Portside

A day and a half after the release of 27,000 emails obtained in the first completed investigation, the verdict of the national media is in: This Walker scandal is boring, which in Beltway-speak commands that all serious journalists just move along.

As a whole, the people of Egypt opted for unarmed mass demonstrations over joining a guerrilla struggle because they believed strategic nonviolence was the more practical and effective means of ousting the heavily militarized Mubarak regime. The past six months, which have hardly served to weaken the army’s hand, suggest that the tactical judgment of nonviolent revolutionaries carried considerable wisdom.

Even before Michael Dunn encountered Jordan Davis and his friends, he was primed to see young black men as dangerous “thugs” to be eliminated, and empowered by right-wing culture to believe he had the absolute right to do so.

As we celebrate Darwin’s birthday on February 12, there is some positive news about Americans’ views

Focusing on 10 states where the pension cost controversy has been intense, we compare those costs to the amount of revenue those states lose each year as the result of economic development subsidies offered to corporations as well as the tax preferences and accounting loopholes (including offshore tax havens) used by companies.

The government has everything to lose from violence in the demonstrations, and the opposition has something to gain. Protests are initiated by ultra-right factions of the opposition in the hope of an eventual systemic overhaul. When is it considered legitimate to try and overthrow a democratically-elected government? In Washington, the answer has always been simple: when the U.S. government says it is.

Reader Comments - Keystone XL; Sid Caesar; Venezuela; UAW and Volkswagen; Bernie Sanders Run for President?; Chris Hedges; Nixon, Reagan and Sabotage of Peace; Healthcare; Love and Loneliness; Song for Pete Seeger; Announcements: -Remembering Freedom Summer and the Civil Rights Era - New York - Feb. 22; Teleconference on 'Moving Beyond Capitalism' - Feb. 24

Union members, journalists, academics and others express differing viewpoints on the significance of the United Auto Workers union loss in the representation election at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in this New York Times' "Room for Debate" piece.