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.

 

Social Security Transition Report For The Biden Adminis

While important for everyone, Social Security benefits are particularly important to women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and others who have suffered discrimination.

Macron’s France: No Apologies for Algerian Colonization

Algerians arrested in 1956 during the war of independence from France.
While a new French report highlights moves to reconcile Paris and Algiers on 132 violent years of colonization, some thorny issues remain, not the least of which is France’s refusal to apologize for its wrongdoings during its brutal colonial rule.

Human Nature and Lord of the Flies

In striving to institute a culture of justice, it's self-defeating to assume humankind is innately selfish, as Golding did in "Lord of the Flies." Rather, we should rally the majority, appealing to their natural instincts for an egalitarian society.

The Key Environmental Policy Priorities for the South

A protester seeks to block the Byhalia Connection Oil Pipeline in southwest Memphis, TN.
Southern community leaders, environmental activists and lawyers, discuss the most urgent environmental issues the Biden Administration should tackle, including environmental justice, industrial pollution, government transparency, and disaster aid.

Mike Pence: The von Papen of our Times

Pence tried to have it both ways, to inherit the mantle of both old-line conservatism and Trump’s toxic brand of white-nationalist demagoguery.  The chances are he’ll gain neither.  This verdict of his Nuremburg is likely to be political oblivion.

Friday Nite Videos | January 22, 2021

Goodbye Donald Trump. The White Tiger | Movie. Get Up Stand Up | Skip and Cedella Marley. Using Your Voice Is a Political Choice | Amanda Gorman. Same Script. New Faces Tell a Different Story.

Biden's Executive Order to Boost Food Aid Greeted

With one of five American families living with food insecurity, the new executive orders are greeted as 'the most significant anti-hunger actions in modern times.'

Confronting 'Who We Are'

The insurrectionary actions unfolding on Capitol Hill were the doing of pro-Trump extremists and domestic terrorists. But a look at history suggests that in many ways, these events have a long tradition in this country.

The Case for a Vaccine Manhattan Project

Surveying the pandemic's death toll, those of us tasked with looking to the future are left with a nagging mental puzzle: how do we make sure this never happens again?

What Reconstruction Teaches Us About White Nationalism

Historian Eric Foner on the long tradition of white nationalists clashing with Black people exercising their rights.
Read more

Culture

food

Hmong Farmers Find Their Own Land in Minnesota

Lindsay Campbell Modern Farmer
Long-term land ownership will bring change to Hmong farmers hoping to improve family farm operations. Hmong farmers represent more than 50 percent of produce growers in Saint Paul and Minneapolis farmers markets but affordable land access has prevented them from further developing their businesses into more sustainable, profitable operations.

poetry

Never Again

David Alpaugh Verse Daily
For California poet David Alpaugh, despite the promises of peace or justice, the violence of war lives on.

Labor

labor

Opening the Door to a More Democratic UAW

Nelson Lichtenstein Labor Notes
More important, the agreement calls for a vote of all 400,000 members to decide whether they want direct election of top leaders.

labor

Multiracial Democracy or Fascist-Like Autocracy?

Portside
Georgia. MAGA insurrection. Impeachment. Conviction? Two different futures, an inclusive multiracial democracy or a fascist-like autocracy -- are colliding right now. This is about what we, and you, can do to determine which future will win.

Friday nite video

video

Goodbye Donald Trump

Not with venom, not with scorn, but with optimism, jubilance and celebration.

video

The White Tiger | Movie

The anti-Slumdog Millionaire: the epic journey of a poor Indian driver (Adarsh Gourav) who uses his wit and cunning to break free from servitude to his rich masters.

video

Get Up Stand Up | Skip and Cedella Marley

For this version, we added Skip and Cedella Marley, Malian blues rock band Songhoy Blues, harmonica virtuoso Lee Oskar and an excerpt of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

video

Documentary: MLK/FBI

Award-winning editor and director Sam Pollard lays out a detailed account of the FBI surveillance that dogged King’s activism throughout the ’50s and ’60s, fueled by the racist and red-baiting paranoia of J. Edgar Hoover. Full review.