Joe Atkins

Recent Stories

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OPINION: Sycophantic Dem Establishment Aligning Against Bernie Sanders

University of Mississippi professor Joe Atkins, a Bernie Sanders supporter, argues that the Democratic "establishment" is working against the Vermont senator's chance at the presidency.

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OPINION: Mississippi: A Microcosm of the U.S.

Way back in 1964, the year of "Freedom Summer" and the disappearance and death of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, the "singing journalist" Phil Ochs offered this elegy: "Here's to the land you've torn out the heart of, Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of"

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OPINION: NAFTA to USMCA, An Even Trade?

"Demagogues have winning ways, especially with the man who has no one else to whom he can turn in his troubles," Mauldin wrote in his book, "Back Home," first published in 1947.

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OPINION: Huddled Masses Yearning to Break Free

The world's largest gulag today is in the United States, where a quarter of the world's prison population is behind bars, and Mississippi is at the heart of that gulag with the nation's fifth-highest incarceration rate.

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OPINION: The End of the Eastland Machine

Like his mentor, Eastland, whose long stretch of power included a statewide network of lieutenants, cronies, operatives and ward-heelers who could make or break an upcoming politician’s career, Brad Dye came out of a different era—one with some striking contrasts to today’s politics.

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OPINION: New Orleans, A Good Idea

A different kind of musician, Bob Dylan, says New Orleans is a city where the ghosts of the dead and the laughter of the living are never far apart.

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OPINION: Immigration and the First Amendment

My late friend Marty Fishgold, a longtime labor writer in New York City, liked to say that "good journalism is a subversive activity" because it tells truth to power.

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OPINION: Tickled to See Teenagers Restarting the Revolution

Writer and champion of social justice Dorothy Day once said that "fighting for a cause is part of the zest of life. ... What we need is a revolution. Each one of us can help start it."

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OPINION: Art and Politics in Mississippi

This is a state justly proud of its contributions to the nation's musical, literary and artistic heritage.

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OPINION: Reform for a Broken System

The Salas family is one of many in Mississippi and the U.S. caught in the madness of the immigration debate and politicians' failure to pass real and meaningful reform to a broken system.

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