Portside

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.”

Despite campaign rhetoric, the Trump presidency has consistently attacked workers and worker rights.

Oranges were likely first cultivated in southern China (references to the fruit can be found in region’s literature as far back as 314 BC). They’ve since been hybridized, re-hybridized, and altered so much that there are hundreds of orange varieties throughout the world. Can you tell the difference between varieties?

The version of the paper published here is heavily edited for length. The full version, along with citations, a bibliography and a syllabus for study groups, is available; for a copy and/or to be put in touch with the author and other activists in Wisconsin Citizen Action, write Organizing Upgrade at info@organizingupgrade.com.

Los Angeles is the wage theft capital of the United States. Workers here lose $26 million to wage theft every week according to the UCLA Labor Center. The crime has major impacts on local economies. It decreases taxable income, lowers wage standards, and in California alone is estimated to cost the state $7 billion in lost payroll taxes.