Portside

Do you like Portside and believe we need reporting, analysis and discussion from a left perspective to meet the challenges of a Trump administration? *Please donate to support this work.* Do you want to see more about the grassroots movement to oppose bigotry and reaction and about how to construct an alternative? *We appeal to you once a year to invest in that that future.* It may be the best return on investment you'll ever get.

Catastrophically high lead levels in the West Calumet Housing Complex will force over a thousand residents to leave by July 2017

On Myanmar’s coast the villages of the persecuted Rohingya Muslims keep going up in flames, displacing 30,000. The army has shut out aid workers and independent observers, and plans to arm a local Buddhist militia, composed of ethnic Arakanese, a “recipe for disaster,” according to the International Commission of Jurists. But the Arakan National Party (ANP), which hailed Donald Trump’s election and favors “inhuman acts” to cleanse Myanmar of Muslims, endorsed it.

The opening scenes of After Fire, the new documentary about the struggles faced by women veterans after they leave military service, make a case for its importance through statistics. Viewers are informed that women are the fastest growing group of veterans, and that one in five veterans are women.

For the foreseeable future our primary focus will be on building a vibrant, independent democratic socialist movement and helping to cultivate progressive coalitions capable of wielding political power at all levels. But we should never lose sight of the democratic socialist vision that serves as the guiding thread tying together the many struggles for freedom and equality in which we are constantly engaged, day in, day out.

After audience jeered vice-president elect at New York musical, actor addressed him from stage: ‘We are the diverse Americans anxious you will not protect us’

Preliminary vote totals indeed show that Zuckerman won more votes among U.S. members and was leading by nearly 800 votes before the Canadian ballots were counted. But the Canadian vote went heavily in Hoffa’s favor, about 9,500 to 2,900.

Trumpcare has seven main policy points. Many of them are Republican orthodoxy, like allowing insurance sales across state lines (part of the Republicans' 2010 Pledge to America) and fostering a greater reliance on health savings accounts (a favorite policy proposal of Mitt Romney during the last campaign cycle). And, of course, Trump repeals Obamacare.

Another challenge facing us is to be capable of explaining the difficulties that the country is facing to the people. There are those who think that it is not necessary to tell the people about the problems, because they might get depressed. I believe the opposite, our people are sufficiently intelligent to understand and to buckle up their belts when necessary,

As the anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination returns in a month of political trauma, Peter Neil Carroll's "JFK" reflects on the loss of possibility and the hope for renewal.