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.

In Georgia, undocumented students are barred from the state’s top public schools. Together, students and professors decided to start a freedom school to help fill the academic void. By consensus, the group chose the name Freedom University. It recalled the activism of the past, and, on T-shirts, it also made for a gratifying taunt: “F.U. Georgia.”

National Public Radio's media critic Brooke Gladstone talks with the Poynter Institute about the myth of post-fact journalism and the need for journalists to ferret out and offer common pools of accurate information, if only to provide contending parties with a basis to negotiate and for democracy to work.

A group of young professionals, who initially organized to protest the treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka, went on to form the Young Tamil Nadu Movement to highlighting problems such as caste oppression, minority rights and gender inequality in the workplace. They have since established the Forum for Information Technology Employees with chapters in nine cities including Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi.

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Millions of people are protesting Trump's ascension to power, beginning with the powerful Women's Marches the day after Trump assumed office. Street demonstrations, rallies, mass Congressional phone calls and town hall meetings, and much more have continued since. How best to build this resistance movement? While we can learn from many sources, the success of the United Front and Popular Front strategies of the 1930's and beyond provide important lessons for us today.

Media coverage of the 2016 election often emphasized Donald Trump’s appeal to the working class. There’s just one problem: this account is wrong. Trump voters were not mostly working-class people.

The calls for Impeachment deepen. Some are concerned that we then get Pence, then what. The impeachment process is drawn out, will take us into next year (2018), maybe even 2019. Organizing at the grassroots and nationally will tie into the elections. This can help us build a mass movement to repudiate the politics of Trump and Trumpism. Defeating a sitting President is no small thing. And, Katha Pollitt on why Russia-gate is not same as 50s McCarthyism.

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.

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.