Portside

It is exactly 39 years since the Vietnam war ended, with the seizure of Saigon by the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and the People's Army of Vietnam - time to consider the legacy of this long US war.

By law, a company can’t hire H-2A guest workers if it is in a labor dispute with its US workforce. But that is exactly what this Washington State berry grower is trying to do.

Jurors never knew what a possible sentence might be. Finally freed from a ban on researching the case, including potential punishments, some are shocked to learn they just consigned Cecily McMillan to a sentence of up to seven years in prison. "They felt bad," said the juror, who did not wish to be named. "Most just wanted her to do probation, maybe some community service...now what I'm hearing is seven years in jail? That's ludicrous. Even a year in jail is ridiculous."

In recent years, workers across the country have been turning their aspirations into action, staging more than 1,100 strikes and protests between June 2011 and the end of 2013, according to China Labor Bulletin. In a sign that labor unrest is rising, there have been more than 200 strikes, including 85 in the manufacturing sector, in the past two months alone, the group said.

New Labor in New York raises many questions about the future of labor organizing, but it also provides many examples of concrete victories for workers long ignored by the conventional labor movement. Those victories are often small, but they are building; the organizations may be siloed, but they are aware that they are part of something bigger.

In the U.S. strikes are expected to include the first walkouts in Philadelphia, Sacramento, Miami and Orlando. Outside the U.S., the protests are expected to include protests in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, South America and Central America.

The way most of us “participate in electing our political leaders” is by voting. A tiny minority also “participates” by contributing more than $123,200 to federal political campaigns. In 2012, just 591 donors reached that limit on giving to federal candidates. For some perspective, that represents a little more than 0.000002 percent of the U.S. voting age population.

Millions of dollars are being vacuumed out of public schools and into the corporate pockets -- or fraudulent execs.

This is a case that has taken two years of resources. But Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. "would not agree to let [Cecily McMillan] plead guilty to a misdemeanor,” instead insisting on a felony even if McMillan plead guilty. How does Cy Vance treat other crimes? Crimes like money laundering for drug cartels? It turns out, there is a whole different standard for Cy Vance when it comes to white collar crime.

Luis Roberto Zamorra Bolaños was just a law student when he challenged the legality of his government’s support for George Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He took the case all the way up to the Costa Rican Supreme Court—and won.