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Tough Guys

Kenyon Gradert Dissent Magazine
The author enlivens a type of working-class society where capitalism compensates poor men with the role of tough guy, all in the writer's effort to "bring the left to life."The End of Eddy does so in a style both plainspoken and visceral, using Louis's own childhood trials--like his protagonist much abused as a gay kid in a dead-end factory town --as a window onto the pathologies of a cloistered working-class existence.

Ten Awesome High School Protests that Defied the Trump Agenda in 2017

Dawson Barrett Truthout
youth demonstrating On a wide range of issues, high schoolers across the United States opposed the Trump agenda this year, both directly and in principle. At the end of a bleak political year, here are ten stories about awesome high schoolers who led the charge in 2017. Plus five youth organizing victories in 2017 in California.

DSA Members Comment on Their 2017 Convention

Portside
Portside anticipated that the DSA convention would be a watershed event for the left. Just before it was called to order, membership surpassed 25,000. The group was making a leap from minor to major, and we welcomed that. We contacted some DSAers we know who were present, to bring you their views on what the meeting meant for DSA and the left.

Democratic Socialists of America Meet in Chicago

Heidi Chua Portside
DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, just held their largest convention - ever - with 700 delegates, representing 25,000 members. Nearly a thousand socialists - young and old, over-whelmingly young, came together to startegize building DSA, the largest socialist organization in the United States in decades. Here is a Portside exclusive report by Heidi Chua.

“I’m Going to Learn to Dance If It Takes Me All Night and Day” - Thoughts on Chuck Berry

Geoffrey Jacques Portside
Much commentary on the late Chuck Berry will focus on how his songs expressed fun and teenage angst. This is the right thing to do. Yet there’s more. For example, Berry’s obsession with the comparative qualities of fast cars — most brilliantly displayed in his song “Maybellene” — did not just reflect the rise of post-WW II consumerist culture....He preferred V-8 Fords over Cadillacs because he spent several years in the late 1940s and early 1950s helping make Ford cars.

Blaming Millennials for Trump - 99 Problems But the Kids Ain't One

Scott Goodstein Policy.Mic
Young voters were the only age bracket that Clinton actually won. We need to stop blaming them. Far from sitting on their hands, today's young voters are actively engaged. If the Clinton campaign is dissatisfied with their level of millennial support, they should take a hard look at where their young voter strategy failed.

How Social Change Happens; Mass Support Because You Agree with Bernie Sanders

Bill McKibben; David Cay Johnston
Change comes precisely when you do change hearts -- and once that change has come, then the laws and the "allocation of resources," and the "way systems operate" follow pretty easily. Large majorities of Americans are, like Sanders, "democratic socialists." Sanders favors private ownership and markets, but with rules that protect little people from abuses and uncertainties. Even substantial majorities of Republicans support much of the Sanders economic plan.
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