1949 - Paul Robeson was scheduled to sing in Peekskill, New York when a riot was staged by hundreds of members of the Ku Klux Klan, American Legion, and New York State Troopers.
It was later revealed that the local police helped coordinate the mass assault on African-American attendees. The violence, it was said, was “tolerated – if not organized – by local police and FBI.”
Some of the white mob chanted, “We’re Hitler’s boys. We’re going to get Robeson. Lynch Robeson!” Among them was the police chief’s son.
That evening several crosses were lit in the hills above the fair grounds and the American Legion bragged that they had run “that [N-word] Robeson” out of town.
With the deplatforming of forums where trumpists and right-wing figures congregate, there's a lot of chatter about whether and when private entities have the right to remove speech, and what obligations come with scale.
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The most important - and overlooked - area of this discourse is the role that monopoly plays, and the role that anti-monopoly enforcement could play.
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In short, the fact that being removed from Twitter and the app stores and Facebook and Amazon is so devastating is best addressed by weakening those companies by spreading out our digital life onto lots of platforms.
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The Democrats are at least two parties. The progressive wing of the party (which is by no means unified) and the finance wing of the party, which is also the party leadership.
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During the leadership race, the progressive wing was represented by @SenSanders and @SenWarren; the former wants to minimize the role of markets in our lives, the latter wants to redeem markets by regulating them. It's a distinction with a difference, but I donated to both.
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Both wings of the party have prominent representatives in Congress; Sandersism are most visibly associated with @AOC (whom I donated to) and Warrenism is embodied by @RepKatiePorter (likewise), who was also one of Warren's law school proteges.
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