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The Forgotten World of Communist Bookstores

Joshua Clark Davis Jacobin
Communist bookstores provided a critical public space for radicals, operating in virtually every major American city. Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York had several apiece. Smaller and ostensibly less radical locales such as Birmingham, Houston, and Omaha, had communist bookstores, too. Some radical bookstores operate today. Venture into one of these shops in which left bookstores helped customers envision radical worlds that were often otherwise unimaginable in America

Tidbits - April 27, 2017 - Reader Comments: Peoples Climate March; Science; Korea; Nuclear War Danger; France; Hawaii IS a State; GOP Health Plan; Single-Payer; Fascism Today; Resources; Announcements-MAY DAY; Labor Film Festival; and more....

Portside
Reader Comments: Peoples Climate March and a Defense of Science; Korea; Danger of Nuclear War; Marine Le Pen is a Fascist, Not a Populist; Hawaii IS a State - Understand Jeff Sessions; GOP Health Plan - A Disaster; Attraction of Single-Payer; Airline Abuse, Profits and Deregulation; Fascism Today - Portside readers exchange views; Resources; Announcements-MAY DAY; Trump and the Left; Labor Film Festival; Left Forum; Oscar López Rivera is Coming to New York; and more...

The Level of Support for Jean-Luc Mélenchon is Frightening the Powerful

by Henry Crapo L'Humanité
Rising rapidly in the polls, the candidate of ``France Insoumise" has become the main target for defeat by his opponents. The right-wing press is unleashed, and the head of state mingles his voice in the refrain ``Liberalism or Apocalypse", which seeks to discredit any alternative policy.

The End of the U.S. Empire Can Be a New Beginning for Our Democracy

Daniel Cantor and Barbara Dudley The Nation
Only by understanding how Trump fits within our recent history will the left be able to figure out where we go from here. We are once again at a moment of consequential political realignment. Both major parties are deeply divided. We need to engage in shaping the newly emerging parties. The Democrats may or may not move left; they, like the Republicans, may split.

Tidbits - March 30, 2017 - Reader Comments: Single Payer; Gorsuch Disaster; Israel-Segregationist, Apartheid; Religious Left, Socialists, Feminists; Censorship and Art; Teachers’ Union Guide for Immigrant Children; Announcements; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments: Trump Failure Answer is Single Payer; Gorsuch-"Originalist" Disaster; Israel Segregationist and Apartheid; Left Growth Today - Religious Left, Socialists, Feminists; Censorship and Art - Emmett Till painting; PBS; Maine Fishermen; Job Growth and Worker Injury; Resources: Teachers’ Union Guide for Immigrant and Refugee Children; Announcements: Black Women in the Media; Chicago-April 4; 81st Annual Celebration of the Lincoln Brigade; and more...

Socialism's Return

Patrick Iber The Nation
After more than a half-century in the wilderness, the socialist left reemerges in America. Bernie Sanders helped give renewed meaning and salience to democratic socialism as a political identity. His emergence as the moral conscience of the American left was nearly impossible to anticipate. Perhaps the most important aspect of Sanders's run in the Democratic primary was cultural rather than electoral.

Dutch Election’s Big Winner Proves to be GreenLeft

Jon Henley The Guardian
Sometimes compared to Canada’s youthful prime minister, Justin Trudeau, Klaver – who has a Moroccan father and a mother of Indonesian descent – said on polling day that the left’s answer to the far right’s rise in Europe was to stand up for its ideals.

How Immigrants Built the American Left—And Can Build It Again

Nelson Lichtenstein Dissent Magazine
If and when a twenty-first-century left comes into being, immigrants—whether freshly arrived or one or two generations in—will be at the heart of it. A path to citizenship for all those now rendered vulnerable by their resident status is essential to building a more pluralistic, multicultural society. Yet a new left must go further, not merely defending the civil liberties of these new Americans but seeking to give them a new power and a new voice.

A Devil We Know

Robert Greene Dissent Magazine
If we are to look beyond the next four years, we must create a movement that is not simply anti-Trump, but that presents left politics as a compelling alternative. In preparing to fight the anti-labor, anti-immigrant, racist, and misogynist policies of a Trump administration, history can help us understand how activists and radicals in previous eras of social turmoil fought for a better future.
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