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Why Are White People "Expats" When the Rest of Us Are Immigrants?

Mawuna Remarque Koutonin The Guardian
In the Western lexicon of human migration there are still lot of remnants of a white supremacist ideology, with hierarchical classes of words created to differentiate white people from the rest of humanity, with the purpose of putting white people above everyone else. One of those remnants is the word “expat.” What is an expat? And who is an expat? Expat is a term reserved exclusively for western white people who go to work abroad.

The Republican Plan to Shred the Social Safety Net in 2016

Susan Greenbaum AlJazeera America
The Republic majorities in both chambers of Congress have crafted their 2016 budget proposals. In the near term, the proposed cuts would hurt millions of poor people, a large share of them veterans, children and the elderly. Two other factors guarantee the pain could get much worse over the next five years: the sequester caps on spending and a plan to convert Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or food stamps) into state block grants.

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
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.