Portside

"We just want to simply tell America what their faith is about. America talks about democracy, but they’ve kept us from voting for years. And even when they give us the vote on paper, politically, they turn around and take away the important part of what we fought for and what they said they were giving, all right? The truth is that we have to work together to save ourselves politically, save ourselves spiritually and save ourselves physically."

Palestinian children are taken from their beds in night raids and not returned to their families for months.

The left’s big net neutrality win; NN’s mobile revolution; Your snitching gadgets; Community broadband giveth; PBS taketh away

In the November, 2014, special issue of Socialism and Democracy, "The Roots of Mass Incarceration in the US: Locking Up Black Dissidents and Punishing the Poor," provides a penetrating analysis of a range of the issues involved and points toward the steps that are needed to turn around these horrors. This publication couldn't be more timely and relevant, as the mighty river of the Black Lives Matter movement flows across and brings new life into the country.

What value would be added by viewing the war from outside the nation? How does it change our understanding of the war to situate it within a larger international context? One simple answer is that the war mattered greatly to the world. In newspapers and magazines, in meeting halls, churches, taverns, lecture halls, workers unions, and at posh dinner parties, foreigners followed the war with great interest and they debated what it meant for their future.

US President Obama supports Chancellor Merkel's efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. But hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin's approach. And NATO's top commander in Europe hasn't been helping either.

In an executive order issued by Barack Obama, the White House said the situation in Venezuela posed an “extraordinary threat” to US national security. Maduro, the Venezuelan president, reacted with anger in a televised address on Tuesday night, calling on his country’s Congress to grant him additional decree powers to “fight imperialism”.

There are some new things on Portside that we are pleased to be able to call your attention to.

LeftRoots, an organization of Leftists engaged in mass organizing in the USA, is committed to developing individual and collective skills necessary to formulate, evaluate and carry out strategy to build 21st century socialism. Points of unity, organizing and study are integrated to strengthen efforts to challenge capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy hetero-patriarchy and create strategies for cultivating democratic, protagonist-lead and transform social movements.

“It’s ugly, it’s vicious, it’s brutal” describes Israel in Palestine — and why Gaza is “the hood on steroids” says Cornel West speaking with Stanford Professor David Palumbo-Liu about the divestment effort and Palestinian activism. The interview ranges from how the issue of Israel-Palestine is registering not only with young people, but also with older progressives and intellectuals, and about the linkages between civil rights struggles in the US and abroad.