Portside

Facebook fakery; Media misery; Trump’s quid pro quo; Post election plenty; Science silenced; Stormy forecast

The response to Bernie showed that a socialist party in the United States is possible. But there is no shortcut to building power.

How student organizers and a state representative are campaigning to eliminate tuition in Illinois.

Do we need a new Schoolhouse Rock! to remind us how to run a democracy? “Many teachers were scared this year to teach on the election because of the polarization in the country,” Louise Dube said. “They were concerned because they felt that their administration would not back them up in teaching it.”

In 2000, UC San Diego professor Chalmers Johnson expanded on his observation in his book “Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire.” Johnson, who died in 2010, argued that the United States would inevitably face the same sort of dirty tricks it had played around the world, paying a price for trying to dominate far-away lands.

In the face of Trump and the GOP’s likely nationwide attack on unions, labor leaders are scrambling to ensure that they have a hand in reshaping a Democratic Party that has, as union power has diminished, sometimes pushed organized labor to the margins. Union members make up about 100 of the roughly 447 voting members of the Democratic National Committee, making union support a major factor in the race for DNC chair.

Trump’s recent cabinet nominations show deep allegiance to Wall Street and his intention to continue the policies of displacement, gentrification and rising rents at the expense of the American People.

In collaboration with the Garment Worker Center and UCLA Occupational Safety and Health (UCLA LOSH), the UCLA Labor Center just released Dirty Threads, Dangerous Factories: Health and Safety in Los Angeles’ Fashion Industry. The study finds that fast fashion, an approach that moves garments from design to shelf at an accelerated pace, leads to dangerous working conditions for garment workers.

How to Swamp Washington and Double-cross Your Supporters Big Time.

The day after the Army handed down its decision on the Dakota Access Pipeline, it announced a public hearing on water permits for another controversial Energy Transfer Partners project: the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, which would cut through the ecologically important Atchafalaya Basin wetlands in south central Louisiana. The hearing will take place in Baton Rouge on Jan. 12.