Portside

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.

For many young workers facing a bleaker present and future than many current pensioners, advancing non-workplace issues affecting low-income and working class people of color makes the difference between joining up or observing from a distance. Some unions get that. The support Constance Malcolm, 40, received from her union exemplifies this trend, which is known as social justice unionism.

Too much credit or not enough? The film highlighted the realities of what farmworkers experienced in the past and present. People who watched the film were brought to tears by episodic scenes of farmworkers, Filipino and Mexican, being terrorized by vigilantes. Cesar Chavez also illustrated the feudal rule of the agricultural industrial complex consisting of growers interlocked with the institutions of law enforcement, politics, agencies of the state, and finance.

AI tech race; Algorithm for diversity; Dark Google; Bitcoin at MIT; Fake net neutrality; Covering Snowden; New media and David's sling

As China looks set to overtake the US as the world's largest economy, a multipolar world can only be good for democracy.

The author reviews two books: One discusses the state of journalism today; the other examines how the dominant culture brutalizes the poor and lionizes the powerful.

Worker-owned cooperatives build economic democracy, but how do we build more worker-owned cooperatives? Here are three valuable allies to help us get there.