Portside

French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira resigned January 27 to protest President Francois Hollande’s new anti-terrorism law that strips those with dual nationality of their French citizenship if convicted of terrorism. Taubira, who was born in French Guiana, says this divides French citizens into two categories with different rights. Taubira, the target of numerous racist and misogynist attacks, played a critical role in the passage of France’s same-sex marriage law.

In a letter submitted into the public record at the DPU, Deerfield states its Board of Health has forbidden within the town all activities of Kinder Morgan and will enforce this order. Anyone entering onto private properties, without permission from the property owners, for activities related to the proposed natural gas pipeline will be arrested for trespassing, the Select Board has warned.

In the 13 Southern states, the number of workers belonging to unions grew from 2.2 million in 2014, or 5.2 percent of the workforce, to 2.4 million by the end of 2015, or 5.5 percent of Southern workers.

Polling shows that as more voters get to know Sanders that his support increases. A July 2015, Washington Post ABC-News poll showed that only 28% of voters of color approved of Bernie Sanders, but a poll taken last month showed that 51% of voters of color now approve of Bernie Sanders.

I believe that my incarceration, the constitutional violations in my case, and the government misconduct in prosecuting my case are issues far more important than just my life or freedom. I feel that each of you who have fought for my freedom have been a part of the greater struggle of Native Peoples — for Treaty rights, sovereignty, and our very survival. If I should be called home, please don’t give up on our struggle.

Climate change; glacial melting: Northern California poet Kirk Glaser depicts what's already happening, forecasts where we're all heading.

On an increasingly grim globe that seems to have failure stamped all over it, the surprises embedded in the years to come, the unexpected course changes, inventions, rebellions, and interventions offer, at least until they arrive, grounds for hope. On the other hand, in that same grim world, there's an aspect of the future that couldn’t be more depressing: the repetitiveness of so much that you might think no one would want to repeat.

People now fighting economic injustice have no right to decide how future people should live. But we do have a responsibility to provide an institutional setting that facilitates future people deciding for themselves their own conditions of life and work. To this end, participatory economics, or parecon, describes the core institutions required to generate solidarity, equity, self-management, and an ecologically sound and classless economy.