Information is power. Our mission at Portside is to seek out and to provide information that empowers you -- that empowers the left. Every day we search hundreds of sources to connect you with the most interesting, striking and useful material. Just once a year we appeal to you to contribute to make it possible to continue this work. Please help.

 

Sunrise Movement to Host Nationwide House Parties

"We need millions of young people along with allies of all ages to join climate strikes, organize their communities and then turn out in force in November to decide this election."

Canadian Workers Are Blockading an Oil Refinery

The Canadian union Unifor is currently blockading an oil refinery in Regina, Saskatchewan. It’s an important example of what democratic, militant, and solidarity-based unionism can look like.

Boondoggle - $1.25 Trillion National Security Budget

A careful look at the real totals of U.S. defense expenditures from a May 2019 article from Tom Dispatch. Let's keep this in mind when some politicians say we can't afford to fund public education and Medicare for All, for example.

The ‘Deal of the Century’ is Apartheid

The ‘Deal of the Century’ resurrects and restores grand apartheid, a racist political system that should have been left in the dustbins of history.

Media Bits and Bytes - January 28, 2020

The White House vs NPR - and more

CEOs Raking It in from Trump’s Aggression Toward Iran

helicopter
Major military contractors saw a stock surge from the U.S. assassination of an Iranian general. For CEOs, that means payday comes early.

Beating Trump: Absolutely Essential, Also Not Enough

student demonstrators
Ousting Trump from the White House is not sufficient to address the deep-going crises that today threaten the rights and well-being of people in the U.S., the very lives of millions across the globe, and the natural environment...

The Fed Protects Gamblers at the Expense of the Economy

from of Federal Reserve building
The repo market is a fragile house of cards waiting for a strong wind to blow it down, propped up by misguided monetary policies that have forced central banks to underwrite its highly risky ventures.

Why Child Labor Is Common in Gaza

child selling at street market
OCHA has found that children are working amid “an increasingly destabilized economy” in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli siege for more than 12 years.

Cuba: Most Sustainably Developed Country In World

organic farming in Cuba
The socialist island outperforms advanced capitalist countries including Britain and the United States, which has subjected Cuba to a punitive six-decades-long economic blockade.
Read more

Culture

tv

Are Black Women Being Let Down By TV’s Mental Health Storylines?

Jazmin Kopotsha Refinery29
Bearing in mind the statistics that confirm the stigma surrounding mental health among black and Asian communities, it wouldn’t be too much of a jump to make the correlation between ethnic minorities successfully seeking help for mental health.

poetry

To Combat Antisemitism, Write a Villanelle

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach Rattle
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach wrote this poem in response to the presidential executive order changing the status of “Jew” from a religion or ethnicity to a nationality.

film

The Trinidadian That Inspired Sam Mendes’ WWI Epic, ‘1917’

Janine Mendes-Franco Global Voices
'1917' is based on Alfred Mendes’ role as a messenger when he served in the 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade, training as a signaller in France. He was thereafter sent to Belgium, with the rest of his battalion, to win back the village of Poelcappelle.

Labor

labor

How Harvard Aims to Muzzle Unions

Walter Johnson The New York Review of Books
Over months of contract bargaining, Harvard reached common ground with the union on some issues. But over the course of a recent strike, the university began to lash out in punitive and ominous ways.

labor

How to Organize Your Workplace Without Getting Caught

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai and Lauren Kaori Gurley Motherboard
Do you want to protest your company’s crappy record on sexual harassment? Are you thinking of unionizing? Here’s the Motherboard Guide to Secure Labor Organizing.

labor

Reckoning With the AFL-CIO’s Imperialist History

Jeff Schuhrke Jacobin
Over the past century, the US government repeatedly disrupted leftist movements and supported or carried out coups around the world - aided by American labor leaders. A full reckoning with the AFL-CIO’s collaboration with US imperialism can help us.

labor

Bernie’s Labor Support Snowballs

HOLLY OTTERBEIN POLITICO
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in the foreground at an inside rally. While many national unions have stayed neutral, more progressive-minded local unions and labor groups are coming out in force for the Vermont senator.

labor

The Politics of Pensions: No Bailout for You

Marc Dann and Leo Jennings III Working Class Perspectives
Federal officials have floated a number of proposals for dealing with the dilemma of underfunded multi-employer pension plans.  Most have one thing in common: they punish the innocent victims. The contrast with the bailout of bankers is striking.

Friday nite video

video

Trump Has Lied 16,241 Times

Trump celebrated three years in office by paying tribute to himself and somehow brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into it