Portside

Frackers think pink; Gamer rage; Myths about black voters; Pulling the plug on Emma; Warrior cops; Euroleft dreams

What will it take to reshape America’s police departments, and curtail the unprompted police killings that beset us still?

Ferguson, Brought to You by the Black Internet; NYT Gets Called Out by Its Own on Ferguson; What 1 Million Net Neutrality Comments Look Like; Boston and Big Blue Look You In the Face; CWA Challenges Local Media Consolidation; Gov't Info Plays Favorites

Violence has been an important element of law enforcement in majority-black communities since virtually the day that African Americans began moving to cities in large numbers during the first Great Migration of the late 1910s and 1920s. Put differently, to be black in an American city at the very moment that those cities were becoming the homeplaces for sizable numbers of black people meant to live in fear of what the police were capable of.

Reader Comments - We need a special prosecutor ((Cornell William Brooks, NAACP); Ferguson, Racism, Economic Inequality, Michael Brown, Police Militarization; Racism and Misuse of Genetics; Rosetta Comet; Jewish Resources for Resisting Nationalism; Robin Williams; Israel, Gaza and Hamas; NFL's New Low - Asks Performers to Pay to Play at Super Bowl; Today in History - Nat Turner's Rebellion; Tomorrow - Fannie Lou Hamer & the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Militarization shows that police and governments are "willing to sacrifice the lives of the community members based on the actions of a few." — Chauniqua Young, Center for Constitutional Rights

National Forum on Police Crimes held earlier this month in Chicago. Speaking at the closing rally Angels Davis said, mass incarceration and police killings stem from "structural and systemic racism rooted in the failure to fully abolish slavery." Global capital expansion and its pursuit of profit, she said, fuel the prison-industrial complex. Call issued for legislation to create Civilian Police Accountability Councils.

Racism and the end of net neutrality; Warrant-less cyber-search; Paramount Pictures go digital; Now it can be downloaded; Payment card data theft skyrockets

Thailand Police Raptured Away in Solidarity; Big Food Portrays Itself As Anti-Big Food; A Plan to Save the Detroit Institute of Art Might Also Save Detroit's Pensions; JP Chase Morgan Reads Reverend Billy the Riot Act; The Phony Philanthropy of eBay's Billionaire Pierre Omidyar; Subtext of Super Heroes is Fascism.