Portside

Congress must decide whether to rescue these funds with low-cost loans, force them to cut benefit payments or let the funds go bankrupt and wipe out retirees’ entire pensions.

The namesake of the high school where 17 people were killed was a remarkable progressive activist—much like the students now demanding real gun control.

The latest budget proposal calls for reducing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) outlays by $200 billion over the next decade and replacing about half of the aid delivered through this mainstay of the American safety net with what it’s calling “harvest boxes” of nonperishable items like pasta, canned meat and peanut butter. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says this new approach would cut costs and give states, which administer the SNAP program, “flexibility.”

Book Review: No Way But This: In Search of Paul Robeson. By Jeff Sparrow. Melbourne: Scribe (US: Cursor Marketing), 2018. 304pp, $19.95, paperback. Why, 42 years after the death of the multi-talented Robeson, is author Jeff Sparrow still “in search” of him? In part, no doubt, because in the United States, Robeson did not “disappear” so much as he was “disappeared” during the “red scare” of the 1950s. Banned from the public eye and ear in the United States, save to small groups of “red-diaper babies” and old-timers, he was also refused the right to renew his U.S.

Why is the NRA so powerful? Hint: it's not just because it has boatloads of money.

Not so neutral; Kremlin gremlins; John Perry Barlow; Bye bye Bibi?; Hello, you must be going; Digitalizing indigenous stories

Portman and her co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh say they only learned about the race of the characters in the film’s source material this week. When asked to comment on the controversy, Portman said, “Well, that does sound problematic, but I’m hearing it here first.” Leigh added, “It’s probably a valid criticism. I didn’t know that.”

In the past year, UMass administrators have eliminated all funding for full-time Labor Center graduate students (including teaching and research assistantships), all funding for part-time faculty who teach the required curriculum and cut the Director's position from 12-months to 9-months. The course on collective bargaining was cut from the curriculum.

Moderator's Note: This curriculum is a powerful and accessible tool for political education and mobilization! Download this, tailor for your own specific use, launch discussion and debate and then plan collective ACTION for justice and peace!

This essay has been adapted from Arlie Hochschild’s new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (The New Press), which will be published on September 6th. The Tea Party, a Sinkhole in Louisiana, and the Contradictions of American Political Life.