Portside

America's unions have been in retreat for decades - but can history point toward some fresh starts? Steve Fraser's book The Age of Acquiescence reminds us that America's worker movement-100 years ago-was a rather militant creature compared to today. Then, it was worker militias, "bread and roses," and unabashed class conflict; now, it's defense and dwindling membership, and disappointing Democrats. How did we get here? Is there still power in a union?

The British security service, MI5, its war on communism, and its file on Eric Hobsbawm, 'one of the pre-eminent British historians of the 20th century.'

Culture Clash's play about money, manipulation and red-baiting ending with destruction of a closely-knit LA Latino neighborhood over fifty years ago rings true today as the present economic power of developers and the drive to profitably exploit vulnerable communities within the central city and drastically change their ethnic, class and cultural composition continues to steadily displace the long-time residents of many neighborhoods.

Pre-1920 were tumultuous times: World War I, the Bolshevik revolution, Espionage and Sedition Acts; Race Riots in Chicago, returning African American veterans defending their communities against white mobs, mass deportations of foreign born, the Great Influenza Pandemic; UMW Coal Strike and the Great Steel Strike, mass economic inequality. The Palmer raids of 1920 capped an era. The Chicago Police and State's Attorney couldn't wait and began the raids a day early ...

In the 1960s, the agency sought to fight Communism through the students’ rights movement. There’s little reason to think its tactics have changed.

U.S. agencies directly or indirectly hired numerous ex-Nazi police officials and East European collaborators who were manifestly guilty of war crimes. Information was readily available that these were compromised men. The wide use of Nazi spies grew out of a Cold War mentality and McCarthyism. Mr. Hoover, the longtime F.B.I. director, and Mr. Dulles, the C.I.A. director.believed "moderate" Nazis might "be useful" to America, records show.

On June 19, 1953, hours before their execution, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg wrote one final letter to their two young sons: Michael and Robby. Your lives must teach you, too, that good cannot really flourish in the midst of evil; that freedom and all the things that go to make up a truly satisfying and worthwhile life, must sometimes be purchased very dearly...civilization had not as yet progressed to the point where life did not have to be lost for the sake of life.

“Paul Robeson: A Watched Man” A book by Jordan Goodman. “Paul Robeson,” historian Joseph Dorinson ruefully wrote in the 2002 introduction to his co-edited collection of essays about him, “is the greatest legend nobody knows.”

Stateside Communists were the underdogs, fighting the establishment for justice - the victims of censorship and police repression, not its perpetrators.