Portside

Preemption is a legal term that allows corporations to boost their profits by suppressing local government power, community groups and citizens.

Let me take this opportunity to thank J Street for the bold voice that they’ve provided in support of American leadership in the Middle East and efforts towards peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I understand that, given the political climate in this capital, that has not always been easy. I also applaud them for being part of a broad coalition of groups that successfully fought for the historic nuclear agreement between the U.S. and its partners and Iran.

Ultimately the only long-term solution to the problem of national leaders launching a nuclear war is to get rid of the weapons. This was the justification for the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968, which constituted a bargain between two groups of nations. Under its provisions, non-nuclear countries agreed not to develop nuclear weapons, while nuclear-armed countries agreed to dispose of theirs.

It isn’t necessarily automation itself that should be feared—just Puzder and other executives’ version of it, where jobs and unions and social services are dismantled. Like Hamon, authors such as Paul Mason and Peter Frase argue that job-killing automation should go hand-in-hand with a universal basic income. “A low-work society,” Mason writes, “is only a dystopia if the social system is geared to distributing reward via work.”

Media con; Filtering news in China; The net over Africa; FCC under the rabid right; Fight for net neutrality; Fallon on hard times; Screwed at the border

Barry Jenkins’s movie is a brave, brilliant work of art that also happens to be a black, gay story. What a shame if the announcement gaffe is what people remember about its victory. There were echoes of Hattie McDaniel, 76 years ago, who had to walk up to collect her Best Supporting Actress Oscar from a table way down the back of the hall and was seated separately from the rest of the Gone With The Wind stars. A moment of triumph tranished.

Arkansas poultry workers, Brooklyn warehouse workers and house cleaners, Twin Cities roofers, and thousands of students in places like Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Charlotte, North Carolina. They were all among the tens of thousands who stayed home from work or school across the country during Thursday, February 16’s “Day without Immigrants.”

In this ongoing "Interviews for Resistance" series, experienced organizers, troublemakers and thinkers share their insights on what works, what doesn't, what has changed, and what is still the same. Today's interview is the twelfth in the series.

New bilateral trade agreements between the UK and the USA could see the former being forced to lift restrictions on food imports from the latter, including some products that have up to now been banned.

Increases in policing produces these results: insecurity; broken families and occupied communities; divestment of public resources for education, health, recreation, housing; disenfranchisement for communities targeted by policing and courts; fear and hatred; more inequality; more racism; more human rights abuses; more violence; public debt as the militarized state redoubles itself; and environmental injustice.