Portside

Orlando solidarity, I and II; MacArthur Foundation flubs; Judge judged; Populism for sale; Trump rides the subway

As it turns out, language matters a lot. Calling these views as a whole “socialism” makes explicit a critique of capitalism and its shortcomings that cannot be grasped when the word itself is absent. It suggests that the reforms for which we fight are more than just an attempt to ameliorate the ills of a market-driven society; it says that it is the very system which is the problem, and which must be changed.

Let us call the tragic event for what it was: an attack on Orlando’s queer Latinx club night, Pulse. Regardless of the allegiances the shooter might have pledged, this was, without a shadow of a doubt, a queerphobic attack.

Peabody, the world’s biggest private sector publicly traded coal company, was long known as an outlier even among fossil fuel companies for its public rejection of climate science and action. But its funding of climate denial groups was only exposed in disclosures after the coal titan was forced to seek bankruptcy protection in April, under competition from cheap natural gas.

 Beating Donald Trump at the polls will be a necessary, but wholly insufficient step.

Politicians are eager to distance themselves after correction officers' union leader Norman Seabrook became the best-connected figure to fall in a corruption investigation by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Seabrook was arrested on fraud charges, accused of accepting a $60,000 bribe—reportedly delivered by Jona Rechnitz, a donor of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio at the center of a gift-for-favors scandal —in exchange for investing union money into a risky hedge fund.

With the American public's limited attention span for international affairs tied up by fears of ISIS (also known as Daesh), intractable wars in the Middle East and unease about Putin's Russia, Obama's much-touted Asia-Pacific pivot frequently gets third or fourth billing on the foreign policy marquee.

This paper, written under the title, “U.S. Settler-Colonialism and Genocide Policies,” was delivered at the Organization of American Historians 2015 Annual Meeting in St. Louis, MO on April 18, 2015.

Racism is indeed everywhere. Before people start shaking their heads and claiming in the United States that Americans are past such issues, some truths need to be expressed.

After years of economic crisis and social protest, the cartel parties of the extreme centre now face a challenge to their dominance from outside-left forces in a number of Western countries. Contours of the emergent left oppositions, their platforms and figureheads, from Tsipras to Corbyn, Sanders to Mélenchon, Grillo to Iglesias.