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Wall Street Bonuses Twice Earnings of All Minimum Wage Earners

Sarah Anderson Institute for Policy Studies
Wall Street banks handed out $28.5 billion in bonuses last year, on top of base salaries, which averaged $190,970 in 2013. Those bonuses are double the annual pay for all 1,007,000 Americans who work full-time at the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour; enough to lift all 2.9 million restaurant servers and bartenders, all 1.5 million home health and personal care aides, or all 2.2 million fast food preparation and serving workers up to $15 per hour.

Scientists Call for Halt to Human Genome Tinkering

Tabitha M. Powledge Public Library of Science Blogs
It's now possible to modify the human germ line, and the rules haven't caught up with the science. The best way to respond to concerns created by emerging knowledge or early-stage technologies is for scientists from publicly-funded institutions to find common cause with the wider public about the best way to regulate — as early as possible. Once scientists from corporations begin to dominate the research enterprise, it will simply be too late.

LBJ's Voting Rights Speech Shows the Power of Grassroots Activism

Julian E. Zelizer The Atlantic
Johnson gave full credit to the movement. “The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this nation. His demonstrations have been designed to call attention to injustice, designed to provoke change, designed to stir reform. He has called upon us to make good the promise of America.”

A Platform for People and the Planet

Isaiah J. Poole Campaign for America's Future
The Populism 2015 platform is a set of principles; the Progressive Caucus budget shows how those principles can be translated into government policy.

Pentagon Admits Israel Has Nukes, Too

William Greider The Nation
Early last month the Department of Defense released a secret report done in 1987 by the Pentagon-funded Institute for Defense Analysis that essentially confirms the existence of Israel’s nukes. The confirmation of this poorly kept secret opens a troublesome can of worms for both the US government and our closest ally in the Middle East.

Friday Nite Videos -- March 20, 2015

Portside
Where Right Wing Conspiracies Come From. Burned at McDonald's. Documentary: Peace Officer. Buffett's $1B March Madness Bet. LBJ & the Voting Rights Act.

Tidbits - March 19, 2015 - Lessons from Syriza and Podemos; 2016 elections; Prison Reform, Israel; Culture; and more...

Portside
Reader Comments - Lessons from Syriza and Podemos; Kshama Sawant; 2016 elections; Prison Reform, Israel, Gaza, Palestine, Israeli elections; Venezuela, Greece, Ukraine; Measles; Culture - music, television, films; Franz Fanon; Roger Burbach - Presente! Announcements - Break the Cuba Blockade - Venceremos Brigade; WRL new "Pie Chart"; Mondragon and Workers Cooperatives; Fighting Inequality Conference

Women Up In Arms: Zapatistas and Rojava Kurds Embrace a New Gender Politics

Charlotte Maria Sáenz Other Worlds
In both resistances, women took up arms to fight alongside their male counterparts showing both willingness and capacity to fight as soldiers. However their principal objective in the mountains is not military. Rather, their most important task is to form new persons: men and women in a more equitable relationship to each other--a relationship that is also anti-capitalist. Theirs is a commitment to building democracy, socialism, ecology and feminism.

Joseph Stiglitz on the Trans Pacific Partnership: "This Is A Big Deal"

Alexandros Orphanides In These Times
The TPP is a massive trade agreement between the United States, Canada, Chile, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Critics of the agreement say it amounts to the promulgation of corporate globalization and neoliberalization and have likened it to "NAFTA on steroids."

Beware of Official Histories of War:The Vietnam Case; The Power of Protest. Telling the Truth

Harry Targ; Tom Hayden, Heather Booth, et al; Doug Rawlings Portside
U.S. Vietnam policy was built on twenty-five years of lies. The Vietnamese fought Japanese occupation during World War II and sought a free Vietnam after the war free of colonial control. Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon lied about their escalation of the United States involvement. The only way America can avoid becoming "waist deep in the big muddy" again and again is to clearly understand its history. The Power of Protest. Telling the Truth - May 1 - 2.