Portside

Just one hundredth of one percent of people in the United States contributed nearly one third of all the money spent in the 2014 elections, a greater proportion than ever before, according to a new study. In the first full midterm since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, the influence of the One Percent of the One Percent continued to grow. Candidates, parties and super PACs depend on the super elite.

Last month, the historically ultra-conservative and oil-rich province of Alberta, Canada, did the unthinkable: It elected a left-wing government. And that new government just made one of its first big moves: It announced a serious clamp-down on climate change, including doubling its carbon tax.

The Revolution Has Been Digitized: Explore the Oldest Archive of Radical Posters

The future demands a proud Greece within the Eurozone and at the heart of Europe. This future demands that Greeks say a big NO on Sunday, that we stay in the Euro Area, and that, with the power vested upon us by that NO, we renegotiate Greece's public debt as well as the distribution of burdens between the haves and the have nots.

Louis Armstrong believed his birthday was July 4, 1900 (though a recent discovery suggests August 4, 1901 is correct). But Elaine Feinstein's portrait of that great trumpet player just starting out seems appropriate for this American holiday weekend.

A new book chronicles the travelers ignoring borders to spread ideas of liberty and equality, from the American revolution to the declaration of Haitian independence. "Without social media or even an international postal system," author Janet Polasky writes, "revolutionaries shared ideals of liberty and equality across entire continents." Decades before Marx, these internationalist radicals were soon betrayed by the very societies they helped build.

Barriers to social change posed by our constitutional structure should not overwhelm us with pessimism. The history of the United States is punctuated by radical reform periods: Reconstruction, the Progressive Era, the New Deal and the civil rights era. Militant social movements can make major gains when ruling elites prove incapable of solving major social crises. During these periods a moderate reform party temporarily controls all three branches of government,

White supremacy has dominated the politics of America resulting in the creation of racist laws and cultural practices designed to subjugate non-whites. The emblem of the confederacy, the stars and bars, in all its manifestations, has long been the most recognizable banner of this political ideology. It's the banner of racial intimidation and fear whose popularity experiences an uptick whenever black Americans appear to be making gains economically and politically.

The struggle to save Worker Education continues. This battle is an integral part of the defense against the class warfare waged on unions, public education and institutions, the working class and those who work toward a democratic society, and human rights and opportunity for the oppressed, not hedge funders and warmongers. We have deeply disturbing developments to report about management's recent actions.

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