Portside

The future of the sketch series Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace has become a political flashpoint for the subversive network.

As one union staffer told me: “What they seem to have missed is that the way to reach blacks, Latinos, and women is the same way you reach the white working class: progressive economics, and knock on their doors. And guess what? The allegedly ‘racist’ and ‘sexist’ white working class is cool with a multicultural coalition as long as you give them the progressive economics..."

The opening scenes of After Fire, the new documentary about the struggles faced by women veterans after they leave military service, make a case for its importance through statistics. Viewers are informed that women are the fastest growing group of veterans, and that one in five veterans are women.

Preliminary vote totals indeed show that Zuckerman won more votes among U.S. members and was leading by nearly 800 votes before the Canadian ballots were counted. But the Canadian vote went heavily in Hoffa’s favor, about 9,500 to 2,900.

As the anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination returns in a month of political trauma, Peter Neil Carroll's "JFK" reflects on the loss of possibility and the hope for renewal.

With the far right now soon to command government, ongoing movements are also growing to challenge corporate domination, white supremacy, environmental degradation, union busting and organize workers in low-paid industries. Written before the November election, Sarah Jaffe's book chronicles these and other struggles, letting the activists--many new to politics-speak, and suggesting the fight for social and economic justice is ongoing, no matter which party reigns.

Leaders of the Jewish Labor Committee compare Trump's victory to the rise of the Third Reich in German. Stuart Appelbaum, executive vice president of the United food and Commercial, noted that “back in the 1930s, our founders saw the importance of building alliances and coalitions that could stand together for their values, and stand up against anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry.”

With neoliberalism discredited and the political establishments of both parties defeated, we must offer real solutions on employment, economic inequality, and labor rights by organizing a grass roots, democratic rank-and-file movement, larger and more powerful than Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. It’s time to build broader, unite stronger, and fight harder than we’ve ever done before.

This novel by Paul Beatty won England's Man Booker Prize last month. He is the first American writer to ever win the award. Here is a review of the book.

Four years ago, when Obama won re-election, he carried this town by a 67-26 percent margin. This year, Trump won 50-42 percent over Hillary Clinton. They didn’t care about Clinton’s emails or where Trump likes to grab women. They cared about their jobs. They know Trump alone can’t save the mill from closure, but they felt they knew what they’d be getting with Clinton: Four, or even eight, more years of the same.