Portside

War, peace and Taylor Swift

We must build a utopia that can defeat the utopia of the right, which says the state is worth nothing, the state must be weak and private initiative solves everything. We have to make sure that the movement of people is as free as economic movement.

The 19th century origins of Mother’s Day differ vastly in spirit and purpose from celebrations of it in the 20th and 21st centuries. The first public “Mother’s Day for Peace” rally was in New York City on June 2, 1872, and has only grown more urgent.

The writer’s Palestinian friend, a blind school principal, has resisted eight years of Israeli efforts to drive his family out of Jerusalem. Ethnic cleansing is not just the moment of violence when a family is uprooted, or a neighborhood emptied.

If U.S. leftists take seriously their commitment to self-rule and loathing of foreign aggression, they should shed their ambivalence about supporting Ukraine.

The picture emerging from this powerful militarist trend illustrates the continuing strength of the mantras inherited from the Cold War, summed up in the notion that more weapons mean more security and that si vis pacem, para bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war).

From time to time, Vladimir Putin or one of his cronies has hinted that the Russians, pressed to the wall, might use a “tactical” nuclear weapon in Ukraine. And Russian military leaders have reportedly been discussing just such a possibility.

Lately, in the West, the sentiment on the prospects of a peaceful end to the war imposed on the Ukrainian people is heard more and more often. But are such negotiations possible, and who will benefit from them? And does Putin actually want peace?

Hell hath no fury like radicalized workers and students

Lynd explored the biggest little secret, one people everywhere should heed: We who do the work can build a better world, and we can best do it without the parasitic Super Rich who contribute nothing and weigh us down like a monstrous ball and chain.