Portside

The landmark U.S. disability rights legislation became the basis for an international treaty embraced by much of the world — but not, ironically, by the U.S. itself.

UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education has just published the third book in a series Dreams Deported edited by Kent Wong and Nancy Guarneros. Utilizing the Center's politically powerful approach that ensures that people speak and act collectively for themselves seeking justice, Dreams Deported is a significant contribution to the movement for immigrant and worker rights here in USA and internationally. Buy this book -- and use it!

The community surrounding the University of Chicago's Hyde Park campus has one of the highest shooting rates in Chicago and consequences of the lack of a Level 1 adult trauma center are acutely felt. In Oakland, California, activists and trained first responders were frustrated by the lack of urgency they observed among police and EMTs after shootings. Keeping trauma care inequality campaigns grassroots gives lasting power and impact. Elsewhere, activists agree.

There are as many reasons to desert military service as there are deserters. All countries’ militaries like to snatch young men when they are uneducated, inexperienced, and unemployed. It takes a soldier far greater courage to throw down his weapon than to kill a stranger. There are deserters in every country that has an armed forces. Armies demand blind obedience and human beings crave liberty. Why do men desert? Certainly not from cowardice.

The 42nd Annual Meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) got underway July 22 in San Diego. The mood was convivial, attire corporate casual: Brooks Brothers suits without ties, Dockers and sports shirts. ALEC, (secretive rightwing bill mill funded by Koch Brothers and global multibillion dollar corporations), has been described as a legislative dating service that arranges hookups between mostly Republican state lawmakers and corporate lobbyists.

Israel’s Civil Administration is advancing plans for the development of 1,065 housing units in eight different settlements throughout occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, a settlement watchdog announced on Thursday.

The Center for Medical Progress is led not by well-meaning bioethics geeks but by some of the most virulent members of the anti-choice movement.

Sanders calls on the nation to ". . . simultaneously address the structural and institutional racism which exists in this country, while at the same time we vigorously attack the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality which is making the very rich much richer while everyone else – especially the African-American community and working-class whites – are becoming poorer."

In Chicago, over a 5 year period from 2005-2009, there were: 851 blocks with over $1 million committed to prison sentences; 121 blocks with over $1 million committed to prison sentences for non-violent drug offenses. This is wasteful spending at its worst, especially given that research has shown that incarceration does not necessarily reduce crime in neighborhoods. The good news is that there are many innovative, common-sense, and creative alternative approaches.

Disabled people tend to live in the poorest areas with much less access to jobs and good education. There are a lot of obstacles. It’s the kind of social issue that isn’t being addressed -- when we talk about poverty, we don’t talk about people with disabilities.