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Sanitizing Socialism and Needing to Create a New Kind of Capitalism With a Conscience!

Beth Lamont Portside
Socialism can mean what we citizens wish for it to mean, by exercising our People Power! Hooray for Bernie Sanders! His vision and his rousing passion for the plight of the people is the greatest remedy for the painful ills of humankind that fear and greed have brought us. I warily approve of Hillary Clinton and would want for her "negotiating experience" to prevail. I've been joking for some time now about him teaching her, and teaming up. This would be powerful.

What Does the Academy Value in a Black Performance?

BRANDON K. THORP The New York Times
The uproar over #OscarsSoWhite made me curious. What does the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences value in black performance? Black artists have been nominated for best actress or actor on 30 occasions, for work spanning 28 films. Over the last few weeks, I watched all of them.

Flint and Haiti: A Tale of Two Rivers, a Tale of Two Crimes

Victoria Koski-Karell Truthout
From Haiti to Michigan and across the world, millions - especially poor and marginalized populations - are being denied the human right to clean water and sanitation. These water crises, though distinct in important ways, can both be traced back to longstanding human-made systems that have simultaneously neglected and exploited low-income communities of color.

Affordable Housing: Introduction to a Crisis

Sasha Abramsky Capital and Main
On February 22, Capital & Main launched a week-long series on California’s increasingly severe affordable housing crisis. “No Direction Home” explores how escalating housing prices are undermining the state’s already embattled middle class and exerting intense economic pressure on millions of poor and working-class residents.

Transformational Education: Creating Engaged Citizens

Ruth Needleman Portside
After completing a 3-month, 5 nights a week, Metalworkers’ Union Education Program—the “Integrated Program”—Ana received an elementary school certification, vocational training, along with critical thinking. Ana told me after graduation, “Now I am somebody. Now my son talks to me.“ Pride and self-confidence lit up her eyes.

The Economy is Very Peaceful Today. That's Bad News

Jeff Spross The Week
If American prosperity is going to be equitable and broadly shared, workers need enough power to contend with CEOs and owners of capital when they all meet at the bargaining table.