Portside

This article is part of a series on how workers are organizing in response to COVID-19 and the COVID-19 Depression.

As fewer people remain able to afford rent in big cities, more leave those cities for cheaper regions, or simply fall out of the housing market and into homelessness. Think tanks and activist groups are thinking outside the box with solutions.

Fire in the Anthropocene has become the physical equivalent of endless nuclear war. A new, profoundly sinister nature is rapidly emerging from our fire rubble at the expense of landscapes we once considered sacred.

A Post-Coronavirus economy can no longer afford to put the Pentagon first. As it turns out, creating jobs through Pentagon spending is among the least effective ways to rebuild the economy.

A new book researching the grocery business reveals the unsustainability of American shopping.

“We’ve got to be able to pass Schools and Communities First, as one measure, and then come back with another measure, and another, so that we make the rich pay their fair share.”

The results were overwhelming. With 100 of the 103 precincts where the issue was on the ballot reporting, 87 percent of voters were backing the $15-an-hour wage. Just 13 percent voted against the advisory referendum. That huge level of support will strengthen the hand of activists who are encouraging the city council to consider a major wage hike.

This new Cold War is not about communism taking over the world. It is more about returning to 19th century balance of power interests, borrowing the phrase John Kerry has used against Putin. It is about dividing up the spoils of the first Cold War among the triumphal capitalist democracies, as if Russia is defeated and short-lived. Pushing Western capitalism and NATO towards Russia was sure to touch off the current escalation, and worse may come.

The banning of Students for Justice in Palestine at Northeastern University, replicates sanctions being imposed against numerous student Palestinian rights groups across the country. Israel's heavy-handed reaction to these campus organizations is symptomatic of its increasing isolation and concern about waning American support and have alienated traditional supporters of Israel, including many young American Jews.

Republicans can continue their desperate move to convince Americans that being anti-choice is actually pro-woman. But we are not stupid, and they are not fooling anyone. The more anti-choice politicians, pundits and activists underestimate women by continuing with their rhetorical sleight-of-hand, the more they reveal themselves. The anti-choice movement cannot erase us from our own lives by insisting that abortion isn't necessary.