Portside

The civil rights movement’s nonviolence was a moral commitment and a strategic calculation of how the movement could best exert power. No practitioner of that nonviolence was more effective and disciplined than Rev. James Lawson.

As a new Zinn biography makes clear, A People’s History of the United States arose from a life of deep and admirable commitment. Read it, and you will be shocked and outraged, and learn. But as historical analysis, it has real flaws.

The persecution of communists and American radicals in the postwar era was not solely – and often not even primarily – a government operation. It was a collective endeavor.

Even in decline, the US will play a big role in global affairs. With control over the trajectory of US politics and the map of world power now up for grabs, the Left has an opportunity to influence both.

AOC’s Speech Electrifies Michigan Crowd. Trump on TikTac | The Daily Show. Bryan Stevenson | Confronting America’s Legacy of Slavery. The Most Conservative District in South Texas. Trump Suffers Major Defeat in Journalists' Case.

The Kurdish and Palestinian movements were forged in a common anti-colonial tradition. Their different political trajectories now reveal two competing models of liberation in the 21st century.

If the pointless war on Iran is a historical marker equivalent to Suez in ignominy, the question becomes, what do we do with this “Decline of Empire” moment?

There’s a strong consensus among historians that Nixon’s concept of an imperial presidency bringing scientists to heel foreshadowed Trump’s approach and that of his administration. “There are many eerie similarities.”