers picketing to demand a strong civil rights plank in the Democratic platform.
…continued at the LA Times 8-16-20 HERE

July 4, 1969, was a day of festive parades and picnics across Southern California: Pacific Palisades had its annual “Americanism” parade, the West Covina parade had two Vietnam vets for its grand marshals and Claremont had an “Old Tyme Parade.”
Venice didn’t have a parade at all.
continued at LATimes, HERE

Take our LA-in-the-Sixties quiz:
1. “Tanya” was:
A. Gidget’s best friend
B. a Rolling Stones song
C. the nom de guerre of Patty Hearst in the Symbionese Liberation Army
D. A legendary back-up singer for Ike and Tina
. . . continued at the LA Times HERE  5-24-2020