Snacks for Thought

• From Frances Langum, Crooks and Liars:  Democrats need to do better about Getting the Message Out.

  Democrats and Progressives are already up against voter suppression, the attack on unions and dark money. Add to that an uninformed electorate that you have actually managed to get to the polling place, but who does not know how critical down-ballot races are? Because no one in the party bothered to tell them?
  
  We saw this problem in bold letters in Wisconsin last night.

  Not to mention it much: Where are the drives to get Voter ID for poor people, elderly people, students, and people of color?  At least fight disenfranchisement.  At least make a stink.  If necessary, clog the issuing offices with busloads of people.  Organize!  (Hmmmmm.  Maybe this is akin to belling the cat.)
  
  ETA: Voter suppression not imagination.
  
• Also from Crooks and Liars:  Video and description of Florida woman giving former Governor Rick Scott what for.  Because he should be ashamed of himself.
• Fifty years later, the story of one of the victims of the Texas Tower sniper.
• Two from walk on:  "Historians Should Try to Talk to People Who Aren't Historians" and "A Settler Colonial Global History," the latter of which is long and has footnotes.  (I love footnotes as long as I don't have to do them myself.) A sample:

  A settler colonial history would also emphasize the similar global practices used to deny indigenous land rights and preserve the best lands for settler populations. Often settler regimes pursued the subjugation of indigenous groups through contrasting yet complementary policies. In Rhodesia, the Land Apportionment Act of 1930 evicted Black Africans to clear space for yet-to-arrive White settlers. Yet the 1951 Native Land Husbandry Act declared the settler government’s intent to create “yeoman farmers” out of individual Black Africans.[17] As individuals, Africans could eke out an existence on marginal land; such cases of ostensible inclusion worked to dilute group claims to land. This phenomenon of eviction followed by individual allotment was also exemplified by the Dawes Act in the United States.