Portside

Reader Comments: Panama Papers fallout; Controversy over whites as part of the working class; Mine Safety and Blankenship Jail Sentence; Minimum wage hikes discussion; Bernie and labor, Wisconsin victory; Wall Street and Glass-Steagall; Hillary and labor, Wall Street and fracking; Pope Francis; Announcements: Gerald Horne book signings - Baltimore, Washington and New York; China Labor Relations; Communists in the Civil Rights Movement

It is no exaggeration to suggest that the legitimacy not only of President Jacob Zuma and the ANC, but also the notion of the liberation struggle itself is in shreds. For some of us, it was unthinkable that such an alliance of forces could degenerate into a moneymaking, lawless and violent operation represented by people who were prepared to trample on the values that we understood the movement to embody. Certainly, this did not happen overnight.

With Bernie in the USA, Corbyn in Britain and various kinds of leftist opposition in Ireland, Spain and Portugal, resistance to billionaire-led governments has been growing, most dramatically last year in Greece until German "austerity" smashed it (though perhaps not permanently). Germany already has the LINKE party, with 64 seats in the Bundestag (out of 630). But it has failed to fill that gap of anger, worry and distrust among working people...

I stand against the government's saber-rattling, against ruling over and harming a civil population. It's important to me to say: No more! I'm not willing to take part in that. I want to represent a different path, to show that there's a choice and that it's possible to resist. Through my refusal I choose to represent a path of solidarity and peace, and I believe this path will create a more secure life for us all.

Paul Krugman is not a Political Scientist. Krugman's "brand" is that he is a "brilliant, Nobel Prize winning economist." In fact, much of his early research was brilliant; and, to be sure, Krugman did win the Nobel Prize. BUT, the misleading discussion of economics contained in his piece, "Sanders Over the Edge" does raise this question in my mind: Is Paul Krugman still qualified to write an economics opinion column for the New York Times?

Spike Lee and the senator from Vermont he supports for president — both of whom hail from Brooklyn — meet for the first time to talk free education, guns, a certain "demagogue" and Obama's legacy on the eve of the crucial New York primary.

University of Chicago Medicine didn't want an adult trauma center. What caused its change of heart? In part one of our two-part series, we examine how activists and their allies upped the pressure on the prestigious university health system.

The Baltimore Housing Roundtable, a coalition of grassroots groups, envisions a plan to curb displacement and rationalize the twisted housing market. It sees joint ownership as a path to revitalizing community oriented housing.

Oscar López Rivera spoke with El Nuevo Día by telephone on March 31, after the Bureau of Prisons once again denied the request for an in-person interview.

For other countries with racist histories, like South Africa and Canada, healing has involved national Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, public hearings that openly acknowledge what happened and begin the process of resolution. The United States has had only one, which took place in Greensboro, North Carolina, from 2004 to 2006, but nothing of the kind has taken place at the national level. This year, that began to change.