Portside

The key to understanding the rise in inequality is not technology or globalization. It is the power of the moneyed interests to shape the underlying rules of the market.

Illinois de-institutionalized nearly 35,000 people in the 1960s and 1970s and never fully invested in a community-based mental health treatment system and affordable housing.

300 years ago, on the 3rd of May 1715, a rare solar eclipse occurred over England. It was an opportunity too good to miss for those promoting new astronomical theories – and their own careers.

When workers feel collectively trapped in poorly performing unions that do not properly represent them, the most union-minded among them often believe that changing unions is their only hope. If switching to another union is not a viable option because of AFL rules or incumbent union manipulation of Labor Board procedures, the result will be more workplace anger, frustration, and resentment.

Pleas from Simon, Andre Royo and Wendell Pierce, among others, are an acknowledgement of the real-world authority we’ve granted to “The Wire,” one of the most venerated shows ever to air on American television.

The trigger for the protest was the video that was made public last week, showing police officers beating an Ethiopian-Israeli man, a young man serving in the Israel Defense Forces and in uniform, but it was preceded by years of frustration. “It’s a pressure cooker that exploded. There are hundreds of young Ethiopians the police open case files against for no reason, and that ruins their lives."

Baltimore, not at all uniquely, has experienced a century of public policy designed, consciously so, to segregate and impoverish its black population.

A petition drive has been launched in San Francisco rename Justin Herman Plaza after the renowned poet, Maya Angelou. Presently, the plaza honors Justin Herman, who was head of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency during the period when it displaced thousands of low-income residents from the South of Market and Fillmore districts. This latter displacement, which critics attacked as “Negro Removal,” is one of the most shameful episodes in San Francisco history.

In its expansive report, the AFL-CIO reports 4,585 U.S. workers were killed on the job and 50,000 died from occupational diseases in 2013. U.S. workers suffer from 7.6 million to 11.4 million injuries each year. Workplace violence continues to be the second leading cause of job fatalities, with women workers suffering 70% of the lost-time injuries related to workplace violence. Latino workers continue to be at increased risk of job fatalities.

On nearly all indicators of mortality, survival and life expectancy, the United States ranks at or near the bottom among high-income countries. Pick almost any measure of social cohesion over the last four decades and you will find the United States took a wrong turn along the way. The bloated incarceration rates and rock-bottom life expectancy, the unraveling families and the stagnant college graduation rates amount to an existential threat to the nation’s future.