Portside

Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is proving that he is a man of the past, not a leader for the future. No matter how much he may stick his head in the ground, climate change is already a real and present danger. He is showing that he has no understanding of climate change, or of bi-partisanship.

Naomi Klein argues the urgency of climate crisis could form the basis of a powerful mass movement weaving all the seemingly disparate issues into a coherent narrative to protect humanity from the ravages of a savagely unjust economic system and a destabilized climate system. Climate activist Ted Glick responds, is it realistic to think, by 2018 or 2019, a mass social movement with an essentially revolutionary agenda is going to bring about the change in power relations?

One lesson to draw from the GDR's history is that if socialist societies are to be run by, of and for the people, then the people have to be in charge and that includes within the economy. Democracies (both capitalist and socialist) will remain merely formal when the economy continues to be run by small self-selecting minorities. Those minorities will dominate until they are overthrown.

Join thousands at SOA Watch's 25th anniversary Vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, where we will remember the martyrs and denounce continued SOA violence against our brothers and sisters in Latin America. "We will converge, many thousands strong, at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia in November because justice will not be delivered unto us. We will come to demand it."

As the country "celebrates" Veterans Day, the fact is that warfare is not conducive to freedom. Amid the heightened fear and inflamed nationalism that accompany war, governments and many of their citizens regard dissent as akin to treason. In these circumstances, "national security" usually trumps liberty. As the journalist Randolph Bourne remarked during World War I: "War is the health of the state." Americans who cherish freedom should keep this in mind.

Should intelligence agencies be able to sweep email, read texts, track calls, locate us by GPS? Much of the conversation swirls around the possibility that agencies like the N.S.A. or the F.B.I. will use such information not to serve national security but to carry out personal and political vendettas. King’s experience reminds us that these are far from idle fears, conjured in the fevered minds of civil libertarians. They are based in the hard facts of history.

Is the US is really allowing an illicit multi-billion dollar industry to flourish right under its nose (without involvement of any kind) or is there a part of this story that’s missing from the headlines? Of course, that leads us to an area of speculation that the media considers taboo, the prospect that US intel agencies are somehow implicated.

Two views! Neil DeGrasse Tyson and David Grinspoon.

A new program aims to allow anybody to watch for poachers using satellite imagery and ship positioning systems. But whether it will actually send illegal fishing crews to court is an open question.

Hope and pessimism have defined two traditions of American thinking about race. Fully acknowledging recent setbacks, the author makes the case for the tradition of hope.