Portside

Free-market orthodoxy has failed. It’s time to consider our public interest. Europeans, Canadians and Mexicans buy more American goods and services than anyone else in the world. So why would the Trump administration be willing to start trade wars?

We may never know the name of the soldier who killed Razan al-Najjar. But we do know the names of those who gave the order enabling him to kill her. We know Razan, with her head wrapped in scarves of different colors, showing an investment of time and thought. The color reveals a love for life.

World peace, “the most important topic on earth….not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women – not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.” That was 1963, the president was was John F. Kennedy. Contrast to today and the desire for ever greater stockpiles of nuclear bombs.

Blue Lives matter and always have, but in the US black and brown lives have always mattered less. For the third year in a row, police killed nearly 1,000 people while Congress considers legislation making harsh penalties for violence against police harsher.

In Guatemala, family members are demanding justice for Claudia Gómez González, the 19-year-old indigenous woman whom a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot in the head and killed in Texas near the U.S. border.

What does being a trans person in a transphobic society produce? Too often, it’s still violence, prejudice and discrimination. Lady Gaga told trans people we “were born to survive”. On the contrary, for better or worse our survival is dependent on the support and solidarity of others.

Creativity and art-making can be a medium for personal transformation by connecting us to our authentic selves. Who am I? Who am I becoming? What do I think and feel? What is my pain and what are my desires?

More than one poll has affirmed that our country’s rising political demographic group wants to see more government intervention in the economy. Young Democrats lean socialist, and people of color are disillusioned with the capitalist system.

This book shows how California recovered from the grim, racist 1990s by creating community and labor political coalitions that revitalized the state and put it on a problem-solving oriented, progressive path.

Seattle owes its existence to the waterfront. But, in a city looking past heavier industries to a future powered by tech and service work, maritime workers and business owners wonder how long they will remain a vibrant part of the cityscape.