Portside

The Oslo Accords have been a disaster for Palestinians and a boon to those who wish to maintain Israel’s nearly half-century-old occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. In his U.N. speech, Abbas, one of Oslo’s architects, declared that he would no longer abide by its terms unless Israel stopped running roughshod over them. This declaration won’t mean much unless it’s translated into concrete action.

In the past two months, eight cities got rid of Columbus Day in favor of adopting Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Three of those cities adopted Indigenous Peoples’ Day last week.

With the US government pressing for prison and deportation, Palestinian activist Rasmea Odeh needs our solidarity now more than ever.

Of course we need international trade negotiations and agreements. But, they must be arrived at via inclusive, democratic, open, and transparent processes. They must be designed to reinforce the security and dignity of the world’s peoples and environmental sustainability.

The Man Booker prize, given annually for best English language novel published in the United Kingdom, was awarded this week to Marlon James, for his novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings. He is the first writer from Jamaica to win the prize. The novel is a tale of 1970s-1980s Jamaica, CIA plots, and violence. It is "a story about Jamaica that doesn’t only take place in Jamaica," says Kei Miller, who reviewed the novel late last year.

Bernie Sanders crushed the debates by every measurable indicator except one: pundits’ opinion.

Journalists working for Al Jazeera America (AJAM) voted to be represented by the The NewsGuild of New York.

Sicario proceeds from one nail-biting scene to the next making it increasingly clear that this is a story about the merger of the tactics of the war on terror with the war on drugs, and it makes that merger look frankly terrifying -- a grisly bomb blast, bodies hung from a bridge in Juarez that seem intended to remind us of U.S. contractors in Fallujah and a secret mission to Mexico that is essentially an extraordinary rendition, with all the imagery to match.

Mother knows best; Racial profiling made easy; Corporate users, customer losers; Facebook & Google's common market; Your emotional responses are a data goldmine

Attacks on civilians - like the ongoing drone attacks on the people of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia about which we hear next to nothing in mainstream media - are being perpetrated in our name, with our tax dollars and often with our blood, sweat and tears. Thus the buck has to stop with us. Let's hold US officials' feet to the fire.