Portside

Amid all of the talk about economic populism this election cycle, one group has been largely left out: working class Americans of color.

A note from the editors of ThinkProgress: We won’t do racists’ public relations work for them.

Tony often observed, regarding capital’s revanchist attack on working people that has steadily intensified over the last four decades, that what we would now call the neoliberal Democrats had nothing to offer those who have been or fear being ground into the dust by the juggernaut. He cautioned that, if the left and the labor movement didn’t find ways to connect with that growing population of those hurting, ... other, nasty and dangerous tendencies would.

Trump and journos shame themselves; Twit tweets; New normal; Fake-out 1, 2 and 3

The debate about an exotic new kind of drug delayed the trade deal for years, thanks in part to relentless advocates who stood up to big pharma.

As we enter the new era of Donald Trump, amid a welter of conflicting signals, only one thing seems clear when it comes to the U.S. military. Whatever extreme figures end up in key posts in the Trump version of the national security state, as TomDispatch regular William Hartung indicates today, yet more money will be sent swirling down the Pentagon's drain.

The following is not intended to be definitive and it is inevitably incomplete. It’s more about raising questions than answering them. The sole goal is to add to and deepen the ongoing discussion. If you find this useful, please share widely and credit simply to Howie Machtinger and other Durham, North Carolina-based social justice activists.

The phone bank on Florence Avenue near Western is fully staffed on a Thursday afternoon. Its 20 callers could be hawking solar paneling or copper water pipes to anyone who answers. Instead, the men and women here are selling change in the most populous city in the most populous state in the nation. On this day, shortly before the election, they are contacting potential voters about three of California’s 17 ballot propositions.

For decades, the military and the VA have repeatedly turned to one man to guide decisions on whether Agent Orange harmed vets in Vietnam and elsewhere. His reliable answer: No.

The great insurgencies that brought back democracy to many countries in Latin America after decades of military dictatorship are now targets of growing assaults by police, military and private militias. From Honduras to Argentina, from Brazil to Colombia, labor, indigenous and black social movements are embattled. The governments’ criminalization of social movements is “legitimizing” death squads, murders and in some cases massacres.