Portside aims to provide varied material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world, and to change it.
Portside Culture
Posted by Portside on April 14, 2015
New York Times
Director Ashgar Farhadi achieved international recognition with the complex and brilliant film A Separation. About Elly was made earlier, won Best Picture at Tribeca in 2009, and has taken six years to work its way back to the U.S. If possible, and now in the midst of the nuclear deal, this devastating film is better and more relevant. Farhadi depicts the strains between strict Islamic traditions and modernism within Iran's affluent, sophisticated middle classss.
Posted by Portside on April 13, 2015
thedailymeal.com
Jefferson was an adventurous eater, a connoisseur of good wines, and also possibly America's First Foodie
Posted by Portside on April 12, 2015
Jacobin
A critique of Paul Mason's historical materialist prediction “Can Marxist theory predict the end of ‘Game of Thrones’?” for the upcoming seasons of Game of Thrones.
Posted by Portside on April 10, 2015
Matter: A (somewhat) monthly journal
This poem references the violence of enforced disappearance and forced displacement that is rampant in Colombia. Colombia has over 50,000 reported disappearances, and about 5 million internally displaced.
Posted by Portside on April 9, 2015
New Left Review #92 (Second Series), March-April 2015
Anatomy of a cultural product with the potential to ameliorate social inequities but threatened by digital corporate conglomeration and hijacking by the security state. Book covers the implications for cultural democracy in various sectors-music, film, news, advertising-how battles over copyright, piracy and privacy laws have evolved, counterpoints to invasive data-mining and a "People's Platform" supporting the politics of a fightback.
Posted by Portside on April 8, 2015
Dissent
Several of the biggest steps toward today's condition of mass incarceration and ever-more-visible lethal police violance against civilians were undertaken during Democratic Presidential administrations. Naomi Murakawa has written a history of these developments. Here, Mike Konczal shows us that changing the police-prison industrial system starts with an outlook that begins to think "not about how to make the system better, but about how to take it apart."
Posted by Portside on April 7, 2015
In These Times
One explanation of why do many celebrities are Scientologists is hidden in plain sight: The way the cult mirrors the star-obsessed, profit-driven culture of Hollywood. "Going Clear" also posits the rest of the answer: Stars stick with Scientology because of the meticulously kept notes, recordings and videos from E-meter "auditing" sessions that are central to the religion's practice, and make for ideal blackmail material.