Skip to main content
Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it.

President Karen Lewis at City Club of Chicago

Karen Lewis Chicago Teachers Union
If you say you’re on the freedom side, then that means you will join us in asking the rich to pay their fair share; calling on the city and state to stop the attacks on public and higher education; in asking the banks to end their predatory deals that strip vital dollars from our schools; in fighting for stronger neighborhoods and job creation, and access to health care and not just health insurance.

Prince and Politics In Reagan's America

Jordy Cummings Red Wedge
The Reaper has been busy in 2016, Prince is dead at 57 years old and only recently on the road doing a well-received solo piano tour. Looking back at nearly four decades of hybridizing rock, funk and dance music, there can be no doubt that the man was a pioneer, sonically, aesthetically and as an artist who stood up and fought back against a music industry that alienated his labour.

Sanders Allies Plot Meeting to Discuss Future of the Movement

Alex Seitz-Wald MSNBC
The progressive movement that supported Sanders existed before his campaign and will continue after it. But Sanders has expanded it and unified it in a way that creates the potential for a powerful post-election force in politics if it can retain at least some cohesion.

Brazil’s Elite and the Drive to Impeach President Dilma Rousseff

David Miranda The Guardian
Corruption is not the cause of the effort to oust Brazil’s twice-elected President, Dilma Rousseff, merely the pretext. Brazil’s elite and their media organs have repeatedly failed to defeat Rousseff and her Workers' Party at the ballot box. So the plutocrats are now attempting, through a bizarre mélange of evangelical extremists, far-right supporters of a return to military rule, and non-ideological backroom operatives, to simply remove her from office.

Friday Nite Videos -- April 22, 2016

Portside
Bernie from Brooklyn: A Conversation With Mark Ruffalo. Library Flashmob | 'Hallelujah'. Bernie Is Going All the Way. How To Help Every Child Fulfill Their Potential. Baba Brinkman | "Make It Hot".

This Is What It Feels Like to Be Hunted by Drones

Malik Jalal The Independent
I know the Americans think me an opponent of their drone wars. They are right; I am. Singling out people to assassinate, and killing nine of our innocent children for each person they target, is a crime of unspeakable proportions. Their policy is as foolish as it is criminal, as it radicalises the very people we are trying to calm down.

Harriet Tubman Is Perfect for the $20 Bill, But Which Tubman?

Philip Kennicott The Washington Post
Harriet Tubman was a fighter, and impatient for the freedom of her people and the suffrage of her sex; she repeatedly put her life on the line for what she believed in. And one hopes that’s how she appears on the $20 bill.

After Years of Rollbacks, Democracy Movement Making Gains in the States

Sue Sturgis Facing South
For the fourth year in a row, bills to expand voters' access to the ballot box have outpaced those restricting voting, in terms of both introduction and passage. Among the most popular reforms are laws expanding voter registration, including automatic registration and online registration.
Subscribe to Portside