Portside

Last night, President Donald Trump gave his first State of the Union address. Working people were quick to point out that most of us don't live in the reality described in the president's speech and when it comes to the issues we care about, actions speak louder than words.

Diane Kruger is superb portraying a tortured character with her own “Subterranean Homesick Blues” who is “thinking about the government.” Kruger won the Best Actress Award at 2017’s Cannes Film Festival for her depiction of the anguished Katja who decides to take direct action against the neo-nazi assassins of her husband and child.

Counting up; White hiphop: Vanilla or strychnine?; New monsters under our beds; Living with mass murder; Unsecret storm; Do Not Resist? In Chicago

Organizing for the long haul.

He will surely not be apologizing for the many lies he told American voters: how he promised to defend the interests of working people, but then sold them out to Wall Street and the billionaire class.

The resistance to the Vietnam War was the most diverse and dynamic antiwar movement in U.S. history. Our genuflection to military service goes hand in hand with our failure to treat antiwar protestors as the real heroes of U.S. democracy.

Survivors of the victims also were glad that the that the workers were acquitted because they thought that the wrong people were charged with the crime.

So far, apart from some statements by union leaders, the workforce itself has been silent about the new tax law – which among other things cut the corporate rate to 21 percent from 35 percent – and how the extra money that will end up in corporate coffers should be spent. Perhaps this is because, by and large, they have lost their voice at work as unions have declined and Wall Street’s voices have ascended and become more dominate in corporate decision making.

This is the second in a two-part article on the debt burden America’s students face. Read Part 1 here. The lending business is heavily stacked against student borrowers. Bigger players can borrow for almost nothing, and if their investments don’t work out, they can put their corporate shells through bankruptcy and walk away. Not so with students. Their loan rates are high and if they cannot pay, their debts are not normally dischargeable in bankruptcy. Rather, the debts compound and can dog them for life, compromising not only their own futures but the economy itself.

And people of color (and white accomplices) who call out such racism must do so without erasing our stories, identities, and existence.