Portside

The wealthiest Congress in history, the first in which a majority of members are millionaires, we have a one-sided discussion demanding cuts only in public assistance to the poor, while ignoring public assistance to the rich. And a one-sided discussion leads to a one-sided and myopic policy. We're cutting one kind of subsidized food - food stamps - at a time when Gallup finds that almost one-fifth of American families struggled in 2013 to afford food.

Reader Comments - Ukraine; Russia; Climate Change; Wall Street; Capitalism; Wanted: Populist Movement of the 99%; Angela Davis; Charter Schools; Government Spying, NSA; NCAA Racism; TPP Announcements - Left Labor Project - Election Strategy Discussion -New York -Apr 3; Need 100 Jewish voices in New York against anti-boycott bill; 2014 Moving Beyond Capitalism Conference; New resource - Politics and ideology in the American Historical Profession

Ending Poverty vs. Paul Ryan's Budget; Military Spending; Immigrant Workers; CIA Detentions, Guantanamo and now Spying on Congress; Beyond Capitalism; GM Recall; Tony Benn; Social Media and Drones...

A new, populist, explicitly anti-capitalist party must emerge and start organizing at the grassroots level to build power over time. And this new political party must be led by and represent the young, the unemployed, underemployed and misemployed, people of color, people in debt, and everyone else who has been victimized by capitalism.

Corruption is endemic to the capitalist system and has not been successfully regulated away. Perhaps a system change is warranted?

We have passed the era of industrial capitalism and have entered finance capitalism based on expansion of the neoliberal economic model globally. This is fundamental to understand because it is this model that is driving all of our crises.

Condemning the “new tyranny” of unfettered capitalism and the “idolatry of money,” Pope Francis argues in a newly circulated apostolic exhortation that “as long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.”

Reader Comments: Capitalism and Unemployment; New York and Seattle elections; more. Announcements: Human Rights Film Screenings New York City -Nov 20 26; Breaking the Silence-Oakland-Nov 23: Fighting Back Against Wall Street -NYC-Nov 25; Chanukah Message from Jewish Voice for Peace; The National Labor College; New Day New York Dec 5 Day of Action; 50% Off PM Press for the Holidays; Pvt Chelsea Manning-4th birthday in prison-Dec 17; Faith Petric Memorial -Berkeley-Jan 15