Portside

Mainstream pundits are outraged over a Silicon Valley barbarian riding in and defacing The New Republic, a temple to all that is wonderful about deep-thinking policymaking and long-form journalism. But the truth about the Washington-based magazine is much less honorable, writes Robert Parry.

LAWCHA sponsored a Teachers/Public sector history committee that has produced an overview of teacher organizing and a bibliography of resources to understand that effort in historical context. We have provided powerpoints graphs and annotations of material organized by geography and specific unions.

Sen. John McCain spoke Tuesday on the Senate floor following the release of the CIA torture report. The Arizona Republican was a Navy pilot whose plane was shot down in enemy territory during the Vietnam War; he was tortured by the North Vietnamese as a prisoner of war.

Persnickety about Picketty; ALEC’s anti-choice clone; Rolling Stone’s rape story, two takes; Geeks reek; We are how we eat

Unions historically have supported minimum wage and occupational safety laws that benefited all workers, not just their members. But they also have recently begun investing major resources in organizing drives more likely to yield new laws than new members. Some of these campaigns seek to organize workers who, rightly or wrongly, aren't even designated as employees or lack a common employer, such as domestic workers and cab drivers.

We will likely hear these false appeals to an imaginary history a great deal with the release of the Senate report on CIA torture. It seems to me self-evident that most of the members of the Constitutional Convention would have voted to release the report and also would have been completely appalled at its contents.

Report released by Senate after four-year, $40m investigation concludes CIA repeatedly lied about brutal techniques in years after 9/11

What has made these protests stand out is not their size, though some have been quite large. And this is not the first time protesters have used their bodies to block bridges, tunnels, intersections, and roadways around town. But I can’t come up with another time when protesters have engaged in as much spontaneous and simultaneous disruptive action as they have in the two weeks since Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson was not indicted for shooting Michael Brown.

The Silicon Valley-based network Shareable dispatched Nathan Schneider to write a report on the growing movement to experiment with new forms of economic democracy online. Schneider states that "A popular mantra among sharing-economy boosters has been "sharing is the new owning." What I found is the opposite." Given concerns about the sharing economy, Schneider examined cooperatives, networks of freelancers, cryptocurrencies, and more.

Power To The People: What Protesters Need To Know About Their Rights And What Cops Can Do. Advice and reminders from experts for citizens protesting abusive policing.