Portside

Reader Comments: Labor Movement, Unions and Trump; Coal Miner's Heritage; North Carolina; More on the Rockettes; Protests and Social Security; Progressives, Neoliberalism and the Broadest Fight Against Trump-readers exchange; Vietnam War;

Ultraconservative politics are bullying the state government, but there is hope in the numbers being rallied to the cause. Donald Trump's triumph across the South and Midwest, which won him the Electoral College and the White House, did not extend to Governor Pat McCrory in my home state of North Carolina.

Reader Comments: Times Invents 'Left' Economists to Attack Sanders; Trump - Most Dangerous Face in GOP Field; Bernie and the Movement; Why America Is Moving Left; Fania and Angela Davis - New Kind of Civil Rights Activism; Teachers Walk-In in 30 Cities; Sanitizing Socialism and Needing to Create a New Kind of Capitalism With a Conscience; Announcements: Life Is Waiting - Film Banned in UAE, Lebanon, Belgium; New York Faculty Unions Supports India Students and Faculty

Reader Comments: #BlackLivesMatter and Bernie Sanders; The Value of Protest; US Cited for Police Violence, Racism; Private Prisons; Euro Agreement and Greece; Urban Renewal and Public Space; Announcement: Rosa Luxemburg Conference - New Takes on a Longtime Classic - New York - August 21 - 22 (Moderator's Note - There will be no Tidbits for the next three weeks)

White supremacy has dominated the politics of America resulting in the creation of racist laws and cultural practices designed to subjugate non-whites. The emblem of the confederacy, the stars and bars, in all its manifestations, has long been the most recognizable banner of this political ideology. It's the banner of racial intimidation and fear whose popularity experiences an uptick whenever black Americans appear to be making gains economically and politically.

An outline for social transformation in the United States, inspired by South Africa's Freedom Charter. The Democracy Charter, summarized below, seeks to enlarge the public's understanding of the connectedness of these issues as a way to achieve a social transformation of American society. This is the ultimate purpose of our movement.

“It’s ugly, it’s vicious, it’s brutal” describes Israel in Palestine — and why Gaza is “the hood on steroids” says Cornel West speaking with Stanford Professor David Palumbo-Liu about the divestment effort and Palestinian activism. The interview ranges from how the issue of Israel-Palestine is registering not only with young people, but also with older progressives and intellectuals, and about the linkages between civil rights struggles in the US and abroad.

Cities and the federal government have already offered a slew of concessions: civil rights investigations, body cameras, civilian review boards, increased diversity in police departments. These reforms are not likely to fulfill protesters' demand for a transformation of policing in the United States. Where the protests are headed .. 'If we recognize the system doesn't work for us . then you're talking about getting rid of capitalism.'

Reader Comments-Colbert Nation; Is It Band Enough Yet; Southern Jim Crow Murder; Cuba; How America's Relationship With Cuba Will Change; We express our condolences - Millions March NYC and Center for Constitutional Rights; Angela Davis on police violence; Youth Shall Lead in struggle against police violence; Political Athletes; "Negro-Jewish Unity" and IWO; torture; FBI; Panama invasion; New resources: On Torture; Staughton Lynd book; Stevie Wonder; theater review

This new movement is being led by mostly young black women who won't allow us to forget that black women's lives matter. It is drawing in diverse crowds, including white allies who are not calling for gradual change, but a total end to white supremacy. The movement doesn't look or sound like anything our elders remember(or were taught) about the civil rights era. And that's OK. We have a new fight. We have to create a new model of resistance. Everyone has a role to play