Portside

When you don't prioritize teachers, you can't say you prioritize students

State election officials want to see Washington help out with their real issues or get out of their polling booths.

In some of the most brutal authoritarian regimes, labor unions have been the anchor of a broad working-class movement for democracy. Think South Africa, Brazil, South Korea. Our worker movements, political movements and unions must be wary of co-optation. We are not here for one-off gains for some of us. We are here to build broader movements for all of us. The minimum wage is a tool for organizing as much as it is a policy outcome.

The top lawyer at the National Labor Relations Board issued an official opinion this week that players at all 17 private colleges in the FBS are employees of their schools. It is a significant expansion of a 2014 ruling by NLRB regional director Peter S. Ohr that Northwestern football players are employees.

This year's Super Bowl between the Falcons and Patriots is viewed by many across football as a battle of cultures. On one end, some in the game see the Patriots as a conveyor belt of winning machinery, aligned with Donald Trump, but despised by a large swath of the American populace. On the other are the Falcons, a talented, less rigid team, supported by a city starving for a winner and viewed as the welcome alternative in this fight.

We all know that at this moment everything is on the table. This year has been astounding, sometimes inspiring, and ultimately menacing. It gave lightning flashes of what a people's movement could accomplish. But the election outcome is ultimately brutal -- a nightmare President and administration packed with white nationalists, ultra-billionaires and militarists that threaten the existence of the entire democratic system. No one, no group and no institution is safe.

Reading Lebowitz has also given me a greater fluency in talking to people about what is wrong with capitalism and how socialism could really work, how the flaws in its past could be avoided, and what is necessary for its success.

The most influential large-scale political action of the '60s was actually in 1971, and you've never heard of it. It was called the Mayday action, and it provides invaluable lessons for today.

From Sinclair Lewis and Philip Roth to Donald Trump's favourite film, Citizen Kane, US culture has long told stories about homegrown authoritarianism. What can we learn from them?

From solidarity strikes to slowdowns and sit-ins, workplace revolt is a key strategy in opposing the new administration.