Portside

The NYPD Division of Un-American Activities; Toni Morrison Responds to Ohio School Board Prez; When did Sadness Become a Disease?; Taking Over the Judiciary; "Commie Camp"

Being stopped by police for DWB (Driving While Black) is outrage enough. Being killed by police for SHWB (Seeking Help While Black) demands a response.

The average net worth of a Forbes 400 member is now $5 billion— the highest ever.

"The people at the bottom are going to be continually squeezed, and I don't see this ending anytime soon," said Harvard economist Richard Freeman. "If the economy were growing enough or unions were stronger, it would be possible for the less educated to do better and for the lower income to improve. But in our current world, where we are still adjusting to globalization, that is not very likely to happen."

The wave of Occupy protests in 2011 was forcibly suppressed. But it changed public debate, inspiring a generation of activists.

Eugenie C. Scott fights the teaching of creationism in schools.

There was lots of excitement about the AFL-CIO Convention last week, but were the proposals enough to rebuild the labor movement? Steve Early argues,"Given the extreme attacks both union and non-union workers are suffering, the convention’s heavy emphasis on conventional political strategies and growth through diluted forms of membership was not “transformative” enough to meet the challenges of the day."

Dimitris Psarras, a writer who has chronicled Golden Dawn's rise over almost four decades since the collapse of military rule, said: "Their agenda, clearly, is to create a climate of civil war, a divide where people have to choose between leftists and rightists."