Portside

Jon Batiste & Stay Human -- St. James Infirmary. Megan Rapinoe: 'Being Yourself Is Most Important.' Retrumplican Party. Rep. Jenny Horne on the Confederate Flag. Movie: What Happened, Miss Simone?

Here is bigotry as a systematic, total mindset having a special affinity for right-wing movements. The author explores its appeal, the self-image it justifies, the interests it serves and its complex connection not so much to antiquity as modernity, shaping the conspiratorial and paranoid worldview of true believers, elitists and chauvinists. It enables their hiding behind mainstream conservative motifs to support policies disadvantaging the targets of their contempt.

As Annette Gordon-Reed notes in this review, John Quincy Adams is probably best known through Steven Spielberg's portrayal of him, in the film Amistad, where he defends enslaved people who revolted aboard a slave ship. He was also a President of the United States and the son of a President. As we consider an election contest that might be one between two "dynastic" seekers of the office, this biography offers a look back at the first "dynastic" presidency.

Much of Aronowitz' criticism of what the labor movement doesn't do, rings true, as does his call for a more open socialist orientation. But 40 after the capitalist class started its aggressive attack on unions we need more than lists of what labor should do. We need to talk about how we are going to do things differently, not just that we should based on a real understanding of where workers are politically, organizationally and ideologically.

Much of Aronowitz' criticism of what the labor movement doesn't do, rings true, as does his call for a more open socialist orientation. But 40 after the capitalist class started its aggressive attack on unions we need more than lists of what labor should do. We need to talk about how we are going to do things differently, not just that we should based on a real understanding of where workers are politically, organizationally and ideologically.

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For Wisconsin's schools, Scott Walker's new budget is a blueprint for abandoning public education. In Milwaukee, in addition to insufficient funding, the budget includes a "takeover" plan that increases privatization and decreases democratic control of the city's public schools.

False history marginalizes African Americans and makes us all dumber. The Confederates won with the pen (and the noose) what they could not win on the battlefield: the cause of white supremacy and the dominant understanding of what the war was all about. We are still digging ourselves out from under the misinformation they spread. When each state left the Union, they made clear they were seceding because they were for slavery.

Economic assistance under the Marshall plan was important to both countries, but it was the granting of debt relief that made a difference to the Germans. After World War II, Germany not only received direct transfers of money - aid through the Marshall plan. Far more important than the $1.4bn was the granting of debt relief at the London conference of 1953.

It would be very healthy for a democratic socialist to press the flesh, meet ordinary folks, let them see what a socialist looks like, what socialism stands for. Now we have a socialist doing that. Bernie Sanders is off and running, to huge and enthusiastic crowds. The campaign is sharpening the differences, functioning as a pole of attraction to bring together a mass popular alliance that is a key aspect of a strategy for taking power away from the corporate rulers...