Portside

Rosa Parks was a lifelong activist who had been challenging white supremacy for decades before she became the famous catalyst for the Montgomery bus boycott. We see a woman who, from her youth, didn't hesitate to indict the system of oppression around her. As she once wrote, "I talked and talked of everything I know about the white man's inhuman treatment of the Negro." Today we honor her, as part of African American History Month.

All constitutions in modern countries begin with stressing the principle of equality amongst their citizens. Even undemocratic countries adopt this principle legally, considering it a cornerstone for any modern political system, including democracy, which seems impossible and meaningless without equality. The Israeli Knesset rejected such legislation last week.

I wanted to see Elizabeth Warren run for president. Institutional support was thin. They said that Warren didn't have a chance of winning. I found the argument that Elizabeth can do more in the Senate (but not in the Senate leadership!) than the presidency to be condescending - another manifestation of the glass ceiling. Yet the same people who were making those arguments against Elizabeth running are now Clintonsplaining that I'm a self-hating woman and a bad feminist.

The Algerian regime is unsparing in the tactics used to discourage workers from organising and fighting for their rights, including wilful disregard for the decisions of its justice system.

The people stuck in Calais are caught between two major colonial powers which must bear responsibility for much of the violence and destruction which has driven refugees from their homes in the Middle East and beyond. Their awful situation is relevant in trying to understand the colonial legacy and Europe's obsession with borders and fear of the immense efforts by civil society to help, even as they are curbed by Europe's governments. Why is Europe so scared these days?

Shortly after turning 90, Hedy was arrested in a demonstration over the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson. She has also visited the Israeli-Occupied West Bank five times, and been turned away from visiting Gaza the same amount of times by Israeli authorities. “It’s part and parcel of my entire political philosophy, when there is something wrong being done I can’t stand idly by … I have to be out there.”

Protests expanded across the country this week in reminiscence of the Arab Spring. Unemployment is high, and citizens are unhappy with the pace and direction of reform.

Socialism has only been able to develop a successful political programme when it has understood itself as a modernising project, working with the grain of technological and organisational progress

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees President Lee Saunders said his members helped make the difference in Secretary Hillary Clinton's victory in Iowa. She won union households 52-43 percent over Senator and that 21 percent of caucus goers came from union households.

How Prohibition helped create today's "War on Drugs" infrastructure.