Portside

Ernest Renan, the 19th century French historian, said “the historian is the enemy of the nation.” I often ask students, what does he mean by that? What he’s saying is nations are built on myths, historical myths, and then the historian comes along and if he’s doing his job, shatters those myths, and often that makes the historian very unpopular. People like their myths but “myth” is not a good way of understanding how the society developed to where it is today.

When a stockpile of aging explosives blew up at a former Army ammunition plant in Minden, Louisiana, the U.S. military had a public relations disaster on their hands. What were they going to do with the remaining 18 million pounds of old explosives? They shipped it to a plant in Colfax, a tiny, African-American corner of Louisiana, the only commercial facility in the nation allowed to burn explosives and munitions waste with no environmental emissions controls.

Jeff Immelt’s resignation as CEO of General Electric shows that we cannot think of industry as finance’s opponent.

UAW Files New Charges Against Company, Seeks Federal Court Order To Prevent Future Unfair Labor Practices

The article warns that conservative American Catholics have strayed dangerously into the deepening political polarization in the United States. The writers even declare that the worldview of American evangelical and hard-line Catholics, which is based on a literal interpretation of the Bible, is “not too far apart’’ from jihadists.

What follows is a different manual from the one we put out over 50 years ago. Then, movements operated in a robust empire that was used to winning its wars. The government was fairly stable and held great legitimacy in the eyes of the majority.

The author, 56, talks about writers’ humility, bygone bestsellers, memory loss, heroes and being exactly famous enough

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) is the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society. It leads and supports the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Follow on social media. In face of continued USA-funded and supported Israeli atrocities, participate in BDS actions!

An important new study has come out showing that Clinton paid for this arrogance: professors argue that Clinton lost the battleground states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in last year’s presidential election because they had some of the highest casualty rates during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and voters there saw Clinton as the pro-war candidate.

"It is not the role of the Judiciary to second-guess the determination of the Executive, in coordination with the Legislature, that the interests of the US call for a particular military action in the ongoing War on Terror." Taking issue with the DC Circuit's application of the political question doctrine, it was queried, "if judges will not check this outsized power, then who will?" Our democracy is broken."