Portside

Liberal opinion holds that the Vietnam War was a mistake. The right continues to see it as a noble cause. Author Michael Uhl calls the slaughter in Vietnam planned and deliberate, saying that the United States would not tolerate then or now efforts by people in the Global South to escape the imperialist trap. Uhl writes as a participant, first as an intelligence officer and then as an historian, to paint a merciless and highly detailed picture of US policy at its rawest.

What could emerge from an understanding of the struggle between the two proletariats and its connection to US democracy and institutions is a more powerful and forward-looking narrative of class and race than either a utopian universalist liberalism or a narrow-minded working class incapable of advancing democracy.

The secretary of labor isn’t exactly the sexiest job in the government. But president-elect Donald Trump’s pick of Andy Puzder, a fast-food restaurant CEO, could have profound effects that touch millions of U.S. workers and companies almost immediately.

Not long before Mussolini and Hitler came to power, much of the US press believed that power would "moderate" them, or considered them something of a joke. Are we seeing similar mistakes today?

What does solidarity look like between Black and Indigenous people?

“Invisible Man” ends with the protagonist being chased by policemen during a riot in Harlem, and falling into a manhole in the middle of the street. The police put the cover of the manhole back in place, trapping the narrator underground. “I’m an invisible man and it placed me in a hole—or showed me the hole I was in, if you will—and I reluctantly accepted the fact,” he says.

Diversion is intended to relieve overburdened courts and crowded jails, and to spare low-risk offenders from the devastating consequences of a criminal record. But an examination by The New York Times found that in many places, only people with money could afford a second chance. Though diversion was introduced as a money-saving reform, some jurisdictions quickly turned it into a source of revenue.

In this novel, Whitehead reimagines both slavery and the resistance to it.

Perhaps the Dump Star Wars story could be described as “silly.” But to deny the politics of Star Wars is to throw the franchise’s rich history under a bus the size of an Imperial cruiser. Star Wars may not overflow with civics metaphors in the fashion of “Star Trek,” but the sci-fi films did not exist in a political void.

A soon-to-be-published book by a longtime labor organizer chronicles how a grass-roots democracy movement overcame corporate money.