Portside

Reader Comments - Pete Seeger; Jews and Mayor de Blasio; Atlanta; NSA; Staples & Postal Jobs; Minimum Wage; Wars of Reconstruction; Brooklyn College CWE; Drugs and Philip Seymour Hoffman; Christie Scandal; Unions and Keystone Pipeline; Announcements - New Music Video-Close Guantanamo; Egyptian Revolution in Perspective -NYC-Feb 8; Fight Against VEOLIA Privatization -SF-Feb 8; Book Signing-William L. Patterson bio -LA-Feb 11; Labor - A Poor People's Movement -NYC-Feb 21

Say what you will about the boycotting, divesting from and sanctioning Israel. The tactical brilliance of BDS becomes clearer with every passing month. Amid faltering peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Israeli politicians and business leaders are forced to consider a host of international boycotts that threaten to damage the economy of the Jewish state.

Did you know many African countries continue to pay colonial tax to France since their independence till today! 14 African countries forced by France to pay colonial tax for the "benefits of slavery and colonization."

1600 Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee to vote on unionization February 12 through 14. It appears that both Volkswagen and the UAW are supporting unionization. This is bringing howls of outrage from right-wing southern politicians. A yes vote would have be seen as a tremendous victory for all those trying to organize in the south.

Thailand's Deep Divide by Walden Bello (January 27 in Foreign Policy in Focus) Thailand's Protests and the Global Economy by Layne Hartsell (February 4 in Foreign Policy in Focus)

About 40 people gathered in the wind and snow Wednesday morning outside Whole Foods’ Midwest regional headquarters in Chicago, supporting single mother Rhiannon Broschat, who said she was fired last week after choosing to stay home with her “special needs” child instead of going to work during the bitter cold on Jan. 28.

The birth of continent’s newest nation was largely an American endeavor, brought about by a polyglot coalition of Christian evangelicals, U.S. corporations, the Bush and Obama administrations, the Congressional Black Caucus, and human rights supporters. But in many ways the current crisis goes back to November 1884, when some 14 countries came together in Berlin and sliced up a continent.

. The author of this iconic anthem of American patriotism was Katharine Lee Bates. In a brilliant lampoon of the bigots' backlash against the Coke commercial, Stephen Colbert pointed out that Bates was a lesbian. He could also have added that she was also a Christian socialist and an ardent foe of American imperialism.