Portside

Reader Comments: Two Weeks to Go - Dump Trump, Defeat Racism and Misogyny; Learning to Claim Our Victories; Bernie Sanders' Donor Network Comes Thru for House and Senate Candidates; John Oliver on Third Parties; Support Hillary, Then Fight Like Hell; and: Remembering Tom Hayden; Syria; Silencing Librarians; DuBois and the Fight for Peace; Bob Dylan; Announcements; and more...

Not so much as a comprehensive weekly review of one unitary book, the following contribution is a synthetic culling of classics on white supremacy and racialism in the United States. We at Portside believe the essay is must reading, as are the books cited.

Organizing in Omaha and small towns with meatpacking plants is altering politics in this reddest of states. At the top of the city's power structure sit representatives of large corporations. The corporate elite has transformed the downtown, now brimming with office towers, condominiums and a redeveloped Old Market tourist mecca. Corporate domination has failed to transform the lives of Omaha's working-class families for the better, however.

How we vote on November 8 will be the first step in a long process of building a new economic and political order in New York State and in the United States. It is an opportunity to push the nation - and Dems - forward. It is important to vote the Working Families Party (WFP) line for several reasons. The WFP is an independent progressive political party that in New York State can run progressive candidates who are endorsed by both the WFP and the Democratic Party.

International media has provided a constant stream of stories and editorials about the collapse of the Venezuelan economy. Shortages of food and medicine, hours-long lines, incomes eroded by triple-digit inflation have dominated press reports. Adherents to this explanation say the downward spiral will continue until the chavistas are removed from power, either through elections or through a coup (most pundits don't care which). The reality is more complicated.

Cleveland's baseball team flaunts the most spectacularly racist logo in professional sports. When the American League Championship series shifted to Toronto, a First Nations activist, Douglas Cardinal, went to Ontario court to bar the logo from being worn while the team played in Toronto, deeming the name and logo to be violations of the Ontario Human Rights code. Major League Baseball and the Cleveland Indians' front office sent 27 lawyers to challenge this.

“Left-wing populism” makes clear that boundaries that create and represent identities do not run between people of different geographical origin, but among those at the bottom and at the top of society. This is a useful and appropriate populism. It has nothing to do with right-wing populism: the Others on the other side of the fence are not foreigners, but the richest 10 percent of society.

The university has the largest endowment in the United States and is the birthplace of some of the nation’s most progressive ideas, but workers said they couldn’t pay basic living expenses.

"When I first heard about Bob Dylan’s selection for the prize, I wasn’t concerned that the award had gone to a musician; I was disturbed that the committee had demonstrated an apparent obliviousness to the times we are living in. The US is saddled with a presidential candidate who peddles in misogyny and appeals to white supremacists. In many other countries, neo-liberals are vying with the far right for power, and the left is at its weakest." This decision felt myopic.

The 13th effectively demonstrates that criminalization has been a persistent feature of anti-Black racism. The film does not discuss the policies that gave greater power to police, prosecutors, and prisons in those critical years.