Portside

Are Donald Trump's selections for his cabinet and other top administration positions indicative of a man who is ready to "drain the swamp?" Is the president-elect bent on putting China on the defensive? What does he have in mind for the Middle East? And why did Barack Obama choose at this juncture -- that is, toward the end of his presidency -- to have the US abstain from a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements?

This piece, the first of two parts, is excerpted from Noam Chomsky’s new book, Who Rules the World? (Metropolitan Books). Part 2 will be posted on May 10, 2016. Noam Chomsky is still writing with the same chilling eloquence about the updated war-on-terror version of this American nightmare. At a moment when the Vietnam bomber of choice, the B-52, is being sent back into action in the war against the Islamic State, Chomsky, too, is back in action.

Reader Comments: Noam Chomsky Says GOP Is Serious Danger To Human Survival; Trump, His Father and Woody Guthrie; Environmental Racism and Flint; Threat of a Free Haiti; Segregation in Schooling - Today; Contingent (Adjunct) Higher Education Faculty;

Playing for Change: Pemba Laka. Fewer Police Killings in 2016? 'Make America Great Again.' Why Mormons Identify With Syrian Refugees. Noam Chomsky Endorses Bernie Sanders.

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The government's crackdown on whistleblowers is a direct threat to our efforts to reform U.S. foreign policy to make it more just. Faced with the threat of persecution by the U.S., NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has applied to the government of Ecuador for political asylum. He has also called attention to the extent to which national security operations have been privatized. Join in urging President Correa to grant Snowden's asylum request by signing the petition below