Portside

The language of social justice has been used to sell intensified neoliberalism in post-Katrina New Orleans. On the tenth anniversary of the failure of the federally maintained levees, the keynote speaker at the annual Rising Tide Conference on the Future of New Orleans was DeRay Mckesson, a standard-bearer for Teach For America and the New Teacher Project — education “reform” organizations that played a crucial role in the destruction of the black middle class.

The slaying of two journalists Wednesday presents us with a moment to mourn but also a moment to learn lessons and demand action. The horror isn’t just one macabre double-murder, but the unrelenting toll of gun violence that claims one life every 16 minutes in the United States. It is time we address gun deaths as a public health crisis, and move from our passive horror to take steps to reduce the 92 lives claimed by gun violence in the United States daily.

With all the concern over the militarization of police in the past year, few noticed that the state of North Dakota became the first state in the country to allow police to equip drones with so-called “less than lethal” weapons such as rubber bullets, sound cannons, pepper spray, Tasers and tear gas. North Dakota House Bill 1328 wasn’t drafted that way, but then a law enforcement lobbyist with close ties to the drone industry got his hands on it.

According to a new study released August 25th, chronic homelessness in Los Angeles County, especially among children and youth, overwhelms the dwindling supply of affordable housing there. The report by the Economic Roundtable, a Los Angeles research organization, says, chronic homelessness is such a daunting problem in Los Angeles County that about 13,000 people on public assistance slip into homelessness every month, one half of whom are children.

Is there too much hyperbole in digital activism? Should activists really follow the rules of modern marketing in online movements? James Turner, a senior strategist for Greenpeace International, asks whether all the online "urgency" risks damaging public trust at a time when activists have an opportunity to build a new model of participation. He argues activists should replace the cynical tricks of commerce with appeals that are more honest and participatory.

It is March Madness, after all, when the NCAA makes 90% of its billion-dollar budget. As the business of college football and basketball expands, and as more and more players find themselves used up and spit out with neither compensation nor education to show for their time, this is the moment to talk about the future of the so-called "student-athlete."

The plot begins in the bad years after 9/11 when the CIA embraced global torture in the war against terrorism. Official Washington was traumatized by the attack and looked the other way, pretending not to know what the spooks were doing. The men in black plucked various "terrorists" off the Arab Street shipping them to less squeamish countries around the world where the US agents used medieval methods for pain and punishment, techniques officially prohibited by US law.

Mississippi wants to execute a 56-year-old mentally ill woman Thursday even though no one now seems to believe that she murdered the husband who had battered and abused her for years. Mississippi wants its pound of flesh. But why from Michelle Byrom?

If we think privatization through to its logical conclusion, it becomes clear that the school closings and massive spread of private charter schools is more than an attack on public education. It is an attack on the whole idea of education for all. And sadly, it goes beyond education to the destruction of whole communities.

Collective bargaining is under attack from right-wing, anti-union politicians. But union members are fighting back - pushing new boundaries in what unions do and challenging the notion of "management prerogatives." The Saint Paul Federation of Teachers’ recent contract campaign is an impressive example of this new direction in collective bargaining.