Fraud City

When a cheating scandal rocks an Atlanta school system, Jon notices eerie similarities to the 2008 U.S. financial crisis brought on by Wall Street.

Friday Nite Videos -- April 24, 2015

Portside
Videos: Fraud city: Atlanta & Wall Street. Football Town Nights. Battle for the Internet. Greece: Austerity Isn't Working. Willie Nelson & Trigger.

Court-Sanctioned Corruption and Plutocracy in America

Michael Hirsch The Indypendent
Successive High Court decisions have done more than enfranchise corporations at the expense of the rest of us. The same logic in the same cases now defines public corruption down: that a direct and palpable quid pro quo must be seen to operate. Absent that smoking gun, the financial elite has no limits on bankrolling campaigns whose candidates then vote their interests. To the nation's founders, that untrammeled influence was the essence of public corruption.

More Responses to The Tragedy of Party Communism

Nina Udovicki; Gilberto de Leon; Dynamite Hallinan; Scott T Portside
Previously Portside published Michael Brie's, The Tragedy of Party Communism and responses from three socialist activists - what lessons there may be to draw on, and which to forget. Here are additional responses from Nina Udovicki, Gilberto de Leon, Dynamite Hallinan and Scott Tucker. Those responding see capitalism as a system that needs to be abolished and socialism as an alternative - A socialism that is different from the past, and democratic.

Relevance of Civil Disobedience in Solidarity with Cuba

IFCO and Venceremos Brigade National Network on Cuba
The blockade is still in place. Travel restrictions still exist. Guantánamo Bay is still illegally occupied by the U.S. military and used for imprisonment and torture. The U.S. government still funds USAID projects aimed at undermining the Cuban government. Today, it is still critical that the Venceremos Brigade, IFCO, and all friends of Cuba are persistent in defending Cuba's national sovereignty and right to self-determination.

19 Months on the Picket Lines

Ben Chacko Morning Star
The 120 workers at Crown Metal Packaging have now been on strike 19 months resisting a union-busting employer aiming to slash wages and cut pensions. They have been supported by the international solidarity of Workers Uniting, the global union formed by North America's United Steel Workers and Britain's Unite.