Portside

There’s a long history of book-banning in the U.S. But conservative groups are emboldened like never before, and they’re taking their mission to a new level.

Reader Comments: Hearings and Republican Witnesses Show that Trump Planned Armed Coup; Supreme Court Rules Based on Lies, and Religion; Librarians and Books Under Attack; Starbucks Union Grows; Socialism 2022 Conference Labor Day weekend; more ....

Caustic fights over which books belong on the shelves have put librarians at the center of a bitter and widening culture war. Some of the conflicts have gotten so heated that community members have tried to seek criminal charges against librarians.

The latest rightwing attack on public schools has been raging for more than a year with angry, screaming parent groups disrupting school board meetings threatening jobs and lives of educators. Those weren’t actually spontaneous grassroots protests.

Return to Normal pushed schools to a crisis point. How do you run a school without enough staff? Zoom-learning was soul-crushingly devoid of laughter and energy of a traditional classroom and could never serve as a replacement for hands-on learning.

Reader Comments: Labor Law Reform; Raising Interest Rates a Problem; Art Spiegelman, Maus and Book Bans; Megadrought; Paul Robeson; Peekskill from One Who Was There; NFL, Brian Flores, Systemic Racism; U.S. and Russian Women Call for Peace; more....

Narratives about race, gender and inequality are being banned around the US – but sales are rising as the frenzy appears to have the opposite effect

The wages of wokeness

Reader Comments: Return of Fascism; 2/3 Support Wealth Tax; CNN and Democratic Debate; Imminent Danger(?) - Soleimani Murder; Biden and Buttigieg; Boeing; Australia; Spain; Pesticide Use; Chesa Boudin; Missouri Seeks to Burn Books, Jail Librarians;