Portside

National Forum on Police Crimes held earlier this month in Chicago. Speaking at the closing rally Angels Davis said, mass incarceration and police killings stem from "structural and systemic racism rooted in the failure to fully abolish slavery." Global capital expansion and its pursuit of profit, she said, fuel the prison-industrial complex. Call issued for legislation to create Civilian Police Accountability Councils.

Piketty's central theme is not that inequality of the ownership of wealth is going to skyrocket. The central theme is that the 1% already owns a lot of the capital stock, and the capital stock is going to get gigantic relative to the rest of the economy. Whatever the weakness this meg-tome and mega-best seller, there is no denying - the rich are getting richer, the poor, poorer. (And Piketty is not a Marxist.)

Interesting new developments calling for end of ban on travel and trade with Cuba, and for full normalization of relations with socialist Cuba, our closest neighbor in the Caribbean. Open letter to Obama signed by former government officials, including ones who served in his Cabinet. Business groups in the U.S. are now clamoring for a change in policy. Today, Thomas Donohue, President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headed a business delegation to Cuba.

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams asked Snowden, "When the president and others have made the point that you should have gone through channels, become a whistleblower and not pursued the route you did, what's your response?" "I actually did go through channels and that is documented," Snowden answered. "The NSA has records.

General Baker spent his life in struggle on the streets and in the auto plants of Detroit.

Why can't we embrace the idea that prisoners have labor rights?

Why politicians of both parties may rue the awakening of North Carolina’s progressive movement.

A poet, memoirist, dancer, singer, actress, playwright, producer, director, teacher, civil rights activist and women’s rights advocate, there were no limits to her outlets for creative expression or her capacity to champion justice and equality. Her life was a testament to the power of possibility as well as an affirmation of courage and daring.

"Kissinger said we should present to the President an action plan to prevent [the Chilean Congress from ratifying] an Allende victory and noted that the President may decide to move even if we do not recommend it."

The giant energy companies are taking a page from Big Tobacco’s playbook. As concern over climate change begins to lower the demand for fossil fuels in the United States and Europe, they are accelerating their sales to developing nations, where demand is strong and climate-control measures weak or nonexistent. As in the case of cigarette sales, the stepped-up delivery of fossil fuels to developing countries is doubly harmful...