Portside

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.

Public school students in the state are increasingly isolated by race and class as the proportion of minority and poor students continues to grow.

The essential point of Livio’s book is to show the passionate pursuit of wrong theories as a part of the normal development of science. Science is not concerned only with things that we understand. The most exciting and creative parts of science are concerned with things that we are still struggling to understand. Wrong theories are not an impediment to the progress of science. They are a central part of the struggle.

Corporate media both here and in Venezuela have largely succeeded in putting a democratic face on the racist, essentially fascist, movement in the streets of Venezuela. Traditionally anti-racist coalitions have ignored Venezuela. It is time we stand in solidarity with the majority of people in Venezuela.

Ramogi Huma, president of the College Athletes Players Association, told "Outside the Lines" that he and Kain Colter, the former Northwestern quarterback, will be in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday and Thursday for informational briefings with an undisclosed set of legislators.

Once the March for Dignity became public, it rapidly became clear that it was an initiative for which millions had been waiting. Endorsements of its manifesto rapidly multiplied and the popularity of the initiative forced the mainstream union confederations to give it their blessing. No to the payment of the debt; bread, shelter and work; and not one more service cut.