Portside

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Poet Langston Hughes was invited to speak at Occidental College on this day in 1948, then uninvited when red-baiters released a report calling him a “subversive.” His story shows how the postwar Red Scare targeted radicals, particularly black leftists.

Some Democrats apparently thought voting for the GOP’s ludicrous anti-socialism resolution would keep them safe from Republican attacks. They’ll find out soon enough how wrong they were.

Sen. Raphael Warnock's Complete Reelection Victory Speech. Capitalism Will Eat Democracy — Unless We Speak Up | Yanis Varoufakis. Angela Davis Speaks After Attempted Blacklisting. Women Talking | Movie. Love Under Occupation.

Being a leftist — or worse, a child of leftists — in the mid-20th century meant constant harassment from the FBI. From my childhood in the 1940s and ’50s through the upheavals of the ’60s, I only told them one thing: take a hike.

Chan Davis, died last month at 96, faced down McCarthyite blacklists and imprisonment to pursue a brilliant academic career. Davis knew how to change and learn from political experience, but he always remained loyal to his socialist principles.

I defected to the GDR 70 years ago, finding neither Utopia nor the hunger, poverty and misery American media might have led me to expect. I hope that new generations learn from the GDR, and not only from its blunders, nasty habits and limitations.

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