Portside

Controversial posting, by a long-time peace and social justice activist - Obama is the best occupant of the office since the end of World War II. We're unlikely to elect anyone of his quality in 2016. Like all presidents post-World War II, he has presided over the world's most (super) powerful empire. 'American exceptionalism' and flouting superior military and economic might, the empire systematically generates negative consequences for peace at home and worldwide.

Many UAW members said they voted against the proposed contract because of fear of plant closures and because it failed to provide entry-level workers with a full path to the $28-per-hour average wage that workers hired before 2007 make..

On Monday, the New York City Council declared that the government wrongfully executed Ethel Rosenberg. Manhattan Borough President declared Sep 28th as Ethel Rosenberg Day of Justice in the Borough of Manhattan.

Despite being forced to accept under duress the Troika's demands to agree to a punitive memorandum, Syriza was able to maintain the trust and respect of a vast electorate, especially working class and young voters. With that, the original vision of Syriza not only did not die, but the struggle for a just, democratic society goes on under the party's banner.

Senator Warren's speech clearly and powerfully calls into question America's commitment to black lives by highlighting the role that structural racism played and continues to play with regard to housing discrimination and voting rights, said DeRay Mckesson, a prominent #BLM activist. Warren understands the protests as a matter of life or death - the American dream has been sustained by an intentional violence...the uprisings have been the result of years of lived trauma

Powerful truth-telling for every day: written and read by Chicago poet Kevin Coval as the Haftarah for Tzedek Chicago’s Yom Kippur service last week.

For years, schoolchildren in New York City have been subject to overly aggressive practices by police in their schools. There are more police personnel in New York City public schools than there are on the streets of almost every major city in the United States. Amendments to the Student Safety Act will increase transparency by closing loopholes and improve public disclosure of comprehensive data on school suspensions and law enforcement activity.

The president of the NEA, the largest union in the US, is reportedly drumming up support for an endorsement of Hillary Clinton as early as next week. However, this has spurred protest from rank-and-file members who argue that a primary endorsement excludes the majority's input. Those who support Senator Bernie Sanders are planning a grassroots campaign in opposition to the what they expect will be a Clinton nod.

Anti-Syrian sentiment, along with economic hardship and a growing sense that the civil war will rage on for years to come, helps explain why many refugees are willing to risk everything by leaving Turkey and heading for Europe.

The history of racism in our country is sometimes best understood by looking at how that history unfolded locally, and in places outside the slaveholding South, as well as nationally. Fred Whitehead writes about his own experience growing up in Kansas in the 1950s and about what Brent M. S. Campney, in his new study of that state's bloody Civil War and Post-Civil War racial history, taught him.