Portside

President Obama’s Clean Power Plan puts the responsibility on states to develop the strategies for reducing climate pollution. But states are already charged with monitoring and mitigating their air pollution, which hasn’t boded well for communities close to pollution-heavy facilities. And despite the plan’s emphasis on “community involvement and environmental justice,” the agency responsible for its implementation has a very poor environmental justice record.

“Every society has its radical fringes. But today we need to ask ourselves: What is it in the public atmosphere that allows extremism and extremists to walk freely in broad daylight?” asked Israeli President Reuven Rivlin at an Aug. 1 protest rally in Jerusalem, following the July 30 stabbing murder of a teenage girl, Shira Banki, at the Gay Pride parade, and the July 31 torching of the Dawabsheh family’s West Bank home and the murder of their toddler son, Ali.

In the wake of the Charleston massacre and 70 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a scholar argues it is important the textbooks reflect the historic role of African American civil rights leaders as advocates for peace and strong opponents of nuclear weapons. The scarring of war, poverty, and racism that Malcolm X spoke of continues to this day, and the history books should reflect how Black activism has challenged these deadly triplets.

As we approach the one year mark of the tragic police killing of Michael Brown and the Ferguson uprising that sparked a growing movement, Hughes' words remain painfully true today. Meanwhile, The hate site Stormfront and other racist groups have raked in hundreds of new members and tens of thousands of dollars since Dylann Storm Roof’s brutal June 17 killing spree in Charleston, S.C.

Under adverse conditions and with a difficult balance of forces within Europe and the world, we tried to assert the point of view of a people and the possibility of an alternative path. Ultimately, even if the powerful were able to impose their will, what remains is the absolute confirmation on the international level that austerity is a dead end.

The progressive favorite has views on foreign affairs but has avoided articulating them to voters.

On a 70th anniversary in which the madness shows no sign of ending, it’s good to turn to Susan Southard’s monumental new book, Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War, which offers a riveting, if chilling plunge into nuclear realities. Nuclear destruction of an almost unimaginable sort was the initial reality of the atomic age, with such weaponry actually used on two utterly defenseless cities. -- Tom Engelhardt

Portside readers may have noticed that our website has been intermittently off line for the past week. May First/People Link, which hosts Portside also hosts several pro-choice sites and those sites have been subjected to a massive attack. Women's health/pro-choice sites have been under ruthless, relentless attack for decades and the cyber front of those attacks has now expanded significantly.

On this 70th anniversary of the criminal US bombings against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki we renew our commitment to abolish nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. In our anti-imperialist endeavor, we are certain that unity among us will defeat warmongering and militarist policies, since the peoples’ will is a just peace.

A truly pivotal event in the post–Cold War era, Srebrenica helped forge a pro-interventionist alliance of both militarist liberals and conservatives. This alliance remains a potent lobby for war to the present day.