Portside

As California voters prepare to vote about legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, promises and omens have become part of the debate over the state’s future if Proposition 64 is passed. Will the traditional small-time pot farmers be replaced by industrial grow operations? Will employees in this newly legalized commerce receive decent pay, working conditions and benefits? Or will the new cannabis worker have more in common with the low-wage, immigrant farm workers?

NAFTA worsened poverty in Mexico. But some did profit from "Free Trade." Mexico now has 12 billionaires. Before our government started selling off public enterprises to cronies to lay the groundwork for NAFTA, we didn’t have one.

The secrecy surrounding the text of TTIP is revealing. Anyone who wants to enhance environmental protection, consumer protection and labor standards would have nothing to fear from transparency. Anyone who’s engaged in selling out democracy, on the other hand, is obviously going to want to avoid public scrutiny.

A new report goes beyond the sanitized inspection regimes to hear from the workers themselves.

TPP's fate in congress is uncertain at best; Long-awaited text reveals gaps between administration claims and actual TPP terms on key congressional, public concerns. Many in Congress said they would support the TPP only if, at a minimum, it included past reforms made to trade pact intellectual property rules affecting access to affordable medicines. But the TPP rolls back that past progress and provides pharmaceutical firms with new monopoly rights for biotech drugs.

An outline for social transformation in the United States, inspired by South Africa's Freedom Charter. The Democracy Charter, summarized below, seeks to enlarge the public's understanding of the connectedness of these issues as a way to achieve a social transformation of American society. This is the ultimate purpose of our movement.