Portside

From the Depression and Spanish Civil War to the HUAC hearings and the McCarthy era’s end, the author weaves his father’s story of inquisitors and defenders as the family struggles with racism, fascism, communism, and tenuous first amendment freedoms

“Hadestown,” written and composed by Anaïs Mitchell and directed by Rachel Chavkin, is a very radical play. It takes the audience to Hell, which is peopled by oppressed workers who have been indoctrinated to fear those who are poorer.

Today, corporations see Pride Month as another chance to sell their products. But the greatest gains for the LGBTQ movement came through fighting corporations, challenging workplace discrimination, and building unions.

Reader Comments: Trump's July 4th; Concentration Camps; Megan Rapinoe; Democratic Debate; Private Insurance; Karl Marx revisited; Paul Robeson Boulevard named; Queer Liberation; Say No to Rick Snyder; Housing Justice - Affordable for Whom? ...

Say one thing about the world of sports: in some fashion, it invariably reflects developments in the larger world. It hardly matters whether the subject is war or inequality. Take a knee for a moment and think about that or, of Donald Trump....

China’s ambitious infrastructure Belt and Road Initiative is about building knowledge and not just things. It has grown by leaps and bounds while America’s geopolitical vision has become increasingly isolationist, paranoid, and confrontational.

Democratic socialists now make up more than 10% of Chicago’s city council, potentially wielding considerable influence. It will need to build alliances in order to enact their agenda and their even more ambitious goal of reforming city government.

This is the perfect time to read the entirety of Frederick Douglass’s famous speech (from 1852), and not merely because of the date on the calendar.(Dave Zirin)

Philippines * France * Pride Worldwide * Egypt * Sudan * West Papua * Guatemala * Algeria

This new novel by Vietnamese-American poet and writer Ocean Vuong, is an immigrant's story that, writes reviewer McAlpin, is also about "beauty, survival, and freedom, which sometimes isn't freedom at all."