Portside

The Communist Party U.S.A. had its greatest successes as the country reeled from the Depression. Today, as we are still picking our way out of the rubble left by the crash of 2008, left-wing ideas have gained new purchase.

"Oil industry company Halliburton has been branded “obscene” for advertising unpaid UK internships, which critics say give an unfair advantage to people from privileged backgrounds."

At the end of February immigration agents descended on a handful of Japanese and Chinese restaurants in the suburbs of Jackson, Mississippi, and in nearby Meridian. Fifty-five immigrant cooks, dishwashers, servers and bussers were loaded into vans and taken to a detention center about 160 miles away in Jena, Louisiana.

The acclaimed Indian novelist and essayist whose first novel, The God of Small Things (1997) was a prize-winning, international sensation, has just published a new novel that reviewer Walter describes as "a bright mosaic."

Comey details his instant mistrust of Trump and his conviction that Trump's requests were unusual, inappropriate, and a threat to the FBI's independence.

It is only when there is a particularly dramatic abuse, or a death that can’t be hidden, that the public gets any glimpse of what life on the inside is like for so many Americans. When ordinary citizens learn of atrocities committed behind bars, most are appalled, but the sad reality is that the public has few tools to gain access to those behind bars. Not knowing is what makes it possible for unimaginable suffering to take place in the name of safety and security.

“The Trump administration’s rhetoric on immigration and its approach to enforcement have made immigrant communities obviously fearful in a new way,” says Laura Huizar, a staff attorney with the National Employment Law Project. “This is going to prevent a lot people from filing wage complaints that they otherwise would have.”

Your smartphone, your enemy; All in the family; Twitter has your number too; Cell-trackers; Scoops a la Trump; Fox News confidential

What is the appropriate response to the banality of the Op-Ed: “Vietnam’s Unhealed Wounds” by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick in the 2017 Memorial Day edition of The New York Times? Such a trite pronouncement is surely destined for the dustbin of history. But already accompanied by much media hype, Burns and Novick are set to launch their PBS documentary: THE VIETNAM WAR, a ten-part, 18-hour series in September 2017.

Drawing connections between arguments used by liberal proponents of free speech and the rhetoric of the alt right, I examine how the free speech and open debate arguments being used today to defend the hateful messages of far right speakers have been established over a long period and need to be explored in the context of rising fascism, white supremacy, and extreme social inequality.