Portside

What role has the American intellectual community played in this saga, if any? Certainly we failed to prevent it. But there is more. For the past two years, since Putin re-assigned himself to the Russian presidency, we have indulged ourselves in a bacchanalia of anti-Putinism, shading over into anti-Russianism.

“This is a major legal victory that protects affordable housing at a time when San Francisco desperately needs it,” City Attorney Dennis Herrera said. “The displacement of Western Addition tenants from more than 1,100 apartments in the midst of the current housing crisis would have been unthinkable. And the high stakes of this potentially devastating legal attack justified the resources we deployed to defend against it.”

In order to even begin exploring the city’s other options, New Yorkers first have to stop deluding themselves into believing that today’s hyper-gentrification is the same old thing. We all have to stop saying, “New York always changes, so this is normal.” This is not normal. This is state sponsored, corporate driven, turbo charged, far flung, and impossible to stop in its current form.

None of the mainstream media narrative accurately reflects the complex reality of Venezuela. U.S. news and analyses are routinely distorted, manipulated, and even manufactured to support the corporate media's narrative which is that student-led protests have been violently repressed amidst severe government repression of speech and press in Venezuela.

International Women's Day's origin was both socialist and feminist in nature, specifically calling for the celebration of working women and the mobilization of all workers to fight for women’s social, economic, and political equality.

Gayle McLaughlin, the bold mayor of Richmond, California is threatening to take underwater mortgages by eminent domain from Wall Street banks and renegotiate them on behalf of beleaguered homeowners. A member of the Green Party, which takes no corporate campaign money, she proved her mettle standing up to Chevron, which dominates the Richmond landscape. Richmond’s city council is only one vote short of the supermajority needed to pursue the eminent domain plan.

Venezuela's struggle is widely misrepresented in western media. This is a classic conflict between right and left, rich and poor. Although there are abuses of power and problems with the rule of law in Venezuela – as there are throughout the hemisphere – it is far from the authoritarian state that most consumers of western media are led to believe.

One feature of recent Mardi Gras celebrations is missing this year, however. Thanks to a city council vote, the growing trend of taking over swaths of sidewalks and neutral grounds (as we New Orleanians call medians) is a thing of the past. The long walls of chairs and ladders at the very front of curbs that impeded visibility and mobility, and the roped-off areas that effectively privatized city grounds, are now illegal. It is a vote in favor of the commons.

Moral Monday pix; Fracking for you but not for me; Guggenheim; Google; Smart diapers

Micah Uetricht's "Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity" relates the stirring transformation of the Chicago Teachers Union into a democratically organized force for social justice.