Portside

Aretha Franklin your music lifted us up. Queen of Soul’s influence on the civil rights movement was massive and needed. Your music, your activism, your dignity brought us hope and inspired us. Let's all Say A Little Prayer for Aretha Franklin.

A central pillar of President Trump’s politics is a sustained assault on the free press. Journalists are not classified as fellow Americans, but rather “the enemy of the people.” This relentless assault on the free press has dangerous consequences.

A new law introduced in the U.S. Congress seeks to clamp down on criticism of Israel at the expense of First Amendment rights. The unconstitutional bill, titled the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2018, conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism

One of Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz’s contributions to discussions of Jewish identity was her theory of what she called radical diasporism - that Jews can honor their Jewish identity, history and culture without believing that Israel is their homeland.

Reader Comments: 2018 Elections, Winning Red States, Socialism and Liberal Politics; Space Force?; Asbestos: Killer Embraced by Trump; Announcements M4BL Author's Webinar; Defeat Kavanaugh Rallies; Socialists and the 2018 Elections Webinar; more...

The Workers Lab uses the tech-based incubator approach to organize for worker rights and justice.

A pungent and exhaustive evaluation of the short-lived, pre-war popular front government of France, written on the heels of its demise by the brilliant French writer Simone Weil, with an introduction by the NLR editors.

Republicans in Virginia have proposed a referendum in November to strengthen the state's existing open shop laws. In this, an opportunity presents itself that labor unions must take. Our goal should not simply be to defeat the proposal: it should be a realignment of the conversation surrounding the role in labor unions in Virginia’s—and America’s—political economy.

The results prove it's far too early to declare the nomination contest over. As FiveThirtyEight's Harry Enten admits, to find an upset on the same scale as what Sanders achieved in Michigan you'd have to go back over 30 years. Those polls that put Illinois and Ohio out of Sanders's reach look a lot less reliable today. And if Sanders wins in those states, it won't be his viability as a candidate that is in question.

Can disruptive social movements change the world or are we better served by take-it-slow, wait-a-year-or-more-to-speak-up, incremental change? Mark and Paul Engler make a case for the former, arguing in their new book, This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century, that supposed pragmatism often stands in the way of genuine progress. The grand slogan of Paris, 1968 -- "Be realistic, demand the impossible" -- is sage and sober advice.