Portside

To some, patriotism means "my country -- right or wrong." To others, it means loyalty to a set of principles, and thus requires dissent and criticism when those in power violate those standards. Not enough Americans are aware that much of what we consider our patriotic culture, especially our iconic music, was created by artists and writers of decidedly left-wing sympathies.

Both sides may wave the Egyptian flag, which is red, white and black. The colour of khaki is no substitute

Angela Davis' lectures take the reader towards a serious reconsideration of ideology and the state apparatus and the deplorable question of oppression on the basis of race, gender, class and sexual orientation. The wholesale criminalisation of young black men cannot be permitted and the concept of rehabilitation has to find some ground. The Meaning of Freedom articulates a bold vision of the society we need to build and the path to get there.

As the war on terror becomes a war on our privacy, Salon's former CEO launches project to encourage whistle-blowers

Chris Kromm and Sue Sturgis at the Institute for Southern Studies argue in the latest issue of The American Prospect that a state can become both more progressive and more conservative at the same time, and that is actually happening in North Carolina -- creating an especially turbulent moment in the state's political history.

Judge's ruling is being celebrated by a national movement working to reverse 127 years of law that gave corporations the constitutional protections of real human beings. Pennsylvania state constitution says men and women come into this world with "certain inherent and indefeasible rights'

In all of these cases, the government pursued maximum punishments and generally took zero-tolerance approaches to plea negotiations. These prosecutions reflected an obvious institutional terror of letting the public see the sausage-factory locked behind the closed doors not only of the state, but of banks and universities and other such institutional pillars of society. This is a Wizard of Oz moment, where we are being warned not to look behind the curtain.

Instead of sanitizing the Muslim right as a way of fighting racism in the North, Meredith Tax argues that the left should develop a strategy of solidarity with democrats, trade unionists, religious and sexual minorities, and feminists struggling in the Global South against both neo-liberalism and fundamentalism.