Portside

Woman who led 2011 student uprising joins lower house as Michelle Bachelet comes top in first round of presidential election.

Boeing's fight against its machinists raises a terrifying possibility about U.S. capitalism. It appears that instead of industrial growth translating into national prosperity, the United States is beginning to conform to what economists call the Iron Law of Wages, which says the natural price of labor is subsistence. The only reasonable pay for workers, the theory goes, is enough to sustain them to live and work to produce value for their bosses and nothing more.

With an awareness of climate change growing and as intensifying floods, fires, droughts, and storms become an inescapable feature of daily life across the planet, more people are joining environmental groups and engaging in increasingly bold protest actions. Sooner or later, government leaders are likely to face multiple eruptions of mass public anger and may, in the end, be forced to make radical adjustments in energy policy or risk being swept aside.

FARM subsidies were much more sensible when they began eight decades ago, in 1933, at a time when more than 40 percent of Americans lived in rural areas. Farm incomes had fallen by about a half in the first three years of the Great Depression. In that context, the subsidies were an anti-poverty program. Now, though, the farm subsidies serve a quite different purpose.

How not to report science on TV.

Agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership distribute wealth upward. Real 'free trade' can lower medical costs for everyone.

Blocks from the U.S. Capitol, five religious and labor leaders launched the “Fast for Families” on Tuesday, committing to fast from food and drink until Congress passes immigration reform. Along with the long-term fasters, people are joining as “solidarity fasters,” fasting for a shorter period of time both in D.C. and across the country. Officials and members of Congress have gone to the tent to hear from the fasters about their mission.

The Obama administration faces a decision whether to press Iran to go along with the changes or to go back to the original compromise when political directors of the six powers and Iran reconvene Nov. 20. That choice will provide the key indicator of how strongly committed Obama is to reaching an agreement with Iran.