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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.

Mandela is Dead Why Hide the Truth about Apartheid?

Fidel Castro Cuba Debate
Fraternal feelings of deep brotherhood between the Cuban people and the homeland of Nelson Mandela born of an event that has not even been mentioned, and which had not said a word over many years, Mandela, because he was an apostle of peace and did not want to hurt anyone. Cuba, because he never made an action seeking glory or prestige.

Radicals in City Hall: An American Tradition

Peter Dreier Dissent Magazine
The time appears to be ripe for a new wave of urban reform. Both socialists like Seattle’s Sawant and progressives like New York’s de Blasio have a chance to popularize “left wing of the possible” ideas that seem bold but not preposterous. But as their socialist and progressive counterparts over the past century recognized, good ideas don’t become policy without social movements behind them.

Who Ain't a Slave? Historical fact and the fiction of 'Benito Cereno'

Greg Grandin The Chronicle of Higher Education
Melville's tale describes the deep structures of a racism that was born in chattel slavery but didn't die with it. Racism, in the United States at least, was grafted onto slavery, while at the same time disguised by a potent kind of individualism, a cult of individual supremacy, based on the fantasy that some men were born natural slaves and that others could be absolutely free.

Swell of Boycotts Driving Israel Into International Isolation

Barak Ravid Haaretz
Western activists and diplomats are focusing on Israel's settlements in the Palestinian territories, and if peace talks fail, the rain of boycotts and sanctions could turn into a flood. This past week a second American academic organization overwhelmingly endorsed the economic and academic boycott of Israel.

Lessons from the Christmas Truce of 1914

Gary G. Kohls, MD Portside
Military chaplains seem to be another cog in the apparatus of making war maximally effective. Christian chaplains seem to not pay much attention to the Ten Commandments either, especially the ones that say "thou shalt not kill" or "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's oil". 99 years ago one of the most unusual aberrations in the bloody history of warfare - never allowed to be repeated again - occurred.

Tidbits - December 19, 2013

Portside
Reader Comments - Healthcare; Faculty Unions; NATO and the Ukraine; State Surveillance; Venezuela; Nelson Mandela, South Africa and SACP; MSNBC labor dispute; Germany; Voter Fraud in Iowa - 0.00075%; New Books - Rosa Luxemburg; Diners Guide to Ethical Eating; Jobs with Justice; A Letter from Leslie Cagan, Phyllis Bennis, Bill Fletcher & Other UFPJ Founders

Our Nation's Cities - Two Views - Can New York's de Blasio Stop Gentrification? Chicago's Rahm Emanuel - Mayor of the 1%

Michelle Goldberg; Michael Hirsch
Mayor Bloomberg pushed through re-zoning of nearly 40 percent of New York City. Bill de Blasio campaigned against urban gentrification. Can the new mayor reverse the trend? Can big-city electoral coalitions buck the trend of the real estate and financial speculators? Author Michael Hirsch reviews the new book about Chicago's mayor Rahm Emanuel - the mayor of the 1% in the second largest city of the country.
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