Portside

Reader Comments: Zika Virus-Puerto Rico; Brussels Attacks; Elizabeth Warren; Bayard Rustin - from those who knew him; Letters from Langston; Dr. Quentin Young; Trump's Ideology of Violence and Working-Class Appeal; How Black Youth Helped Unseat Anita Alvarez; Demonstrating Against Trump; Future of Education-Colleges as Investments; Community Colleges; Announcements: Labor Notes Conference; Webinar: TPP is a feminist issue; 80th Annual Celebration Abraham Lincoln Brigade

Reader Comments: Fukushima Five Years Later; Clinton and Black Voters; Trump - Fascist; Bernie and Women; Misrepresenting the Working Class: Protest and Trump; In Praise of Impractical Movements; Why Virginia's Open Shop Referendum Should Matter; Protest Against Closing Down the Lukács Archives; Announcements: Welcome Federation of Cuban Women; CUNY Writers Against Austerity; Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Commemoration; "Food Chains" Film Screening; and more...

Reader Comments: Donald Trump - Anti-Muslim policies are steeped in racism, anti-communism and fascism; Chicago - CITYWIDE WALK OUT PART 2!! Rahm Emanuel & Anita Alvarez Must Resign - Friday, Dec. 18; End of Jewish History?; The Wal-Mart Effect; Kohler strike; Barbara Ehrenreich, working class, race, class, and privilege; Lincoln Brigade; Climate Change and Oil Wars; Cuba; The Big Short; Multicultural trip to Cuba; No Tidbits for next three weeks

Downward mobility plus racial resentment is a potent combination with disastrous consequences. We know now that election 2016 is increasingly an open portal into an age-old American dark side of slavery, repression, internment, and know-nothing-ism that couldn't be grimmer. And behind it all, running like an interstate highway through our history, is a powerful sense of white skin privilege that has traditionally extended even to those who were relatively powerless.

Mexican labor unions and workers are, overall, in the worst situation in decades. President Peña Nieto has succeeded in passing a series of so-called reforms - education, labor, energy, and communications - that will have devastating effects on an already weakened labor movement. The Mexican government has controlled unions since the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, but it was in the 1930s that the system of one-party state control over the unions was fully developed.

America's unions have been in retreat for decades - but can history point toward some fresh starts? Steve Fraser's book The Age of Acquiescence reminds us that America's worker movement-100 years ago-was a rather militant creature compared to today. Then, it was worker militias, "bread and roses," and unabashed class conflict; now, it's defense and dwindling membership, and disappointing Democrats. How did we get here? Is there still power in a union?

It's true. The "Communist Manifesto" co-author has gotten a second life — and he has some advice for progressives

Fasanella copied no one: not Van Gogh, nor Grandma Moses or Edward Hicks. He was sui generis, and when his paintings finally came to be appreciated, it was for their uniqueness, not their adherence to any school or formal style. Most of all, they are celebrated for forcefully conveying the ideals he lived and worked by, as summarized in his motto: “Remember who you are. Remember where you came from. Don’t forget the past. Change the world.

Cecily McMillan Trial Update - Sentencing May 19; Reader Comments-Neanderthal Intelligence; Artificial Intelligence, Algorithms, Bitcoins; Charter Schools - their massive fraud; What's a Union For; Paul Robeson Jr.; Cesar Chavez film; Food - Toxic?; Announcements - Building Up the Peace Movement From the Grassroots - New York-May 12; May 15 strike - Low Pay is Not OK; Help save the Haymarket Monument; The Charley Richardson Guide to Kicking Ass for the Working Class