Portside

 Sanders was clear early on that his campaign aimed to fortify a grassroots movement, not himself as a candidate. He identified the platform as a way to register the Democratic Party’s commitment to a progressive agenda—a kind of peace treaty between the DNC and the political revolution, but also an historical marker of dissent from the party’s neoliberal agenda.

Sanders aides say that the biggest issue—and the one where they may have the most leverage—is opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation trade deal that President Obama supports. But Sanders will fight for a battery of other policies, from a fracking ban to a $15 minimum wage.

Reader Comments: Bernie Sanders - What We Want; Clinton Campaign Obstructing Change to Democratic Platform; Supreme Court Rules: Abortion Clinics in Texas Cannot be Shut Down; Brexit - Warning Signal for Trump-Era America?; Bombing Syrian Troops Would Be Illegal; Mexican Teachers Being Jailed and Killed; Chilean Military Liable for Victor Jara Murder; Report Clears Rouseff; Remembering James Green; This Week in History - Arbenz Guzman Deposed in Guatemala; and more...

By silencing the Arab-American community and marginalizing us because we might dare to advocate for Palestinians, there is the damage that this hysteria does to our national discourse. At issue, it appears, is not what we are saying, but that we are the ones saying it. We are accused of “singling Israel out”, while in reality it is our critics who are singling out this issue as the only one we cannot discuss.

The meeting was underway Friday in St. Louis for scarcely more than an hour when the committee’s chairman, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), called a multiple-hour recess to resolve disagreements that were beginning to stir acrimony among committee members

As we head toward the Democratic National Convention, I often hear the question, "What does Bernie want?" Wrong question. The right question is what the 12 million Americans who voted for a political revolution want.

Reader Comments: Orlando - Attack on LGBTs; Criticism of Portside and Moderators response; Gov. Cuomo's Anti-Free Speech Move Against BDS; Alina Nurses Strike; Why White Workers Left the Democratic Party; Announcements: US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation - 15th Annual National Conference - October 14-17; New Edition of Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching; BROADWAY FOR ORLANDO - "WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS LOVE" - solidarity recording....more

A historian debunks liberal myths about racism, the New Deal, and why the Democrats moved right.

Instead of a reality check for the party, it'll be smugness redoubled

Platforms are,a statement of the accepted beliefs of the party assembled. For citizen movements, they are a measure of their progress in defining acceptable opinion. And ideas matter. A commitment to ending segregation or guaranteeing the right to vote. Equal rights for women. No first use of nuclear weapons. The DNC prevented Sanders from picking nurses leader RoseAnn DeMoro - the DNC had not wanted labor leaders on the platform drafting committee.