Portside

A South Dakota Sioux tribal leader says building the Keystone XL pipeline is a violation of an 1868 treaty, and threatens 'war' against the pipeline.

The so-called, undeclared "war" we have been dragged into is the product of self-righteous, panicky people with an exaggerated sense of persecution and no ability to look objectively at history. That is, they are paranoid. Because of their bizarre views, paranoid people cause trouble, then they deny responsibility and use the victim's defensive reaction to justify further aggression. That is exactly the position of the West vis-a-vis the Muslim world.

Francisco Goldman writes that we might be witnessing the beginning of a second Mexican Revolution. Laura Carlsen says that the disappearances might take the “historic struggle between Mexico’s student left and the federal government, one that has been brewing for years if not decades” (at least since 1968’s Tlatelolco massacre) and generalize it “into the rest of the country.” Protests and civil disobedience are spreading throughout Mexico.

Nixon's announcement, which came ahead of the grand jury's decision in the police shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, is "both premature in its application and presumptuous in [its] intention to the hundreds of peaceful demonstrators who have embraced their Constitutional right to protest," said NAACP president William Brooks.

A draconian proposal threatened Massachusetts teachers. Here’s how they defeated it.

Despite constant harassment, retaliation and intimidation by permit holders and dispatch companies over the last five years, and despite obstruction by public agencies, the taxi workers workers stuck together, fought back against injustice, and prevailed. It reminds and teaches all of us that a union is not formed by formal government recognition, it is formed by workers standing together to fight for justice and a brighter future for their families.

Who runs Wikipedia?; Brooklyn for net neutrality; Net lobbying; GOP tweets away campaign laws; Social media and socialization; Ted Cruz can't get no respect

Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is proving that he is a man of the past, not a leader for the future. No matter how much he may stick his head in the ground, climate change is already a real and present danger. He is showing that he has no understanding of climate change, or of bi-partisanship.

Naomi Klein argues the urgency of climate crisis could form the basis of a powerful mass movement weaving all the seemingly disparate issues into a coherent narrative to protect humanity from the ravages of a savagely unjust economic system and a destabilized climate system. Climate activist Ted Glick responds, is it realistic to think, by 2018 or 2019, a mass social movement with an essentially revolutionary agenda is going to bring about the change in power relations?

One lesson to draw from the GDR's history is that if socialist societies are to be run by, of and for the people, then the people have to be in charge and that includes within the economy. Democracies (both capitalist and socialist) will remain merely formal when the economy continues to be run by small self-selecting minorities. Those minorities will dominate until they are overthrown.