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Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it.

Black Abolitionists Believed in Taking Up Arms

Randal Maurice Jelks Boston Review
Long before the Civil War, black abolitionists shared the consensus that violence would be necessary to end slavery. Unlike their white peers, their arguments were about when and how to use political violence, not if.

Beating Trump: Absolutely Essential, Also Not Enough

Max Elbaum Organizing Upgrade
student demonstrators Ousting Trump from the White House is not sufficient to address the deep-going crises that today threaten the rights and well-being of people in the U.S., the very lives of millions across the globe, and the natural environment...

The Fed Protects Gamblers at the Expense of the Economy

Ellen Brown Truthdig
from of Federal Reserve building The repo market is a fragile house of cards waiting for a strong wind to blow it down, propped up by misguided monetary policies that have forced central banks to underwrite its highly risky ventures.

Why Child Labor Is Common in Gaza

Isra Saleh el-Namey Electronic Intifada
child selling at street market OCHA has found that children are working amid “an increasingly destabilized economy” in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli siege for more than 12 years.

Ancient African Genomes Offer Glimpse Into Early Human History

Ewen Callaway Nature
Today, people in sub-Saharan Africa are the most genetically diverse in the world. Newly deciphered genomes of four African children who died between 4 and 10 thousand years ago have some surprising implications for the period before then, and since.
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