Portside

The under-regulation of guns is a conscious political project of the NRA. If the NRA is like other elite organizations it follows a general formula of organizing of being not only tied to political power but also media and economic power. Political pressure can be placed on the NRA and these politicians by going after the direct sponsors of the NRA and the corporate sponsors of NRA-politicians.

A truly pivotal event in the post–Cold War era, Srebrenica helped forge a pro-interventionist alliance of both militarist liberals and conservatives. This alliance remains a potent lobby for war to the present day.

On this 70th anniversary of the criminal US bombings against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki we renew our commitment to abolish nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. In our anti-imperialist endeavor, we are certain that unity among us will defeat warmongering and militarist policies, since the peoples’ will is a just peace.

The study of comic books has emerged in the last decade or so as a serious academic discipline. And it's about time. It's not news to many people that the stories and art found in these little magazines are not only entertaining; they also contain interesting, and sometimes profound, social content. Kent Worcester looks at three new books on Wonder Woman, the comic that emerged during World War II and was an early harbinger of feminist ideas.

Netflix offers its employees as much as one year of paid time off to new mothers and fathers.

One of the biggest literary stories of the summer has been the controversy over To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee's new novel, Go Set a Watchman. It turns out To Kill a Mockingbird hero Atticus Finch, as portrayed in this new book, was far more racist than fans of Lee's earlier novel remember. Should they have been surprised? Laura Marsh talks to several scholars who say Finch's racism was here all along, if readers had only taken the care to look.

As a discipline, urban planning is dedicated to understanding and addressing the complex problems of the city. Yet public safety is rarely taken up as a sphere of concern. Rather than rationalizing people’s failed life outcomes in a way that blames individuals for poor life choices, urban planners must help hold society accountable for past failures to construct real opportunity structures.

There are two reasons abortion rights activists have been boxed in. One is that we’ve been reactive rather than proactive. The second reason we’re stuck in a defensive mode is that too many pro-choice people are way too quiet.

It’s been 20 years since federal Pell Grants were revoked from prisons during the tough-on-crime heyday of the 1990s, amid a bipartisan political fervor that helped transform U.S. prisons from a corrections system to a punishment business. Two decades later, mass incarceration is a runaway train, and America imprisons so many more people than any other country that it’s hard to even compare the thing in one chart.

The barriers to organizing adjuncts are real and difficult to overcome. We often don’t know our coworkers, we are decentralized and our lack of security creates a pervasive fear among adjuncts. However, the only way that we will be able to fight for increased pay, greater job security and a voice in the college is by working collectively.