Portside

Reader Comments- Ebola, Capitalism, Cuba, Disease Control; Elections- Black Vote, Voter Restrictions; War against Islamic State; Detroit; U.S. Jews Debate Israel; Berkeley Free Speech Movement, Education- Philadelphia and Common Core; Mexico, NAFTA; Wealth Inequality; New Voters in Ferguson; Announcements- Black & Brown Unity Event-Los Angeles-Nov 8; New York City Labor Chorus Honoring Pete Seeger-New York-Nov 15; SHE'S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE'S ANGRY-New York showing-Nov 16

Voter suppression is not new. We've seen grandfather clauses, poll taxes, and literacy tests as historical barriers to the vote. Now, we see a reduction in voter flexibility, with more ID requirements, fewer early voting days, and stricter rules about voter registration.

Reader Comments - Towards a Socialist America; War on the Islamic State; Ferguson New Voter Registration; Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism; Economy - Still Failing; People's Climate March; War and Climate Change; Berkeley Free Speech Movement; Crime Fiction; Work, Leisure, & Consumption; Israel 'Blacklist'; An Israel Equal for All; Importance of Brazil's Elections; Announcements - Race, Policing & Civil Rights-Oct 14; Paint the Town Red-Oct 22-both Brooklyn

The South, where 55 percent of America's black population lives, is increasingly looking like a different country. Fewer children can read; more adults have HIV; its residents suffer from the shortest life expectancies of any in the United States. Six of the eleven states that made up the former Confederacy are at the bottom. That deprivation tends to be concentrated in the parts of these states with disproportionately large African American populations.(long article)

Reader Comments- Undocumented Student Leaders and Mississippi Freedom Summer; Scott Walker's Scandals; Protect Voting Rights; U S Created Child Migrant Crisis; Egypt Jails Al Jazeera Staff; Precariat and Global Erosion of Job Security; Freedom Summer Legacies; Gabriel Kolko; Doonesbury on Climate Change; Correction to earlier posting Cecily McMillan to be Released next week; Memorial Concert for Pete and Toshi Seeger-July 20; MEDICC's Educational Exchange to Havana

Bob Moses remembers; Southerners reflect; Passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Voter suppression now; The Right vs. democracy; Throwback: How Mississippi Burning defamed the movement

A new study, titled "Jim Crow 2.0? Why States Consider and Adopt Restrictive Voter Access Policies," concludes that restrictive voter measures are connected to both partisan and racial factors.

The conservative justices’ decision this past June in Shelby County v. Holder, striking down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, has already unleashed in North Carolina the most restrictive voting law we’ve seen since the 1965 enactment of the VRA. Texas is restoring its voter ID law which had been blocked (pursuant to the VRA) by the federal government. And more is to come in other states dominated by Republican legislatures.

Reader Comments - Songs of Immigration; Fruitvale Station; Blow the Whistle, Face Life in Jail; Bradley Manning; On Vultures and Red Wings: Billionaire Gets New Sports Arena in Bankrupt Detroit; U.S. Prison Population; North Carolina Worst Voter Suppression Law; Shorts - You Helped Cut the Pentagon Budget; Justice Department's Bold Voting Rights Move; Conference - The Global E. P. Thompson: Reflections on Making of the English Working Class after Fifty Years Oct. 3-5