Portside

The left isn't important because of its numbers. It's important because its members are the canaries in the coalmine for an unresponsive political process. The left shares something else with that majority: it's heard a lot of empty promises. Many (though not all) progressives will vote for the Democrats once again in 2016, even if they're dissatisfied. But it will take more than rhetoric to win millions of other alienated voters. It will take commitment - and action.

Two weeks ago in Chicago, 200 political activists from a variety of independent political organizations, as well as individual activists, carried out a rich discussion and an amicable debate about how to collaborate in the work of building a large political alternative to the left of the Democratic Party. Just days before, Bernie Sanders, declared his candidacy, running within the Democratic Party as a socialist. Here are two views on left electoral politics.

Reader Comments - Baltimore, other cities as "Occupied Territory"; Drop the Charges against those arrested; Government-Sponsored Segregation; Bernie Sanders - a Long Tradition of American Socialism; Alberta NDP Victory; $15 per Hour or Bust; Israeli Soldiers Speak Out-Gaza Atrocities Were Orders; Labor Union Membership Now Just 11%; Feliks Tych - R.I.P.; Announcements - New York, Boston

Reader Comments - Baltimore and Martin Luther King on Protesters Who Use Violence; How to Help - Baltimore-Ferguson Legal Defense Committee; US `World Leader' in Child Poverty; FBI Faked Testimony; Yemen; El Salvador; Venezuela; Ukraine; South Africa; Turkey; Peace Movement; The Symbolic Left; 2016 Elections; TPP; More Responses to The Tragedy of Party Communism; Announcements (all New York): May Day Against Waltons; She's Beautiful When She's Angry; Mayor 1% - Forum

Social Security surfaced in the very first days of the campaign, thanks to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie going after the program with the zeal of a born huckster, demanding to raise the retirement age. In 2010 equivocation and deficit-reduction obsession from President Obama squandered Democrats' good will on the subject. But this year anything less than an embrace of expansion this time is likely to leave the base unsatisfied.

Reader Comments - Fast Food Strike, Low-Wage Workers Struggle for More than Wages; TPP - LAtest Leak; Hillary Clinton, Fracking and 2016; Eduardo Galeano; CIA Infiltration at Home; Anne Braden; Sundown Towns; 'Driving While White'; Cuba Coops; NYT and Russian Wages; Charter Schools; Walton Wealth; Announcements: Walden Bello in New York; Vietnam - The Power of Protest and In Defense of the Public Square - Washington

Reader Comments - Mexican Farmworkers Strike; Innocent Man on Death Row - Prosecutor Apologizes; Stealing Africa's Seeds; Fighting Water Privatization - Ireland and Mexico; Run Elizabeth, Run; Jews Who Speak Out Against Israeli Policies; Cesar Chavez, the UFW - Lessons for Today; Feminist Heroes for Children; Cuba Eradicates Syphilis; Billie Holiday and Ethel Rosenberg; Resources for Passover; To Better Understand Greece and Syriza; Announcements

The Democratic Party finds itself with some serious divides that ought to be settled by the electorate. Some are clear-cut policy differences, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an enormous free-trade agreement with Pacific Rim nations that Warren opposes and Clinton backs. The big-picture debate on financial regulation and income inequality is what's most at peril if the Democratic primaries come and go without top-notch opponents for Clinton.

Reader Comments - Lessons from Syriza and Podemos; Kshama Sawant; 2016 elections; Prison Reform, Israel, Gaza, Palestine, Israeli elections; Venezuela, Greece, Ukraine; Measles; Culture - music, television, films; Franz Fanon; Roger Burbach - Presente! Announcements - Break the Cuba Blockade - Venceremos Brigade; WRL new "Pie Chart"; Mondragon and Workers Cooperatives; Fighting Inequality Conference