Category Archives: Politics

Audio: IF Stone On Vietnam 1965

BerkeleyA

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American ground troops had been in Vietnam for only a couple of months, but they represented a significant escalation in the history of the war. Listen to IF Stone’s speech at the Vietnam Teach-in, Berkeley, California on May 21, 1965….

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The Binh Xuyen: Order and Opium in Saigon

Bảo Đại and his followers on accession

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In 1950 the CIA’s Colonel Lansdale reported that:

“The Binh Xuyen were participating in one of the world’s major arteries of the dope traffic, helping move the prize opium crops out of Laos and South China. The profits were so huge that Bao Dai’s tiny cut was ample to keep him in yachts, villas, and other comforts in France.”More>>

Audio: The Highlander School

Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool, during...

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Highlander has provided training and education for the labor movement in Appalachia and throughout the Southern United States. During the 1950s, it played a critical role in the American Civil Rights Movement. It trained civil rights leader Rosa Parks prior to her historic role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, as well as providing training for many other movement activists including Martin Luther King, Jr., James Bevel, Bernard Lafayette, Ralph Abernathy and John Lewis in the mid- and-late 1950s. Listen to an NPR story about the school…

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Related: Employing Music in the Cause of Social Justice

Harry Bridges and the Formation of the ILWU

 

Bridges became the leader of San Francisco’s beleaguered dock workers and helped found the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). In the 1934 maritime strike, Bridges displayed his steadfastness by surviving relentless slanderous attacks on his character and principles, which in turn inspired broad numbers of port workers to follow his leadership… More>>

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