Tidbits - June 4, 2015 - Korean War End?; Spanish elections; Puerto Rico; Oscar López Rivera; Emmy Noether; Gaza Peace Concert; Tiananmen Square; Angela Acquitted; more...

Portside
Reader Comments: Can Women End Korean War?; Countess vs. Communist-Battle to Become Madrid's Mayor; How the United States Strangled Puerto Rico; Obama's Human and Moral Challenge: Oscar López Rivera; The Press and Bernie Sanders; The Female Mathematician Who Changed the Course of Physics; Appeal by Dr. Kristin Neuhaus, successor to Dr. George Tiller; Cross Borders Concert at the Gaza Strip border; Today in History - Tiananmen Square Massacre; Angela Davis Acquitted

books

How Long Have We Really Been `One Nation Under God'?

Molly Worthen The Nation, June 8, 2015 edition
With its numerous religious awakenings and repeated instances of religiosity as political theater, it's easy to forget US civic life is secular. Author Kevin Kruse argues that the effort to ground political rights in spiritual authority and not in democratic discussion and decision-making originated with a coterie of corporate heads, right-wing politicians, reactionary pastors and cultural icons as a bulwark against progressive politics and New Deal legislation.

Tidbits - May 28, 2015 - California Oil Spill; Baltimore; Bernie; Waco White Riot; Freedom for Oscar López Rivera New York - May 30; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments - California Oil Spill; Baltimore; Bernie Sanders Campaign; Waco and White Riot; Freedom for Oscar López Rivera - New York March May 30; Why Libraries Matter; Cold War Modernist; Announcements - Last Cold War Spycase - film showing - Washington - June 7; National Healthcare Strategy Conference in Chicago Oct. 30 Today in History - The Paris Commune - 144 Years Ago; Today Marks 5 Years in Confinement for Chelsea Manning

books

Cold War Modernist

John H. Brown American Diplomacy
Scholars are producing increasingly detailed accounts of how the U.S. government utilized artists and culture in the Cold War anti-Communist crusade. According to former diplomat John H. Brown, this new study, by Greg Barnhisel, shows that an important factor in making modernism work for U.S. Cold War interests involved "defanging modernism of its radicalism and turning it into an international vehicle for whitebread all-American convictions."

Tidbits - May 21, 2015 - Victories in Philadelphia, Los Angeles; Third Party Builders; The Nakba; David Letterman Show and whiteness; Educators Make a Difference; more....

Portside
Reader Comments- Progressive Wins: Philadelphia / Los Angeles; Third Party Builders Meet; What U.S. Really Owes Black America; Thirty Years After MOVE Bombing; The Nakba: The Intentional, Deliberate Dispossession of Palestinians; Remembering Guy Carawan; David Letterman Show and whiteness; Educators and School Staff Make a Difference; Mike Brown Would Have Been 19; Announcements- Greece Solidarity 4 All U.S. Tour; Left Forum 2015 Today in History-Post-War Strike Wave

Tidbits - May 14, 2015 - TPP; Stop-and-Frisk; White Americans and Police Accountability; Vietnam ,Debating the War; Remembering Jackson State Murders; more...

Portside
Reader Comments - Obama and the TPP; Stop-and-Frisk; White Americans and Police Accountability; Vietnam and Anti-War History and the Ongoing Debate; Remembering Jackson State Murders; Greece, Organizing New York; Those Who Work in Customer Call Centers; Announcements - Immigration, Work and Wages - Washington - May 21; Film Showing and Discussion - Blood Fruit - New York - May 22

Tidbits - April 16, 2015 - Chicago election; Police Killings; Prisons; Jewish Anti-Zionism; Charter Schools; Cuba; Culture...more

Portside
Reader Comments - Chicago election; Police Killings; Reparations; Prisons; Jewish Anti-Zionism; Charter Schools vs. Public Schools; Cuba; Latin America; Iran; Burkina Faso; Guatemala; Scientologists; Game of Thrones; Science Fiction and the Hugo Awards; San Francisco and Labor History; April 26 - Peace and Planet for nuclear abolition; Remembering Jim Knutson

books

Culture After Google

Emilie Bickerton New Left Review #92 (Second Series), March-April 2015
Anatomy of a cultural product with the potential to ameliorate social inequities but threatened by digital corporate conglomeration and hijacking by the security state. Book covers the implications for cultural democracy in various sectors-music, film, news, advertising-how battles over copyright, piracy and privacy laws have evolved, counterpoints to invasive data-mining and a "People's Platform" supporting the politics of a fightback.

tv

Against Type

Lucy McKeon Boston Review
Popular culture may be getting more diverse in terms of gender and skin color, but it's still mostly flat in presenting diverse human qualities and differences. Few characters play against type, which makes the exceptions all the more remarkable. Part of the power of characters playing against type is simply their insistence, humorous and without qualified explanation, of their existence. In other words, like most of comedy, its power is better experienced, not explained

Tidbits - March 19, 2015 - Lessons from Syriza and Podemos; 2016 elections; Prison Reform, Israel; Culture; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments - Lessons from Syriza and Podemos; Kshama Sawant; 2016 elections; Prison Reform, Israel, Gaza, Palestine, Israeli elections; Venezuela, Greece, Ukraine; Measles; Culture - music, television, films; Franz Fanon; Roger Burbach - Presente! Announcements - Break the Cuba Blockade - Venceremos Brigade; WRL new "Pie Chart"; Mondragon and Workers Cooperatives; Fighting Inequality Conference
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