Portside

U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis recently made the Trump administration’s first overseas trip. His destination: South Korea and Japan. In South Korea, Mattis’ first stop, women demanding genuine human security are at the forefront of the resistance.

Black traditions of struggle and defiance to oppression helped define the meanings of freedom and citizenship in the United States.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

Henwick spoke how the series is looking to investigate the Asian stereotypes that spawned the character, rather than rely on them. When asked about concerns over the character’s Orientalist origins, Henwick recounted her own recent journey from actively avoiding Asian character roles to embracing them — so long as there’s something meaningful to say.

After national leaders of the Building Trades unions met with President Donald Trump January 25 and heaped praise on him, two Labor Notes readers sent in their thoughts. One is a local assistant business manager, the other a retired communications staffer for the Electrical Workers (IBEW). Here are excerpts from both.

The laws’ intent is increasing the penalties for protest-related activity to the point that it results in self-censorship among protesters who have every intention to obey the law.

This was first time in more than three decades that a federal court ruled for the plaintiffs in a partisan-gerrymandering suit after a full trial. It also dealt a critical blow to a very particular kind of gerrymander—call it “extreme seat-maximization”—that emerged in Wisconsin and a handful of other states in the most recent redistricting cycle.