Portside

The old instrumental notion of the state, that it’s a machine, and you grab it and use it for your own purposes, or even more stupidly, that you smash it, are wrong. What does it mean to smash the state? This is our great challenge.

I have a very simple, even modest, proposal, one that offers us means both of having the cake and of eating it too. Why not, in the very same legislation that repeals ObamaCare, instantly entitle all who lose their insurance coverage under the ACA immediately to enroll in Medicare? The enrollment might be permanent, and at the prices that Medicare currently costs its participants, or it might be simply until such time as a viable replacement for ObamaCare is found . . .

In his no-holds-barred book, “The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers,” former Marine and Army Joseph Hickman exposes the knowing contamination of thousands of soldiers stationed on bases with these lethal pits.

As recently as 2015, Donald Trump was still collecting a $168,000 pension — and maybe more — from the Screen Actors Guild for playing himself in The Apprentice. Now that Trump is about to be president, the most important question is: What is Trump's plan to save the system that is designed to protect millions of union pensions like his own?

Keanga-Yamahtta Taylor has written the most important book of 2016. Published by Haymarket, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation has struck a chord nationwide, garnering major awards but more importantly sparking necessary debates. George Ciccariello-Maher interviews her for ROAR Magazine.

One of the biggest protests of 2016 is still underway at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, where Water Protectors and their allies are fighting Energy Transfer Partners’ plans to drill beneath contested Treaty land to finish the Dakota Access Pipeline. EFF has been tracking the effects of its surveillance technologies on water protectors’ communications and movement.

“For Panamanians, nothing justifies the death of a civilian,” said one of the commissioners tasked with uncovering the truth behind the invasion. Panamanians marked the 27th anniversary Dec. 20, 2016 of the 1989 U.S. invasion of the Central American country as the exact number of victims remains unknown more than a quarter of a century after the events.

The Obama era reminded us all that popular movements play an essential role as catalysts for political action. The enthusiasm generated by the Sanders campaign was a surprise, but it did not spring from the void. Any new radicalism needs to learn from the past, but not simply to reenact it. The new American radicalism must be open and multifaceted, speaking the language of American society but receptive to insights from an increasingly interconnected world.

With coeliac disease and wheat allergy affecting only 1.2% of the population, why is it that an estimated 15% of UK adults and an astonishing 29% of US adults are trying to avoid gluten?

Moderator's NOTE: Bill Fletcher and Bob Wing's article "Fighting Back Against White Revolt 2016" http://portside.org/2016-12-05/fighting-back-against-white-revolt-2016 has sparked discussion from Peter Olney "Go Red" http://portside.org/2016-12-26/go-red-thoughts-labor-movement-age-trump-response-fletcher-and-wing-portside-december-5 and now this piece by Ruth Needleman. Please also read today's reply posting from Fletcher and Wing.