Portside

The United States is one of only a few democracies that places the responsibility of registering primarily on each individual voter, rather than making government accountable for ensuring that eligible persons are registered. Not surprisingly, obstacles to registration result in fewer people who are registered to vote. Disparities in voter registration rates directly result in disparities in who votes in any given election, leaving many voices unheard.

When someone says that most Americans oppose race-based affirmative action, what they really mean is most White Americans oppose it.

In an exclusive, written interview, jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti warns that the alternative to a two-state solution is a conflict "with no middle ground."

There is no need for a chaos-engulfed finale to the Afghan War, no reason to continue the bloodshed

The problem is that almost nobody in Israel - hawks, peace advocates, or those in the middle - believes anything will come out of Kerry’s shuttle diplomacy.

This huge amount of money did not go to the workers ...

March Against Monsanto. Social justice in Sweden. Make a Wall Street banker squirm. Unemployment rates among the youth. Challenging Detroit’s creditors. The ugly, destructive war against food stamps. Pathway to citizenship.

On this fiftieth anniversary of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, here are five songs from the album that have powerfully shaped both music and politics over these decades: Blowin' in the Wind; Masters of War; It's a Hard Rain That's A Gonna Fall; Don't Think Twice, It's Alright and Talking World War III Blues.

The people who speak now of the “one-state solution” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are idealists. But they do a lot of harm. And not only because they remove themselves and others from the struggle for the only solution that is realistic. The two-state solution is not dead. It cannot die, because it is the only solution there is.

When you talk to your dog, consider that the words you speak might not carry the same meaning for both of you. Instead, other aspects of communication might be more relevant. Maybe the real lesson is that context, prosody and tone — rather than dictionary definitions of words — are vitally important for human communication, too.