Portside

Not so far back, those who opposed the Iraq War were smeared as supporters of Saddam Hussein, a charge that honest anti-war activists easily dismissed. Defending Syria from foreign aggression and advocating the right of Syrians to choose their own future apparently makes one an “Assad apologist"...

There is an old story about Marx: you throw him out the front door and he sneaks back in through the rear window. That is what happened once again.

Conor Lamb ran as an anti-establishment, labor-backed candidate who defended the welfare state. To keep winning, Democrats will need to embrace a bold, redistributive program. If anything, the problem is that the progressive efforts are too weak, not too strong.

Rebuilding the democratic infrastructure is too important to leave up to the consultocracy. Mobilizers only turn out people with whom they agree. Organizers engage these people in reaching out to other people with whom they don’t agree.

This is the question people left of center have been asking for some time now. In different ways, it is being posed in Latin America, in much of Europe, in Arab and Islamic countries, in southern Africa, and in northeast Asia. The question is all the more dramatic because, in so many of these countries, this follows a period when there were significant shifts leftward.

Quebec's broad party of the left, Québec solidaire (QS), congress opens May 19 in Montréal – the 12th congress in its 11-year history. The delegates face a challenging agenda: the final stage of adoption of the party's detailed program, a process begun eight years ago; discussion of possible alliances with other parties and some social movements including a proposed fusion with another pro-independence party, Option nationale; and renewal of the party's top leadership.

Hope belongs to the left. Social hope entails searching collectively for public solutions to our public problems rather than pretending that everything is up to the solitary individual. Hope creates action, but it is equally true that action creates hope. It is the action of movements, rooted in people's needs and longings, attempting to change the world in small ways and large.

Reader Comments: Whither the Resistance - Senate Dems Need Spine; Open Letter to Historic Women's March; And this is Just the First Two Weeks; Readers respond to Bhaskar Sunkara, "Our Alternative"; Union Membership Continues Decline, Building Trades Leadership Makes Deal, Undercuts Rest of Labor; Resources - How to Resist, What to Do;Announcements - Vito Marcantonio Forum; Igniting the Socialist Resistance Against Trump; Never Forget the Japanese Internment; and more..

Orlando Attack on LGBT, Puerto Rican and Latin communities; Thank You Bernie Sanders, Now, What Next?; Ending Mass Incarceration; Eliminating White Supremacy; Black-Palestinian Solidarity; U.S. Genocide Against Native Americans; Medicare for All; Demand Release of Homa Hoodfar; Victor Jara's Murderer to Face Charges; Bill Gates Gets Clucked in Bolivia; Announcements: Whitney Retrospective of photographer Danny Lyon; Activism in New York - book talk.

Reader Comments: Contested Convention is Needed; and "#BernieorBust" Dead End; The Left in 2016; Stopping Israel's Occupation and BDS; Israel as the Last Remaining, Active Settler-Colonialist Project; Who's Afraid of Communism - Paul Buhle comments; Teamster and Other Multi-Employer Pension Plans; Teacher Challenges Low Evaluation in Court and Wins; Baldwin; Shakespeare; James Connolly - appreciated today; Just Released - Panama Papers Database...