Portside

Is there too much hyperbole in digital activism? Should activists really follow the rules of modern marketing in online movements? James Turner, a senior strategist for Greenpeace International, asks whether all the online "urgency" risks damaging public trust at a time when activists have an opportunity to build a new model of participation. He argues activists should replace the cynical tricks of commerce with appeals that are more honest and participatory.

According to a new study released August 25th, chronic homelessness in Los Angeles County, especially among children and youth, overwhelms the dwindling supply of affordable housing there. The report by the Economic Roundtable, a Los Angeles research organization, says, chronic homelessness is such a daunting problem in Los Angeles County that about 13,000 people on public assistance slip into homelessness every month, one half of whom are children.

With all the concern over the militarization of police in the past year, few noticed that the state of North Dakota became the first state in the country to allow police to equip drones with so-called “less than lethal” weapons such as rubber bullets, sound cannons, pepper spray, Tasers and tear gas. North Dakota House Bill 1328 wasn’t drafted that way, but then a law enforcement lobbyist with close ties to the drone industry got his hands on it.

The slaying of two journalists Wednesday presents us with a moment to mourn but also a moment to learn lessons and demand action. The horror isn’t just one macabre double-murder, but the unrelenting toll of gun violence that claims one life every 16 minutes in the United States. It is time we address gun deaths as a public health crisis, and move from our passive horror to take steps to reduce the 92 lives claimed by gun violence in the United States daily.

The language of social justice has been used to sell intensified neoliberalism in post-Katrina New Orleans. On the tenth anniversary of the failure of the federally maintained levees, the keynote speaker at the annual Rising Tide Conference on the Future of New Orleans was DeRay Mckesson, a standard-bearer for Teach For America and the New Teacher Project — education “reform” organizations that played a crucial role in the destruction of the black middle class.

America’s neoconservatives and their liberal interventionist sidekicks have pushed an aggressive “regime change” strategy that has left bloody chaos in their wake. The cumulative impact, including Mideast refugees flooding Europe and overuse of sanctions, is now contributing to a global economic crisis. According to columnist Robert Parry, international pragmatism, including working with adversaries, may be the only way to prevent a devastating financial crash.

The resolution also endorses the worldwide BDS movement – Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions – to pressure Israel to end its apartheid over the Palestinians just as similar tactics helped to end South African apartheid in the 1980s. UE is now the first U.S. national union to endorse BDS.

A huge study -- of 100 scientific papers in psychology, published in high-quality journals -- has failed to confirm the results claimed by about two thirds of the papers. Is this a colossal failure of science? No, say the authors of the study. It's an example of the value of skepticism and the step-by-step, sometimes indirect, process by which uncertainty is reduced.

"It's hard to imagine Democrats' 2016 nominee will be truly tough on Wall Street banks that break the law, if they won't commit to banning their advisors from receiving legalized bribes from those same banks," says Charles Chamberlain of Democracy for America. Still Hillary Clinton has refused to address the issue.

It’s remarkable that most of the Republicans who would be president are declaring that the retirement age — which has already been pushed up from 65 to 66, and is scheduled to rise to 67 — should go up even further. Americans love Social Security, so why aren’t the candidates at least pretending to share that sentiment? The answer is about Big Money.