Portside

There are 2.4 million people in U.S. jails; and the burden of mass incarceration falls heavily on the many families of inmates who can’t pay off thousands of dollars in debt after paying court-related costs. According to a report published Monday, the average family of an inmate incurs $13,607 in court-related debt, one-third of the families go into debt to pay for phone calls and visits, and 83 percent of the family members responsible for these costs are women.

It is long past time for a campaign to end the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia and all of the cruel grasping hereditary dictatorships in the Persian Gulf. While U.S arms merchants are making billions selling weapons to these dictatorships, U.S. taxpayers are underwriting the expenditure of trillions of dollars on military bases, troops, contractors, weapons systems, and fleets, all in support of tyrannical regimes, unending wars and cruel occupations.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcoming response to the refugee crisis won her accolades as Europe’s most humane leader. But with few European Union countries agreeing to accept even small numbers of refugees, Merkel performed an about-face, re-imposing border controls and further exacerbating the crisis. And still neither Merkel nor any other European head of state acknowledges the refugee crisis is the result of wars started and supported by “western democracies.”

After four years as a growing, thriving voice of Walmart workers, the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) re-launched itself on Thursday. Founded and funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, OUR Walmart will now rely more heavily on a coalition of 20 community-based partners. OUR Walmart will not attempt to gain union recognition, but continue its fight for $15 an hour minimum pay and improved working conditions and protections.

This week’s military coup by Burkina Faso’s elite presidential guard on the eve of the scheduled Oct. 11 national elections has sparked widespread resistance and at least 10 deaths. General Gilbert Diendere, the former commander of the Regiment of Presidential Security, trained and funded by the U.S. and France, is the coup’s leader. He is also the former chief of staff to ex-President Blaise Compaore, ousted after 27 years of misrule by a 2014 popular uprising.

Former Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi and Republican front-runner Donald Trump share a flaunted machismo and political incorrectness, saying outrageous things to get free media coverage, and targeting predominantly blue-collar white males who feel threatened by globalization, multiculturalism and women’s rights. Berlusconi was initially dismissed as wholly unelectable. His political momentum lasted more than 20 years.

“It’s worth it, once you realize what you’re fighting for,” says Ahmed Mohamed. And what is he fighting for? He looks around the room, and like any American 14-year-old grappling with issues beyond his control, he answered with the rising inflection of a question. “Not just for Muslims?” he said. “But for anybody who has been through this?”

Bernie Sanders, With 200,000 Grassroots Volunteers, Says 'I Am Running to Win.' Movie -- Time Out of Mind. Steve Earle - Mississippi It’s Time. Joe Hill Documentary. Pete Seeger - Casey Jones.

Pharmaceutical firms have a history of suppressing unfavourable results from drug trials. It’s time to compel them to publish data in full.

To ignore race, C.L.R. James often said, in many contexts and many ways, was a disaster in any social understanding; only the ignoring of class would be worse. Or to put it in his own words: The race question is subsidiary to the class question, and to think of imperialism in terms of race is disastrous. But to neglect the racial factor as merely incidental, is an error only less grave than to make it fundamental.