Portside

Last week, Vladimir Putin issued a warning. “If the United States deploys new intermediate-range missiles in Europe after withdrawing from a nuclear treaty prohibiting these weapons, European nations will be at risk of ‘a possible counterstrike.’”

Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970, the world’s foremost experts warn that the annihilation of wildlife is now an emergency that threatens the survival of civilisation.

Ntozake Shange, a spoken-word artist who morphed into a playwright, died on Saturday. Ms. Shange was a champion of black women and girls, and in her trailblazing, she expanded the sense of what was possible for other black female artists.

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Focusing on Ford Motor Co.’s rise, the author posits a connect between racial practices in the United States, Brazil, and South Africa and Ford’s divisive labor processes, seeing racism as an essential element in the creation of global capitalism.

This was written by educator Dave Stovall shortly after Trump was run out of Chicago earlier this year in March and serves as an important reminder: White supremacy predates and will last well beyond Trump. This is not a strange blip in the annals of U.S. history. It is in its foundation. This piece appeared originally on Beacon Broadside.

John Oliver: Puerto Rico. Bernie Challenges Dems. Pres. Obama's Language Games. How Did Life Begin on Earth? Samantha Bee | Twenty-Dollar Tubman.

Campaign finance reform, long a lonely political backwater frequented only by good government groups, is suddenly becoming a hot new address for some of this year’s candidates. Whether that will lead to a vibrant new political community remains the open question.

Socialism isn’t the negation of liberalism. It’s the realization of liberal values made impossible by capitalism.

When I began my academic career over forty years ago, the idea that a sea change from Andrew Jackson to Harriet Tubman would happen within my lifetime, that my students would come to college familiar with not only Harriet Tubman—but also Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Jacobs—seemed unimaginable. The forgotten voices of women, particularly women of color, are being recovered.