Portside

A response to the recent Rewire commentary, "Want to Lose on Abortion? Talk About It as an Economic Issue."

The numbers don’t lie. The costs of our for-profit healthcare system are an anchor around the neck of America’s working families. It is simply unsustainable. Medicare for All would give us the healthcare that we need through an equitable public financing system that will ensure that everyone pays their fair share. It will provide an economic stimulus for businesses and workers alike.

Israeli companies are making a killing off technology perfected over 50 years of occupation.

Reparations promise us a monumental re-birthing of America. Like most births, this one will be painful. But the practice of reparations must continue until the world that slavery built is rolled up and a new order spread out in its place.

The shock election result in Britain has been attributed to the youth vote, leading to claims that younger voters don’t/can’t understand the issues at stake. Are the concerns valid?

The Trump-obsessed big media are mostly ignoring it, but Bernie-inspired activists are winning across the country—including in districts that went for Trump in 2016.

It may be good for a few big corporations’ bottom lines, for the Pentagon’s relevance in the region, and for local security forces and their political patrons, but don’t expect this militarized approach to development to solve the ongoing crises in Central America.

Fighting to protect what remains of US environmental protections. Until 2020, or as long as is necessary.

Low-income people have been dealing with the U.S. housing crisis for decades; now the problem is working its way up the income ladder. Many who thought themselves comfortably ensconced in the so-called middle class are now confronting the prohibitive cost of housing. Decent housing is out of the reach of so many. And we need comprehensive housing reform, real living wages, and a reinvestment in the social safety net because it has been a crisis for so very long.

While the politics concentrated on issues rather than identity approaches, it was noteworthy, if not necessarily important in terms of political direction, that women and people of color taken together outnumbered white guys. This was due in part to the heavy involvement of organized nurses, and to the conveners' efforts to ensure diversity. Anyone expecting a gaggle of young, arrogant Bernie Bros would be in for a surprise.