Portside

Stop This Georgia Execution

September 17, 2017

Brennan Center for Justice

When a racist juror helps convict a black man, the Court should follow its own precedent and set the verdict aside.

Bad News for Black and Latinx Americans

September 17, 2017

Think Progress

Across the country families are getting wealthier, but rosy coverage of new census figures is hiding an alarming fact.

There Is Still Hope - Even for Me

September 17, 2017

Spiegel online

In an interview, whistleblower Edward Snowden discusses his life in Russia, the power of the intelligence apparatuses and how he will continue his battle against all-encompassing surveillance by governments.

Big Business Got Brazil Hooked on Junk Food

September 17, 2017

New York Times

As growth slows in wealthy countries, Western food companies are aggressively expanding in developing nations, contributing to obesity and health problems.

Pro-Charter School Group Pays State’s Largest

September 16, 2017

Boston Globe

The newly revealed donor list showed the group received checks from Amos B. Hostetter Jr., the former cable television magnate from Boston, who gave $2 million; Seth Klarman, the billionaire chief executive of Baupost Group, a Boston hedge fund, who donated $3.3 million; and Alice Walton, an heiress to the Walmart fortune, who gave $750,000.

Harvard Disinvites Chelsea Manning

September 16, 2017

New York Times

Mr. Elmendorf told Ms. Manning, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for providing classified information to WikiLeaks, that she was still invited to speak at Harvard. But he said that the school could no longer give her the title of visiting fellow.

Pop Culture is Far Ahead of Washington

September 16, 2017

The Intercept

When a transparent facsimile of Amazon or Facebook or Google pops up in the movie you’ve devoted Friday night to watching, it attracts a wider audience and can distill more recognizable fears.

The Physician Who Took on Israeli Apartheid

September 16, 2017

+972

When Dr. Ruchama Marton founded Physicians for Human Rights-Israel during the First Intifada in 1988, she elevated the concept of “human rights” in Israeli political discourse on the occupation. On her 80th birthday, Marton talks about the atrocities she witnessed as a soldier, the enduring power of feminism, and why only outside pressure, such as the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement, has a chance of ending Israel’s military rule over the Palestinians.

The Republican Effort to Rig Elections

September 16, 2017

AlterNet

The GOP Is Plowing Ahead with an Audacious Effort to Hijack the Vote and Rig Elections. From Trump’s “election integrity” commission to Mitch McConnell, the GOP targets the levers of power.

Friday Nite Videos | September 15, 2017

September 15, 2017

Donald Trump's Rage Against 'Idiot' Sessions. John Oliver | Colin Kaepernick. A Former Neo-Nazi Is Trying to Stop the Spread of Hate. Movie | The Young Karl Marx. Dave Van Ronk | House Of The Rising Sun.

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Confederate Statues and ‘Our’ History

When Mr. Trump identifies statues commemorating Confederate leaders as essential parts of “our” history and culture, he is honoring that dark period. (The dismantling of Reconstruction and rebirth of White Supremacy) Like all monuments, these statues say a lot more about the time they were erected than the historical era they evoke.

Workers May Have Just Killed Missouri’s Right to Work Law

Though the law is set to take effect on August 28, the pro-union We Are Missouri coalition, led by the Missouri AFL-CIO, says it has collected enough signatures from voters to call for a state-wide referendum in November 2018 that could nullify the legislation.

Left Strategy After Charlottesville

In shorthand: this essay is an argument for the left to interact with the post-Charlottesville surge of resistance by pursuing a strategy that is anti-right, anti-racist, gender-inclusive, grounded in the interests of the working class and oriented toward working both inside and outside of the Democratic Party.

Paul Krugman: The Republican Party May End Up Destroying Human Civilization

Ultimately Pruitt, Trump and even Rush Limbaugh, who called Irma a "liberal hoax," are only a fraction of the problem. Krugman continues: "Almost every senior figure in the Trump administration dealing with the environment or energy is both an establishment Republican and a denier of climate change and of scientific evidence in general."

The Right Wing in America Has Long Tried to Destroy 'Government Schools'

Historian Nancy MacLean, author of the best-selling "Democracy in Chains," argues that privatizing public education is a dream of the radical right dating back to the segregationist South.

Venezuela: Chavistas Gain Upper Hand, Big Challenges Remain

To get a better sense of the situation on the ground in Venezuela, Green Left Weekly’s Federico Fuentes interviewed Steve Ellner, a well-known analyst of Venezuelan and Latin American politics and a retired professor at Venezuela’s Universidad de Oriente.

Senate Bill 720: Making It a Crime to Support Palestinian Rights

It is fascinating to watch certain US senators tripping over themselves as they attempt to defend their support for or opposition to the proposed legislation that would make it a crime to support the campaign to Boycott, Divest, or Sanction Israel (BDS) for its continued occupation of Palestinian lands. Their efforts to square the circle of their "love of Israel", opposition to BDS, support for a "two-state solution", and commitment to free speech, has them in knots.

US Trade Unionists Unmask Mass Media Lies on Venezuela Assembly

"We visited several polling places and that was when we were just so moved by what was going on,” said the president of the New York State Nurses Association.

State Workers in Maine Drop Mandatory Union Fees in Favor of More Pay

The votes by members of the Maine State Employees Association and the American Federal of State, County and Municipal Employees are a victory for Republican Gov. Paul LePage.

Protesting Racism And Hate With Political Art

Following the horrific events precipitated by white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members on Saturday in Charlottesville, VA, where 32-year-old Heather Heyer was murdered, President Trump shockingly came out in favor of the alt-right. The response by our community was swift. Some illustrators and designers created work anew, others re-purposed existing political art, illustrations and posters, and these began appearing in online publications and social media.

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Portside Culture

‘South Park’ Skewers White Nationalists And White Americans Who Forgive Them

Todd Van Luling

Huffington Post

The premiere featured white people angry at racism in town just because it hurts their “brand.”

Return to Sender

Julayne Elle

Cultural Weekly

Southern California poet Julayne Elle explores the injustices of a US law involving the adoption of children from foreign countries who remain exposed to deportation.

FIFA and Soccer’s Culture of Corruption

Simon Kuper

The New York Review of Books

In 2015, FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, was brought down by allegations of industrial-scale bribes, kickbacks, money laundering, racketeering and tax evasion. Its corruption extended from the decision to send the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar to cases of embezzlement worldwide. The author even interviews its bent former president Sepp Blatter.

In Danielle Allen’s “Cuz,” Caught Between Two Justice Systems

Marina N. Bolotnikova

Harvard Magazine

A Harvard professor and political theorist tells the story of how the war on drugs and the prison industrial complex have impacted her family.

Review: The Moody, Mixed Messages of "Wind River"

Christopher Orr

The Atlantic

Taylor Sheridan has crafted an uneven, but potent, vengeance film rooted in the death of a young Native American woman.

Tom Colicchio Changes His Restaurant’s Racially Tinged Name

Kim Severson

New York Times

Chef Tom Colicchio is dropping the name of his newest Manhattan restaurant, Fowler & Wells, after learning that it has historically racist connotations. It was named for a publishing company and scientific institute that once operated in a building on the same site.The men who started the company were proponents of phrenology, a 19th-century practice used to justify slavery and beliefs in African-American inferiority.

In 'The Deuce,' Sex Isn't Titillating — It's Business

Eric Deggans

NPR

David Simon has created a gritty, urban drama about the moment pornography became "street legal" in New York City, and the commodification of flesh became an industry.

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Portside Labor

How Hurricane Harvey Is Affecting Houston’s Restaurant Employees

Amy McCarthy

Eater

Hospitality union UNITE HERE represents more than 3,000 restaurant and hotel employees in the greater Houston area, and around 250 of its members have experienced “catastrophic losses,” according to Texas organizing director Danna Schneider. UNITE HERE arrived soon after Harvey made landfall, and the organization has since been delivering groceries and checking up on its members.

From 'Labor for Bernie' To 'Labor for Our Revolution'

Rand Wilson and Peter Olney

Organizing UpGrade

For the first time in anyone’s memory (and for that matter for the first time since Eugene Debs in 1920) a self-identified Socialist rallied large numbers behind an explicitly anti-corporate, anti-Wall Street, pro-working class platform.

Labor’s Southern Strategy

Chris Brooks and Gene Bruskin

Dollars & Sense

It was clear to us in the Justice@Smithfield campaign that you could not win relying solely on worker meetings and house visits or relying on solidarity in the community. We had to had to build visible activity inside the plant. Having workers see one another in collective action, not being fired and even winning things is how the union takes on a living presence.

Labor Unions Are Stepping Up To Fight Deportations

Dave Jamieson

Huffington Post

"Organized labor is finding creative ways to protect immigrant members and families vulnerable in the Trump era."

Unions Aren't Obsolete, They're Being Crushed by Right-Wing Politics

Livia Gershon

Vice

A new report lays out how effective the assault on organized labor has been. The decline of unions—which now represent just over one in ten US workers, down from one in five from 1983—has been less about their value for workers than the result of a concerted effort to destroy the labor movement.

The Uncertainties of Being Asked to Work During a Hurricane

Gillian B. White

The Atlantic

When people decide to evacuate for hurricanes they have to consider whether leaving town might cost them their jobs.

Every Day Is Labor Day

Jason Pramas

DigBoston

DigBoston commits to expanding coverage of workers and unions

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