• Democratic self-governance — for Detroit citizens, it’s an apparent luxury, not an inviolable right.
• Alex Gourevitch had not one, but two exemplary contributions to the skirmish du jour, the characteristics and politics of “post-work.”
• The American Prospect’s Jamelle Bouie comments on the enormous wealth chasm between whites and blacks.
• Sexuality and struggle in the Brazilian women’s movement, an excerpt from Emma Sokoloff-Rubin’s new book.
• A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities again highlights the stinginess of our inhumane welfare system.
• We all know workers are getting the shaft, but how small is labor’s piece of the pie? Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster do some quantifying.
• The Guardian’s transcript of Bradley Manning’s lengthy, stirring statement, which he read this week at a pre-trial hearing.
• Have some extra time on your hands? Read Adolph Reed’s perceptive-if-prolix essay on cultural politics.
• From the MIA: In a speech to parliament just a few years before he was deposed in a US-backed coup, Chilean President Salvador Allende announced his commitment to a peaceful road to socialism; post-putsch, Ralph Miliband analyzed the coup’s implications for socialist transitions.
• James Baldwin eviscerates William F. Buckley in a 1965 debate at Cambridge University.