Portside

"Complete this report as fully as possible to the best/of your recollection. Do not consult video evidence." So the Carolina poet Dan Albergotti introduces the absurdities and illogic of bureaucratic obscurity that allows a person to avoid responsibility for discharging a deadly weapon.

John Rees, author of The Leveller Revolution: Radical Political Organization in England 1640-1650, (Verso, 2016; reviewed in Portside Culture, November 30, 2016) weighs in with his recommendations about some of the best fiction in English dealing with radical movements and the revolutionary experience.

Acclaimed Native American novelist Erdrich's fifteenth novel is a "multigenerational tale," writes reviewer Round, that "stretches across two centuries of life on the Northern Plains."

Bravo's film was commissioned by Channel 4 in Britain, and won the Distinguished Achievement for Excellence in Documentary Filmmaking from the Urbanworld Film Festival in New York, and played the Toronto International Film Festival to sold-out crowds despite the fact that it opened three days after the September 11th attacks. It has played in arthouses throughout the U.S. It and several other films about Castro, can now be viewed on YouTube and are also listed below.

The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project explores ideas of genetic diversity via an ongoing global effort to crossbreed the chickens of the world.

What had been cautiously optimistic when the episode had premiered just a few weeks before was now upsettingly fantastical. In the wake of Donald Trump’s win, a pro-immigration woman of color being elected president seemed less realistic than the alien trying to kill her.

"If they create an Enemies/List," says the poet Taj James, "Sign me up." Only by showing our solidarity with those so-called enemies can we hope that the listmakers themselves become the "enemies" of the people. These are words for our unfortunate times.

Every year, Portside asks our readers for their help and support. This, however, is not like other years. What months ago was a scary thought is now our, and the world's reality - a Trump presidency. We need to work together, to build, to organize, and to understand what works, and what doesn't. Portside provides reportage, inspiration, investigation and analysis that are needed more than ever. We promise to do our part. Will you help?

A look at the English Revolution's first decade, where radicals forced parliamentary leaders to complete the revolt against the monarchy, creating a some two decades-long republic through a genuine social revolution. The book's author is credited with bringing an activist's perspective to it and situating the uprising and the corresponding invention of the pamphlet as the basis for English popular sovereignty, despite the Glorious Revolution's return to a monarchy later.

Rock and roll music has always been a site of struggle over issues of race and racism. In this insightful review, Colin Vanderburg surveys what Jack Hamilton has o say regarding how rock music succumbed to the lure of American racism.