Portside

The campaign for the Bangladesh Safety Accord, coordinated by United Students Against Sweatshops, that included two Bangladeshi worker tours, six sit-ins and countless direct actions across the country, 23 universities, including Penn State, UW-Madison, and NYU, have required their brands to sign the Accord, and 17 college-logo brands, including Adidas and Fruit of the Loom, have signed the agreement since September.

Reader Comments - Cecily McMillan; Prison Labor; William Worthy; Syria; Timothy Geithner and Wall Street's Bailout; College Debt; U.S. Subversion in Latin America; Venezuela; Announcements - This Weekend - Left Forum (May 30 - June 1) - Reform and/or Revolution: Imagining a World with Transformative Justice; Raising America's Pay - Launches June 4; Meet UnionWiki; Call for Papers - Fighting Inequality: Class, Race, and Power

If we think privatization through to its logical conclusion, it becomes clear that the school closings and massive spread of private charter schools is more than an attack on public education. It is an attack on the whole idea of education for all. And sadly, it goes beyond education to the destruction of whole communities.

Climate Change crossroads - Super-Typhoon Haiyan, possibly the strongest such storm ever to hit land; Australia, elected a climate-change denialist as prime minister is experiencing its hottest year on record; the rest of the world is living through the seventh warmest year on record. And...young activists organizing a growing campaign to pressure universities and colleges to divest from the giant energy companies, to change the mood and calculations of our moment.

"We have to change the way we're doing business in a significant way to get out of the crisis we find ourselves in," says Trumka. "But this crisis also offers us ample and tremendous opportunity."

Students today “hook up” no more than their parents did in college. It seems college students are talking more than acting—at least when it comes to sex.

Cynicism or struggle? Cynicism is self-fulfilling prophesy. The generation of 1968 fought - America changed. The changes didn't come easily. Every positive step was met with determined resistance. But we became better and stronger because we were determined to change. Today to make progress, to prevent slipping backwards - will require no less steadfastness, intelligence, and patience than was necessitated before. Graduates today are the most indebted - ever.

The Chilean student movement roared back to life on Thursday, with organizers and media outlets reporting that hundreds of thousands of people joined students in the nation's streets calling for a free and quality education for all.