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The Commonwealth Network: A Theory And Model For Political Production

Bryan Conlon The South Lawn
Here are two articles outlining theory and practice of a model around which the Left could organize cooperative enterprises into a more coherent base upon which to build more powerful, more confrontational politics as well as historic iniquities, or how it would be able to defend the gains it makes. That is how a commonwealth network could be formed and expanded.

The Latest Challenges to the South's Felony Disenfranchisement Laws

Olivia Paschal Facing South
While all Southern states have laws disenfranchising people while they are incarcerated and on probation or parole, Florida stands out with one of the nation's most restrictive felony disenfranchisement laws — one of only four states that impose a lifetime ban on voting for anyone convicted of a felony. The others are Virginia, Kentucky and Iowa.

Census Challenges Jeopardize Efforts Towards Greater Equity in the South

Allie Yee Facing South
Should anything go awry with the 2020 count, it could have political implications affecting how voting districts are drawn or how language minorities can access the ballot. Important funding decisions are also driven by Census data. Nationwide, nearly $600 billion in federal funding is allocated to states based on Census numbers, according to a recent report by the George Washington Institute of Public Policy. Southern states receive $179.2 billion of that total.

Facing a Trump Presidency, South's Immigrant Advocates Build on Networks of Resistance

Allie Yee Facing South
Immigrants have been the target of hateful rhetoric and actions since President-elect Donald Trump launched his campaign over a year ago. Galvanizing his base with promises to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and to ban Muslim immigration, Trump has dramatically shifted the tone of the national conversation on immigration and raised fears that he'll follow through on his harshest campaign promises.

labor

Organizing The Organized Is Now Key To Union Survival

Steve Early Counter Punch
Virtually all labor organizations face the expanded challenge of recruiting and maintaining members in already unionized workplaces where the decision to provide financial support for the union has, for better or worse, become voluntary.

Budding Liberal Protest Movements Begin to Take Root in South

By Herbert Buchsbaum New York Times
“We have people dying every day just because they don’t have access to health care,” one protester, Shayna Adelman, 32, said in an interview before she was jailed. “It’s morally repugnant to me. Sometimes you have to take dramatic action to get people’s attention.”

A Southern Workers’ Movement Can Change the Nation

Eric Fink Talking Union, a DSA labor blog
Unions can win in the South, and doing so is an essential part of the broader goal of defeating the reactionary political and economic agenda nationwide. The key is cultivating and mobilizing community support for workers’ rights to organize.
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