Portside

There are nearly 29,000 DOD contractors in Afghanistan.

300 Human Rights, Social Justice, Faith-Based, Labor, and Immigrant Rights Groups are calling for an International Convergence at the U.S./Mexico Border from October 7-10, 2016.

Data released by the Department of Defense on August 1st shows the military administered its 3-hour enlistment exam to nearly 700,000 students in 12,000 high schools during the 2013-14 school year, a 2% increase over the prior year.

As the Pentagon prepares to lift a ban on transgender people serving in the military, Lily Zheng calls for a more radical "transgender rights" movement outside of assimilationist rhetoric and policies.

Let’s offer thanks for small favors when someone -- in this case, ex-Army Ranger and TomDispatch regular Rory Fanning (author of Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey Out of the Military and Across America) -- feels the urge to do something about the massive, militarized propaganda effort in our schools. In my book, Fanning is the equivalent of any 12 of our generals and we need more like him both in those schools and in our country. Tom Engelhardt

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.

There are as many reasons to desert military service as there are deserters. All countries’ militaries like to snatch young men when they are uneducated, inexperienced, and unemployed. It takes a soldier far greater courage to throw down his weapon than to kill a stranger. There are deserters in every country that has an armed forces. Armies demand blind obedience and human beings crave liberty. Why do men desert? Certainly not from cowardice.

A revelatory look at how a unique border-crossing set of partnerships among Israel’s high-tech companies (many involved in developing border wall technology in their own land), an Arizona tech park, and Mexican low-wage factories is intent on creating a “virtual wall” to shut down and militarize the U.S.-Mexican border.