Portside

On July 27, 1919, the appearance of an African American swimmer near a white beach provoked a citywide pogrom in Chicago. Poet Renny Golden depicts the incident and a wade-in that integrated the shores during the 1960s.

Looking back after 50 years at the few pros (the real lack of jobs) and the many cons (an over-reliance throughout on allegedly debilitating cultural factors) of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's explanation for high African American poverty rates in his Report on the Black Family and Poverty.

Anti-abortion groups have long pushed to defund Planned Parenthood, even though no federal money is used to provide abortions. But that hasn't stopped their efforts to shut down the clinics, which provide services like contraception, cancer screening and other tests.

Many Israeili security insiders say the deal signed in Vienna isn't as bad as Netanyahu claims. Some call it good for Israel. They include former chief of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin; former chief of arms technology, Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael, who now chairs The Israel Space Agency; former chief of military operations, Israel Ziv; the architect of Israeli military intelligence, Dov Tamari; former director of Shin Bet domestic security service, Ami Ayalon; and others.

European bankers attack on Greece is like the Mitt Romney attack on 47 percent of the people. U.S. voters rejected those policies in 2012. Germany and Europe embrace what voters in our country rejected...The welfare consensus was initially adopted because capitalists were trying to stave off threats of socialist alternatives: providing for the poor, they reasoned, would prevent citizens from sympathizing with Marxists, Communists, and other left-leaning groups.

People and groups have been labeled terrorists by the Philippine government, the U.S. government and other countries at the behest of the U.S. government. The Philippine government engages in - red tagging - political vilification. Targets are frequently human rights activists and advocates, political opponents, community organizers or groups struggling for national liberation. Those targeted for assassination are placed on the order of battle list.

Reader Comments: #BlackLivesMatter and Bernie Sanders; The Value of Protest; US Cited for Police Violence, Racism; Private Prisons; Euro Agreement and Greece; Urban Renewal and Public Space; Announcement: Rosa Luxemburg Conference - New Takes on a Longtime Classic - New York - August 21 - 22 (Moderator's Note - There will be no Tidbits for the next three weeks)

While it has become clear in the past three or four decades that electoral politics is a blunt instrument for radical change against the global strength of the corporate market, it is equally clear that the full realisation of people’s transformative capacities will be enhanced if those organising and sharing these capacities gain support from state bodies, local and national, through legislation, redistribution and measures.

The University of California, New York State, and Washington, DC move to increase the minimum wage. This continues a trend that is taking place across the country.

In this look at three new and “valuable contributions to our cultural thinking and political thinking on today’s feminist movement,” Rinku Sen finds much to praise; however, she criticizes these authors because they “treat these two realms as largely disconnected from each other.” That’s too bad, Sen adds, because the movement is strongest “when cultural and political interventions reinforce each other.”