Newsletter 3.13.18

Hi all,

Hope the weather is warm where you are. Here is this week's newsletter, please enjoy! 

-- Adam, Florence, and Nima

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The Rising Ghosts of Labor in the West Virginia Teacher Strike - Sarah Jaffe, The New York Times (3/5/18)

Labor unrest in West Virginia has a long and proud history. Sarah Jaffe shows how this past very much connects to the recent teachers' strike. (Also, check out Jaffe's interview with Citations Needed from February on the "welfare dog-whistle".)

‘Modernization’: Media’s Favorite Euphemism for Military Buildup - Adam Johnson, FAIR (3/12/18)

Adam dissects U.S. media’s favorite tautology justifying never-ending money for bloated defense budgets. After all, everyone wants to be “modern,” right?

“The Young Karl Marx”: a Film Whose Time Has Come - Kate Aronoff, The Intercept (3/13/18)

Marxism is sexy again, a new film makes it even sexier. 

We Made A Documentary Exposing The ‘Israel Lobby.’ Why Hasn’t It Run? - Clayton Swisher, Forward (3/8/18) 

Al Jazeera produced a scathing indictment of Israel lobbyists that has yet to see the light of day. Why?

This Is the Best Chance Yet to Stop the U.S. War on Yemen. Where Are the Major Human Rights Orgs? - Sarah Lazare, In These Times (3/7/18)

Leading ‘human rights’ groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch won’t endorse a bill in Congress to end US support for Saudi bombing of Yemen, citing a disingenuous, boutique carve out of never formally opposing or supporting war, despite this not really being true historically. 

The dark roots of AIPAC, ‘America’s Pro-Israel Lobby’ - Doug Rossinow, The Washington Post (3/9/18)

The powerful lobbying group AIPAC was established as a rapid response PR firm for Israel after it committed war crimes. 

NYT’s Bari Weiss Falsely Denies Her Years of Attacks on the Academic Freedom of Arab Scholars Who Criticize Israel - Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept (3/8/18)

New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss has routinely called for professors to be denied tenure for expressing critical views of Israel. She now denies doing so––but GG has the receipts. 

Peace as Armageddon: The liberal freak-out over Kim Jong-un - Tim Shorrock, The Baffler (3/13/18)

Because the opposite of what Trump does is, by definition, good, liberals are now insisting meeting with foreign leaders is a sign of weakness. What a difference two years makes.

Why Are US Troops Still in South Korea, Anyway? - Jeff Faux, The Nation (3/6/18)

Spoiler alert: there's no actual reason other than agitating North Korea.

Amazon Partnership with British Police Alarms Privacy Advocates - Ava Kofman, The Intercept (3/9/18)

The world's fourth largest corporation that also happens to run a surveillance system in your home may not be totally on the up-and-up. 

For NYT, a Trillion Dollars’ Worth of A-Bombs Is ‘Little’ Response to Russia - Adam Johnson, FAIR (3/7/18)

The New York Times continues its brave reporting detailing how the biggest empire in the history of the known universe is somehow lagging behind Russia and, thus, needs more missile systems.