Portside

Reader Comments: It's a New Beginning - Election Day Victories; AFL-CIO Delegates Support #BlackLivesMatter; Lessons for Democrats; Painters Union Support Nicaraguan Workers and their Families; Readers Debate: Why Soviet Union Collapsed; Workers' Tips; Lots of Announcements: Los Angeles, Pasadena, Culver City, New York, and Cuba; and more....

Reader Comments: 5th Anniversary of Superstorm Sandy-March for Climate Action Now; I Hate When They Say "He gave his life for his country"-Adm Gene Larocque; Che Guevara; Harvey Weinstein’s Crimes; Solidarity with Striking Workers at Charter/Spectrum

Reader Comments: National Mobilization to Stop Trump War on North Korea; Saving Puerto Rico - U.S. Responsibility for Colonialism; The Harvey Weinstein Story; The Anti-War Movement and Ken Burns' PBS Series; Socialism - Readers Exchange Ideas; Reality Winner; Salsa Meets Jazz For Puerto Rico; ...and more

Many in Mexico think the government and political parties are hampering aid efforts.

Hurricane Irma struck last week. Now, the people of Florida, of the Caribbean, of Cuba, they need your help and solidarity. Here are ways you can help rebuild Florida, help the frontline and people of color communities, help the Immokalee Farmworkers, who were amongst the hardest hit, and the poorest; and how you can help the Cuban people, whose doctors are out there helping others in the Caribbean. Please do what you can.

The word “companion” doesn’t sound oppressive at all: It appears quite the opposite. A companion is supportive, nurturing, loyal. But that word was used for decades to deny basic labor protections to workers who provide in-home assistance to people with disabilities.

What I’m experiencing in this moment is a small example of how the occupation is used to take away agency from the Palestinian people on a daily basis. Each and every day, Palestinians are subjected to arbitrary checkpoints which delay their travel, restricted water which strips them of basic dignity, home demolitions which tear families apart, and constant surveillance that has seeped into every aspect of Palestinian society. I am broken but not finished.

Hundreds of Palestinian political prisoners are now approaching their critical sixth week on hunger strike, and they have made an urgent appeal for international solidarity. The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) calls for immediate international action towards implementing a comprehensive military embargo on Israel, similar to that imposed against apartheid South Africa in the past.

Campaigns to silence criticism of Israel don’t protect Jews — they endanger them. A national conversation on what antisemitism is — and what it isn’t — is long overdue. Recent reshuffling among the Trump administration may have Steve Bannon on the outs, but we are only weeks removed from a white supremacist as “the shadow president.”