Portside

A South Dakota Sioux tribal leader says building the Keystone XL pipeline is a violation of an 1868 treaty, and threatens 'war' against the pipeline.

The so-called, undeclared "war" we have been dragged into is the product of self-righteous, panicky people with an exaggerated sense of persecution and no ability to look objectively at history. That is, they are paranoid. Because of their bizarre views, paranoid people cause trouble, then they deny responsibility and use the victim's defensive reaction to justify further aggression. That is exactly the position of the West vis-a-vis the Muslim world.

Francisco Goldman writes that we might be witnessing the beginning of a second Mexican Revolution. Laura Carlsen says that the disappearances might take the “historic struggle between Mexico’s student left and the federal government, one that has been brewing for years if not decades” (at least since 1968’s Tlatelolco massacre) and generalize it “into the rest of the country.” Protests and civil disobedience are spreading throughout Mexico.

Nixon's announcement, which came ahead of the grand jury's decision in the police shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, is "both premature in its application and presumptuous in [its] intention to the hundreds of peaceful demonstrators who have embraced their Constitutional right to protest," said NAACP president William Brooks.

A draconian proposal threatened Massachusetts teachers. Here’s how they defeated it.

Who runs Wikipedia?; Brooklyn for net neutrality; Net lobbying; GOP tweets away campaign laws; Social media and socialization; Ted Cruz can't get no respect

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."