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Why Non-profits Can't Lead the 99%

Warren Mar The Stansbury Forum
Warren Mar has written a provocative piece on the role of Community Based Organizations and Worker Centers in the working class movement. He explores controversial issues of the funding and democratic control of these organizations which have filled a vacuum in organizing particularly among immigrant workers.

Isis Shouldn’t Dictate How We Address Refugees

Chelsea Manning The Guardian
We must not let Isis’s crimes dictate how we address the refugee crisis – or privacy. Some want to exploit the Paris attacks in order to justify seizures of power to meet their own political ends. We should not let that happen.

Portugal: The Left Takes Charge

Conn Hallinan Foreign Policy in Focus
Even though the right-wing Forward Portugal lost the election—it garnered only 38 percent of the votes—Silva allowed its leader, former Prime Minister Passos Coelho, to form a government. That maneuver lasted just 11 days. Coelho introduced a budget loaded with austerity measures and privatization. In the face of growing outrage and a threatened general strike Silva finally asked Socialist Party leader Antonio Costa to form a government.

 How to Understand White Male Terrorism

Max Berger The Nation
 Since the civil-rights movement, the Republican establishment — the big bankers and CEOs that actually run the party — have danced with racists in the white grassroots by conflating racism and fear of the government. Instead of providing all Americans with decent healthcare, education, jobs, or housing, the racist white grassroots and rich establishment agreed that everyone should be on their own — so black people and immigrants don’t accidentally get anything good.

Exxon Targets Journalists Who Exposed Massive Climate Cover Up

Lauren McCauley Common Dreams
"Exxon’s outrageous move to intimidate journalists and academics from doing their jobs is more of the same from a company that has been bullying the public and our elected officials for decades," David Turnbull, campaigns director for Oil Change International, told Common Dreams.

Emanuel Dismisses Top Cop Garry McCarthy Amid Pressure for Change

Bill Ruthhart, Hal Dardick and John Byrne Chicago Tribune
The consequences of the shooting of Laquan McDonald - Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said she wrote to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking the federal Justice Department to conduct a civil rights investigation into the Police Department's "use of force, including deadly force; "I write to you with urgency," Madigan writes in the letter to Lynch. "Trust in the Chicago Police Department is broken, especially in communities of color in the City of Chicago."

Annual Message from the Moderators of Portside to Our Readers

Portside
The fact is, the political climate has changed in the last year. There is a pendulum swing to the left. Social movements are resurgent, from Black Lives Matter to Climate Justice to Fight for 15. The Bernie Sanders campaign has even brought a socialist critique of capitalism to the national discussion. The service Portside provides is in greater demand than ever. We turn for you to help because as we grow, so do our financial needs.

Before Bernie Sanders: A 19th Century Populist’s Run for the Presidency

John Collins In These Times
Though the People's Party lost, Weaver managed to win 5 states (Kansas, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho and North Dakota) and 22 electoral votes—the most electoral votes won by a third party since the Civil War. The impressive third-party turnout illustrated the bipartisan frustration of the period and the extent to which Populist rhetoric resonated with voters at the time.