Portside

New poem from Marge Piercy, how the rich and the rich in Congress despise and hate the poor..."If they could push a button, if they could war on the poor here at home as they do abroad directly with bombs instead of legislation, think they'd hesitate?"

Once again our readers have come through in support of Portside.

Actress Scarlett Johansson is an Oxfam Goodwill Ambassador and the new Global Brand Ambassador for SodaStream - the Israeli manufacturer. Their main production facility is in the industrial zone of Mishor Edomin, an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank. An international boycott is being waged by The Interfaith Boycott Coalition - a group of individuals from faith-based organizations and institutions who share a common goal of bringing justice to the Palestinians.

Reader Comments - ACTION NEEDED - Stop Iraq Executions; Voting Rights Act; Martin Luther King and Nonviolence; Our Postal Commons; De Blasio's Election; Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA; Tuition-Free Public College Education; New Orleans Teachers and Katrina; Announcements: Muste Institute 40th Anniversary concert; South Africa Today - Online Meeting; Book Talk-Red Apple: Communism and McCarthyism in Cold War New York; Vandenberg's Role in US Global Domination

On the line are the lives of decent hardworking Americans, trying to cross over into the dignity of work but still caught in the barbwire of an historic global recession. The jobless rate for young African Americans (16-19 years old) was 35.5 percent in December.

Right-wing Israeli politicians like to boast about their country’s famed intelligence service, but they've gotten good at ignoring it when it tells them things they don't want to hear.

SAG nominee Misty Upham speaks from experience when she stands up for domestic workers.

Didn’t Arne Duncan say that Katrina was the best thing that ever happened to the schools of New Orleans? Didn’t he celebrate the abrupt firing of all these teachers and their replacement by TFA? Well, yes. The courts say he was wrong.

One of Wall Street’s most powerful trade groups, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), has been spearheading Wall Street’s fight against using eminent domain to mitigate the foreclosure crisis.

Red Guard's mea culpa; Cuba nabs Russian homophobe; Politics of Downton; A hidden MLK tribute to DuBois; Korean Americans deserve a break today