Doing this as a “let’s all listen together and discuss” thread was tempting but I think the way they explain things is so solid that there’s not much left to say except “Wow, I didn’t know that.” Which is something I said a lot; perhaps a tribute to my ignorance.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is not a book I have read. Naturally, parts of it have leaked into my consciousness from various sources – it’s a remarkably pervasive fountain of memes.
Time for your periodic dose of Jay Smooth.
Whenever I drive down to Dulles Airport (IAD) outside of Washington, I go over the Potomac near Point of Rocks, which is just outside of Harpers’ Ferry. Perhaps those names don’t ring bells, but it was a place of some historical importance in 1859.
I have come to see James Baldwin as one of the greatest American writers. 
His writing flows perfectly from soft and thoughtful to adamantine; it’s hard for me to describe it because I don’t play at that level and I never will.
The US regime will never fully abandon its slave-keeping ways until it has been 1) disarmed, 2) dismantled, 3) reconstructed with a constitutional government that respects its own rules and does not vote-suppress, red-line, commit crimes against humanity, or slavery.
You can be sure as water’s wet – if someone doesn’t tell cops “don’t intrude on people” (You know, like the constitution tried to…) they’re going to explore the grey zones around the people’s rights. And by “grey zones” that means “areas where they can pretend not to understand” or “it looks grey to me.”
Happy July 4th, American imperialists!
This is a useful chart, if you find yourself discussing migrant arrests.
In the Year of The Pig [wc] was one of the first feature-length documentaries attempting to reveal the foolishness and corruption of the Vietnam War.