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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.

Reclaim MLK: Beyond Sanitized Narratives

Page May Truthout
Not until he was safely buried underground was a new, less threatening King birthed and branded. This state-sanctioned, sanitized version of King has since been manipulated to discredit, delegitimize and disinform subsequent organizers who wish to continue his legacy in the current work for Black liberation.

Rage Against the Narrative: "I don't do diversity, I do triage"

Lisa Brock Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership
This inability or unwillingness to hear black and other marginalized students is pervasive. The fact that 82 student-led remonstrations occurred in a month points to a system-wide crisis especially at Historically White Colleges and Universities (HWCUs), also called Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs).

The Frightening Prospect of a Nuclear War Is About to Become a Lot More Likely

Lawrence S. Wittner History News Network
Supporters of this revamped weapon of mass destruction argue that, by ensuring greater precision in bombing “enemy” targets, reducing the yield of a nuclear blast, and making a nuclear attack more “thinkable,” the B61 Model 12 is actually a more humanitarian and credible weapon than older, bigger versions. Other specialists, such as the Federation of Atomic Scientists, were far more critical. . .

The Democratic Choice: Change or Continuity

Robert Borosage Campaign for America's Future
Clinton, the favorite, made a calculated decision to wrap herself tightly to Barack Obama. She praised his health care reforms and pledged to “defend and build on the Affordable Care Act” and to “make it work,” and while Sanders praised President Obama, whom he supported in 2008 and 2012, he made it clear he had differences with him – and that this country needed transformative change.

The Mirage of Justice

Chris Hedges Truthdig
Once you are charged in America, whether you did the crime or not, you are almost always found guilty. Because of this, as many activists have discovered, the courts already are being used as a fundamental weapon of repression, and this abuse will explode in size should there be widespread unrest and dissent. Our civil liberties have been transformed into privileges...

Whatever Happened to Eastern European Communism?

Joan Roelofs CounterPunch
“[In Bulgaria] after 1989 there was [a] group of British experts who came to give advice on democracy. . . . There was a man in this delegation who warned me about the baby in the bath. He saw what was going to happen. There were a lot of good things that were achieved by socialism, but we threw the baby out in the water.” “Veneta”

New Year, Same Crisis: Prepare for Imperialism's Terror and Carnage in 2016

Danny Haiphong Black Agenda Report
“Fewer workers are producing more and working longer hours, yet all workers have seen their conditions fall immensely over the last forty years.” This crisis must be understood if the forces of progress around the world hope to unite toward the goal of social transformation and revolution.
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