Portside

Victors’ spoils; Broken hearts, sticky notes; The peculiar Electoral College; Misogyny and militancy; Winning

In September 2002, Amr Moussa, then head of the Arab League, offered a warning I’ve never forgotten. The Bush administration’s intention to invade Iraq and topple its ruler, Saddam Hussein, was already obvious. Were they to take such a step, Moussa insisted, it would “open the gates of hell.” His prediction turned out to be anything but hyperbole -- and those gates have never again closed.

 Ross made his money collecting “distressed assets”—failing steel and textile mills in the midwest and south, and coal mines in Appalachia. Dubbed the “The King of Bankruptcy,” Ross cut jobs, wages, pensions, and health benefits at the companies he acquired, and reaped the profits.   So much for Trump’s supposed commitment to coalfield workers.

The selection of Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of the far-right website Breitbart News and the CEO of Trump’s presidential campaign, deepened the fears of liberal activists that the Trump administration would embolden and enable antisemites, racists and misogynists.

One day after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers again delayed construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL)—and one week after the election of Donald Trump all but ensured the project's eventual completion—actions are taking place in hundreds of cities across the United States and around the world on Tuesday calling for the crude oil pipeline to be rejected.

Unions were finally on an upswing. Now, they’re staring down the barrel of the GOP’s gun.

Janice Fine contributes to a forum on "After Trump." She argues that many people care about inequality, but not all like unions. Some think unions are too conflictual, but Fine argues this is necessary to win the kinds of demands we need to win.

The Real Junk Food Project (RJFP), which organizes networks of cafes and shops to sell ‘waste’ food recovered from supermarkets and restaurants, has launched over 120 eateries in seven countries from Israel to Australia, and the movement is gathering pace.

Here is a critical discussion of Okinawa’s role in serving American and Japanese strategic interests. The interplay of overseas bases and U.S. foreign policy is a crucial dimension of the global projection of American power. This essay offers reflections on this reality, as well as the linkage between the network of foreign military bases and the emergence of the first global state in history, a new political phenomenon that distinguishes it from ‘empires' of the past.

Though better known for his brutal war on drugs at home, the Philippine leader's volatile, one-man diplomacy could up-end 70 years of U.S. dominance in East Asia.