Portside

In the 13 Southern states, the number of workers belonging to unions grew from 2.2 million in 2014, or 5.2 percent of the workforce, to 2.4 million by the end of 2015, or 5.5 percent of Southern workers.

I believe that my incarceration, the constitutional violations in my case, and the government misconduct in prosecuting my case are issues far more important than just my life or freedom. I feel that each of you who have fought for my freedom have been a part of the greater struggle of Native Peoples — for Treaty rights, sovereignty, and our very survival. If I should be called home, please don’t give up on our struggle.

On an increasingly grim globe that seems to have failure stamped all over it, the surprises embedded in the years to come, the unexpected course changes, inventions, rebellions, and interventions offer, at least until they arrive, grounds for hope. On the other hand, in that same grim world, there's an aspect of the future that couldn’t be more depressing: the repetitiveness of so much that you might think no one would want to repeat.

People now fighting economic injustice have no right to decide how future people should live. But we do have a responsibility to provide an institutional setting that facilitates future people deciding for themselves their own conditions of life and work. To this end, participatory economics, or parecon, describes the core institutions required to generate solidarity, equity, self-management, and an ecologically sound and classless economy.

When President Obama appointed Dollie Gee to the U.S. District Court in 2010, he undoubtedly didn't expect her to mount a frontal challenge to his administration's detention and deportation policies. But five years after her elevation as the first Chinese American woman on the federal bench, Gee ruled last summer that holding Central American women and children in private detention lockups was illegal.

The biotechnology giant continues attempts to build its GMO seeds plant in Argentina, despite three years of unflinching popular opposition.

Warren Buffet owns the company that makes the most mobile home loans to Black borrowers in the country. And he’s stripping them of their hard-earned money.

Tools and solutions to stop gentrification and rising rents!

In the last few years, California’s political landscape has set itself apart from national trends. We’ve increased spending on education, innovated the way funding works for K-12 public education, ended deep cuts to critical services, and begun reforming the justice system to provide second chances instead of lifelong disenfranchisement. November 2016 California's electorate will have new opportunities to unify and vote for policies that expand justice and equity.

Our Bodies, Our Lives, Our Right to Decide -- Poster of the Week