Post-Election Message from the Labor Moderators at Portside

Portside
We need your help to keep going. We don't intend to stand still. In the next year, we will improve and expand Portside, making it easier to use, to search and to share. Early next year we will initiate a new daily post, dealing with books, films, poetry, food -- with a left slant. We plan to add music, sports and health. Even with volunteer effort and modern technology, Portside costs money. We need your financial contributions to guarantee that we survive and grow.

At union rallies across L.A., teachers seek more than just a pay hike

HOWARD BLUME Los Angeles Times
More than 500 teachers union members and supporters gathered late Thursday afternoon at Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights to rally for their contract demands. United Teachers Los Angeles is putting forward an agenda on staffing levels, classroom conditions and policies aimed at improving academic results.

Tortured and Raped by Israel, Persecuted and Imprisoned by the United States

Dahr Jamail Truthout
We know historically in this country that every social justice movement that has been effective has come under attack by law enforcement, and we believe very strongly that this is what is happening to Palestinians here now, We are winning some battles now, and Palestinians around the world are winning this battle against Israel for the hearts and minds of the world, with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. So, this is how the US and Israel are reacting.

Privateers Make a Water Grab

Ellen Dannin Portside
Facing increasing opposition abroad, over the past several decades, global water privatizers like Veolia and Suez have begun to see U.S. cities as expansion markets. These corporations have aggressively interfered in the democratic governance of water and have sought to trap cities in unfavorable privatization contracts.

Documentary: The Other Side of Immigration

Based on over 700 interviews in Mexican towns where about half the population has left to work in the United States, The Other Side of Immigration asks why so many Mexicans come to the U.S. and what happens to the families and communities they leave behind. Through an approach that is both subtle and thought-provoking, filmmaker Roy Germano provides a perspective on undocumented immigration rarely witnessed by American eyes, challenging audiences to imagine more creative and effective solutions to the problem.

The Browning of America

Olmeca teams up with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and PUENTE Movement to bring you a music video depicting the growth of Latinos in the U.S. The video centers around beautiful “video portraits” of individuals and families within the Latino community. These portraits include past deportation detainees and their families, as well as, immigrant rights activists.

President Obama: Fixing Immigration

In an address to the nation, President Obama lays out the executive action he's taking to fix our nation's broken immigration system

Déjà Vu in Jerusalem?

Neve Gordon The Nation
The latest round of violence in Jerusalem is reminiscent of the Second Intifada, sparked by then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to the Haram al-Sharif compound (Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount) in 2000. Last week's events come in the wake of other "structural forms of violence" directed at Jerusalem's Palestinian residents, and are evidence of the "alarming transformations taking place in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

A Returning Ebola Volunteer: "Don't Pander to Fear"

Kathryn Stinson GroundUp
Kathryn Stinson, a South African epidemiologist, recently returned from fighting Ebola in Sierra Leone, travelled to Europe with Kaci Hickox, the American nurse later quarantined in a tent outside a New Jersey hospital. Stinson writes about the courage of health care workers there, her own 21 "post-mission" days, and the need to confront the "hysteria and stigma" surrounding returning staff from Ebola-affected areas with science and evidence-based insight.

Mexico Teeters on the Brink and the U.S. Is Oblivious

Ruben Martinez Los Angeles Times
The violent disappearance of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teachers college in Guerrero state has caused a political earthquake the likes of which Mexico has not seen in generations — perhaps even since the revolution of 1910. That makes it all the more baffling how little attention most people in the U.S. have paid to the unfolding tragedy. Americans must face the fact that the drug-related corruption and violence in Mexico is a "binational affair."