Portside

Why has the law been such a flop in a state that had so much to gain from it? When I traveled across Mississippi this summer, from Delta towns to the Tennessee border to the Piney Woods to the Gulf Coast, what I found was a series of cascading problems: bumbling errors and misinformation; ignorance and disorganization; a haunting racial divide; and, above all, the unyielding ideological imperative of conservative politics.

These efforts to curb young and minority voters come as youth -- and especially minority youth -- are becoming increasingly larger parts of the American electorate. Voters between 18 and 29 years old were critical to President Barack Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012. In North Carolina in 2008, the only age group of which a majority voted for Obama was voters aged 18 to 29, according to CNN. Obama won the state by just 14,177 votes.

A book review by Michael Hirsch of Stanley Aronowitz's latest book, The Death and Life of American Labor: Toward a New Workers’ Movement, Verso 2014. Stanley Aronowitz is a former factory worker and organizer with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the Oil,Chemical and Atomic Workers. Mr Hirsch writes that Aronowitz argues for direct action, workplace democracy and that unions become partners in job and community struggles. He calls this a book of wonder.

True, a Big Mac here costs more — $5.60, compared with $4.80 in the United States. But that is a price Danes are willing to pay. “We Danes accept that a burger is expensive, but we also know that working conditions and wages are decent when we eat that burger,” said Soren Kaj Andersen, a University of Copenhagen professor who specializes in labor issues.

Pope Francis broke with Catholic tradition Monday by declaring that the theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real, and remarking that God is not “a magician with a magic wand.” “When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” the pope said at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, during a plenary meeting dedicated to evolving concepts of nature.

Rousseff won most of Brazil's 26 states including Minas Gerais, Neves' home state where she was the governor from 2003 to 2010. Neves did well in a band of states in the West and South of the country, where the population is wealthier and predominantly of European ancestry, while Rousseff did well in the East and North, where there is a higher proportion of people of African and mixed African and European ancestry.

Arnold’s spokespeople bristle at the suggestion that the billionaire is out to cut pensions, insisting that he only wants a realistic accounting of the under-funding problem. But the similarities between what Raimondo did in Rhode Island and what the Arnold Foundation advocates nationwide are striking.

Book Review: Inside Syria:” The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect “ by Reese Erlich Forward by Noam Chomsky, Prometheus Press, New York 2014 The book covers Syrian history without bogging the reader down. This is, after all, a report on the on-going civil war. But Erlich does not glide over the important details, including how the U.S. camel first put its nose under the tent.

Guy Standing argues that there is a new class in the global economy - the precariat. The precariat is growing, but fighting for democratic rights. Will the precariat be the vanguard of a new progressive era?

Free-market globalization is strengthening that which is barbaric and regressive and smashing what is beautiful,” Examples, are the death of traditional handicrafts, such as pottery, and the loss of languages. At the same time, horrible institutions such as caste-based village councils are being bolstered as a backlash against the rural displacement caused by globalization.