Portside

Reader Comments: Black Futures, #BlackLivesMatter - Not More Cops; Harry Belafonte on Activism; Socialism - Making a Comeback; Building a Left Movement and the Sanders campaign; Mideast War Escalation - Syria; Wealth Data and U.S. Economic Inequality; China Pivot; Okinawa Missiles, Cuba and Nuclear War; Israel; 2016 elections, primaries and the military budget; satirical articles on Portside

Democratic socialist, longtime political activist and past Massachusetts state legislator, Tom Gallagher has written a stunningly clear and concise book about American politics. It is self-published and he calls it a “pamphlet” in the tradition of George Orwell, “It is written because there is something that one wants to say now, and because one believes that there is no other way of getting a hearing”(1).

The victory for Sanders' legions in all probability won’t be putting Bernie in the White House, but creating a surging and enduring left. That, in turn, requires them to give as much thought to forming or joining autonomous post-campaign organizations, and envisioning post-campaign mobilizations, as they now do to advancing Sanders’s candidacy. Indeed, they need to start forming such organizations today, while they are together campaigning for Sanders.

The word socialism is in the air these days. Socialism of many varieties has been enjoying a comeback in Latin America for some time. Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, Lula da Silva, the late Hugo Chavez have been the region's dominant leaders in this century. And now there is a remarkable resurgence of European socialism. And, and, the candidate everyone is talking about is...Bernie Sanders, democratic socialist.

Reader Comments: Sanders Ignites a Populist Movement; How Sanders Should Talk About Democratic Socialism - readers offer differing views; Clinton and Labor Support; Argentina; Indonesia and the Act of Killing; Vera B. Williams and Children's Literature; A Progressive Song To Tap Your Feet To! from Kristin Lems; Announcements: Paul Robeson Play - More Performances - Hackettstown, NJ; Cuba Speaks for Itself - New York- Nov 4; Washington, DC- Nov 7; Bay Area- Nov. 13

Music Is My Ammunition | Playing For Change. What Republicans Hear When Bernie Speaks. Documentary: India's Daughter. Medea Benjamin on System Change. Could We Actually Live on Mars?

The discussion of democratic socialism should embrace our own American radical tradition. There’s nothing wrong with Denmark; we can learn a few things from them (and vice-versa). But we should talk first of all about our radical forebears here in the United States, for the most successful radicals have always spoken the language of American society and appealed to some of its deepest values.

Bernie Sanders calls himself a socialist, but the US needs its own version, not Denmark's. Socialism, on the other hand, historically has gone far beyond progressive welfare state measures by asserting that a democratic society can be achieved only if it includes democratic ownership of the economy. The steadily evolving localist forms of democratic ownership confront the traditional socialist questions and begin to answer them in novel ways.