Portside

Here are two articles outlining theory and practice of a model around which the Left could organize cooperative enterprises into a more coherent base upon which to build more powerful, more confrontational politics as well as historic iniquities, or how it would be able to defend the gains it makes. That is how a commonwealth network could be formed and expanded.

While all Southern states have laws disenfranchising people while they are incarcerated and on probation or parole, Florida stands out with one of the nation's most restrictive felony disenfranchisement laws — one of only four states that impose a lifetime ban on voting for anyone convicted of a felony. The others are Virginia, Kentucky and Iowa.

Should anything go awry with the 2020 count, it could have political implications affecting how voting districts are drawn or how language minorities can access the ballot. Important funding decisions are also driven by Census data. Nationwide, nearly $600 billion in federal funding is allocated to states based on Census numbers, according to a recent report by the George Washington Institute of Public Policy. Southern states receive $179.2 billion of that total.

Last year was a deadly one for transgender people in the U.S., with at least 27 known murders — more than any other year, according to LGBT advocates.

Immigrants have been the target of hateful rhetoric and actions since President-elect Donald Trump launched his campaign over a year ago. Galvanizing his base with promises to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and to ban Muslim immigration, Trump has dramatically shifted the tone of the national conversation on immigration and raised fears that he'll follow through on his harshest campaign promises.

As presidents, celebrities, dignitaries and a plethora of VIPs descended on New Orleans to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Katrina, activists in the streets of New Orleans were also getting organized.

“We have people dying every day just because they don’t have access to health care,” one protester, Shayna Adelman, 32, said in an interview before she was jailed. “It’s morally repugnant to me. Sometimes you have to take dramatic action to get people’s attention.”

Unions can win in the South, and doing so is an essential part of the broader goal of defeating the reactionary political and economic agenda nationwide. The key is cultivating and mobilizing community support for workers’ rights to organize.

Moral Monday Georgia and Truthful Tuesday South Carolina Commence