Archives

For posts before June 2012, please follow these links to our archives.

E.g., 2015-03-02

Cuba Through the Looking Glass

February 23, 2015
Portside
http://davidswanson.org/
Let's Try Democracy/Writing by David Swanson
The U.S. government is allowing tourists to bring home $100 worth of rum and cigars. And the U.S. State Department is working on a forthcoming list of products that Cubans can export to the United States. The list will not include numerous life-saving medicines currently unavailable in the United States, and not apparently because the U.S. government believes rum and cigars are better for its people than life-saving medicines. No, the reason is bizarre yet predictable.

Meet Cuban Ebola Fighters: Interview with Félix Báez and Jorge Pérez

February 23, 2015
Portside
http://www.medicc.org/mediccreview/index.php?issue=31&id=404&a=vahtml
MEDICC Review: International Journal of Cuban Health and Medicine
When the Ebola global alarm was sounded by Doctors Without Borders, which, like Cuba, already had health professionals in Africa; Cuba was the country that offered the most assistance once WHO called for nations to step up with funds and, most importantly, human resources. Cuba sent 256 volunteers with significant international emergency experience while Cuba's Dr. Jorge Pérez and others work to prevent Ebola's global spread.

Teacher Unions Default on the Fightback

February 22, 2015
Portside Labor
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/13/teacher-unions-default-on-the-fightback/
Counter Punch
Because their traditional allies from the Democratic Party have obsessively embraced corporate-motivated innovations, teacher unions seem paralyzed, unable to respond with a new strategy. They criticize the overuse of standardized tests, but they keep electing Democrats to office who, once elected, more often than not join the corporate attack on education.

Taxing Top Incomes at the Same Rate as the Middle Class Could Fund Critical State Priorities—Including Education, Infrastructure, and Public Pensions

February 22, 2015
Portside
http://keystoneresearch.org/taxfairness
Keystone Research
If the top one percent were taxed at the same rate as the middle 20 percent, states and localities would raise $68 billion per year. Similarly, if the top 20 percent paid the same as the middle 20 percent, states and localities would generate $128 billion each year.

New Study--Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror

February 22, 2015
Portside
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/02/10/even-more-black-people-were-lynched-in-the-u-s-than-previously-thought-study-finds/
Washington Post
I don’t believe that we have confronted the legacy of our history in a meaningful way…Our interest is really in forcing the country to talk differently about this history,” -- Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative,

Why It Should Bother Everyone That The Oscars Are So White

February 22, 2015
Portside
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/20/oscars-diversity-problem_n_6709334.html
Huffington Post
If Common and John Legend win an Academy Award for Best Original Song this Sunday, it will be only the 32nd time in 87 years that a black person has held a competitive Oscar on Hollywood's biggest stage. That's 32 times out of more than 2,900 winners. This year's Oscar nominees in the four acting categories, the least diverse group of contenders since 1998.

American Police Brutality, Exported from Chicago to Guantánamo

February 22, 2015
Portside
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/18/american-police-brutality-chicago-guantanamo
The Guardian
While ‘assigned’ to the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, detective Richard Zuley led one of the most brutal interrogations ever conducted at the prison. ‘I’ve never seen anyone stoop to these levels,’ a former Marine Corps prosecutor said. But Benita Johnson, Andre Griggs, Lathierial Boyd and Lee Harris describe Zuley using familiar techniques on them at Chicago police precincts.

North Carolina's Pig Farms: Living in Bondage to Feces and Flies

February 21, 2015
Portside
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2015/feb/pig-poop-fouling-north-carolina-streams-state-permitting-questioned
Environmental Health News
A battle is raging in eastern North Carolina as health and environmental justice groups pressure the state, the second leading pork producing state behind Iowa, to more strictly regulate large pig farms. Researchers say fecal waste from the large industrial pig farms is seeping into waterways, and particularly threatening low-income and minority residents. But, the state and the pig industry continue to resist demands for increased regulation.

Rightist Venezuelan Mayor Arrested for Role in "Blue Coup" Plot

February 21, 2015
Portside
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11223
Venezuelanalysis.com
Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma was arrested February 19th for his role in the failed coup attempt against the elected government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Ledezma, who has a long history of right-wing extremist activity in Venezuela, was one of three opposition leaders to have signed a "National Transition Agreement," calling for, among other things, the removal of President Maduro a day before the coup was to have taken place.

The U.S. is Heading Into a Heavily Militarized Future

February 21, 2015
Portside
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175957
TomDispatch
When President Obama came into office, in what may be the single exception to the rule of the era, he walked back one crucial set of Bush administration policies, ending torture and closing the “black sites” where it occurred. Since then, however, the CIA has expanded. It and the national security state within which it is lodged, has grown, and the process of expanding that shadow government and freeing it from supervision has been unending.

Teachers Alone Can’t Fix the “Accumulated Hurt”

February 21, 2015
Portside
http://www.progressive.org/news/2015/02/187996/worst-sort-violence-against-children
The Progressive
The issue is violence against children, particularly low income and minority children. But all violence doesn’t come at the end of a gun. Keeping public schools defunded and dysfunctional is also a form of violence. Promoting privatization and competition when kids really need resources is also cruelty. And when society’s evils are visited upon innocent children, teachers alone can’t protect them.

George Washington, First President and Slave Catcher

February 21, 2015
Portside
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/opinion/george-washington-slave-catcher.html
New York Times
Last week the U.S. paid tribute to former Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. And while Lincoln’s role in ending slavery is now understood to have been more nuanced than his reputation as the great emancipator would suggest, it has taken longer for us to replace stories about cherry trees with truer narratives about George Washington, president and slaveholder. Perhaps we can also honor Ona Judge, one of Washington's slaves that got away.

Friday Nite Videos -- February 20, 2015

February 20, 2015
Portside
Portside
Pussy Riot - I Can't Breathe. Elizabeth Warren: Vaccines Protect Children. The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords. Another Day, Another Time: The Music of 'Inside Llewyn Davis'. Does Bill O'Reilly Have His Own Brian Williams Problem?

Walmart Worker Victory Shows What We Can Win If We Keep Fighting

February 20, 2015
Portside
http://ourfuture.org/20150220/walmart-worker-victory-shows-what-we-can-win-if-we-keep-fighting
Campaign for America's Future
It’s important to highlight the people who put their bodies on the line in front of Walmart stores around the country over the years to get the company to take this incremental step. Conservative pundits are spinning the Walmart move as a evidence that the free market will get corporations to do the right thing. Actually, the stock market gave the move a harsh negative judgement, with Walmart stock prices dropping 3 percent.

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