Portside

Many of the folks I know are getting ready to play serious defense in 2017, and they’re not wrong. Before we take up our three-point stance on the national line of scrimmage, however, maybe we should ask ourselves not only what we’re fighting against, but what we’re fighting for. What kind of United States of America do we actually want? Maybe, in fact, we could start by asking: What is a country for? What should a country do?

On January 2, 2017 Portside posted "The End of Progressive Neoliberalism" by Nancy Fraser http://portside.org/2017-01-02/end-progressive-neoliberalism. Here is a reader response which call for a "critique of liberal multiculturalism and liberal feminism, while advancing a socialist-feminist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist vision. And let us try to leave behind the sectarian divisions that have hampered us and seize the opportunity to build a new left."

From a flawed database that identified dozens of toddlers as gang members to an application process designed to provide deportation relief to young migrants, here are the systems that could hasten mass deportation efforts if used against immigrant communities.

Angela Davis: ""We recognize that we are collective agents of history and that history cannot be deleted like web pages."

As we build a movement to thwart Trump and win genuine social change, the activist life of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is instructive.

What our communities need so intensely right now are real examples of a vision for a new culture and society, right in their own neighborhoods. They need to be able to touch and feel and experience them and also experience building them as participants in our democracy.

DOJ lawyers look to adjourn a hearing next week, and some expect them to wind up abandoning their argument that the Texas voter ID law discriminates against minorities.

New paper makes the case that a global billionaire tax is ethical, good for growth, and could solve a lot of the world’s problems. Oh and politically viable.

Republican lawmakers have quietly laid the foundation for the bargain basement transfer of Americans’ birthright, 640 million acres of national land, to private hands, notably oil, mining, and development interests. In a single line of changes to the rules for the House of Representatives, Republicans have stealthily eased the path to disposing of federal property, even if doing so loses money for the government and provides no demonstrable compensation to U.S. citizens.

Time and again workers mention the same issue as to why they abandoned the Democrats: NAFTA. Feltner says, “The NAFTA bill is still fresh in people’s minds. The international was all, ‘Vote Democrat, Democrat, Democrat.’ Then they make an announcement about jobs going away and it’s because of NAFTA. The workers connect that to the Democrats, and Hillary was saddled with that.”