Portside

Syria, Iraq, ISIS and the increased role of the U.S. (once again) has prompted wide-spread opposition, discussion and disagreements by those on the left. Yesterday's Congressional vote on war appropriations, with many who have opposed the Afghanistan and Iraq war, now voting for a new war, shows this lack of clarity and unity. Two long-time activists for peace and social justice, Seymour Joseph and James E. Vann sent Portisde opposing perspectives.

Reader Comments- People's Climate March - climate change, environmental activism, labor unions; Syria, Iraq, ISIS; public education; labor organizing; Zephyr Teachout - Working Families Party, Democratic Party, 2016 elections; Spain, Scotland, Cuba, Gaza, El Salvador; racial bias; worker cooperatives; Announcements - Film Screening African Americans in Spanish Civil War; Mobilizing Against Inequality Book Launch; Southern Tenant Farmers Union celebrates 80th anniversary

Fifty years ago, Ella Baker said, "Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest." Michael Brown's murder by a Ferguson, Missouri, cop has, once again, provoked a national conversation about how far the United States has come in its quest for racial equality.

Massachusetts Peace Action sent the following letter to Sen. Elizabeth Warren on September 12, 2014. We also raised questions about her justification of Israel's war crimes in Gaza at her Tufts lecture on September 15 and distributed flyers to the attendees.

Chelsea Manning, the intelligence analyst arrested for passing cache of documents to WikiLeaks, breaks her silence, warns the US-led mission to destroy the extremist group is destined to fail - it will merely feed a "cycle of outrage, recruitment, organizing and even more fighting that goes back decades". Veteran Mideast and world reporter Seumas Milne declares, 'bombing and more intervention can't destroy Isis. The US is at the heart of the crisis in the Middle East.'

"As we all know, there are no free lunches...We are not going to be able to hire anyone...if we do not work out an acceptable arrangement with Koch and its funding partners." - A Florida State University department head, explaining the strings attached to a 2007 Koch donation

Without a socialist consciousness, an independent Scotland risks becoming a smaller — and even more reactionary — version of its southern neighbors.

Ai-jen Poo of the National Domestic Workers Alliance receives $625,000 to expand movement of nannies, cleaners and aides.

Senator Orrin Hatch, in an earlier round of this century-long debate, told the Times, “Youth unemployment and black unemployment will drastically rise. It’s amazing to me that some black leaders want an increase in the minimum wage.” African-Americans and young adults are evidently consulting oracles different from Hatch’s. Both groups support raising the minimum wage to even higher rates than do Americans as a whole.

On September 12, just seven weeks before election day, a panel of three 7th Circuit appellate judges -- all appointed by Republican presidents -- reinstated Wisconsin's voter ID law, which federal district Judge Lynn Adelman had blocked in April as unconstitutional and violative of the Voting Rights Act.