Portside

The full text of the new Seattle city council member's inauguration speech. Despite recent talk of economic growth, it has only been a recovery for the richest 1%, while the rest of us are falling ever farther behind. To begin to change all of this, we need organized mass movements of workers and young people, relying on their own independent strength. That is how we won unions, civil rights and LGBTQ rights.

Reader Comments - Pardon for Snowden; BDS and Israel; Turkey; NAFTA; North Carolina; Bill de Blasio; John Handcox; Philadelphia schools; Art Spiegelman; Obamacare; Announcements - Memorial for Steve Kindred -NYC -Feb.8; Pete Seeger gets first Woody Guthrie Award -NYC - Feb.22; Student activists scholarships available; Preserve Mother Jones monument in Illinois; Save the Village photo exhibit -NYC; This week in history - largest slave revolt in U.S. history

Debate over Israeli policy on settlements in the occupied lands;, the on-going discrimination against Palestinians and Jews of color within Israel; negotiations with the Palestinian state; and peace with Iran are now hot items on campuses, in academic organizations and within the Jewish community. While there are disagreements on the tactics of BDS, this debate and discussion should be welcomed. Here Portside presents four different views of the BDS campaign.

John and Bonnie Raines played an active role in the Media action that uncovered the FBI Cointelpro files. That they were willing to take this risk even with their responsibilities as parents of three young children is very moving, very inspiring. They were clearly about a much higher responsibility to their children, the responsibility of providing an example of someone who is willing to take reasonable risks for justice, peace and the common good.

A Supreme Court case to be heard this month could deal another body blow to the embattled U.S. labor movement. The case, Harris v. Quinn, offers the court’s conservative majority a chance to make so-called right to work the law of the land for millions of public sector workers.

Chicago teachers and other supporters of public education are teaching Mayor Rahm Emanuel that the forces of grassroots democracy can shock back too. And boy, does he have it coming.

Is Bill O'Reilly pro-goat-marriage? Key & Peele: What color is Green Falcon? Is Dr. Seuss a Socialist? A social justice Hall of Fame. Rather Go Blind / Playing for Change. Salt Sugar Fat: How the food giants hooked us. What really happened after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The descendants of Henrietta Lacks have objected to the publication of her tumour cells' genome. The genome of the controversial cell line is no longer public, but another sequence is in the works.