Portside

Rubble Bucket Challenge; Kids' artist hits profiling; White Ferguson betrays itself; Race/class in Silicon Valley; Cooper Union - Cooper vs. $; Klein's latest

Reader Comments - Detroit Denying Its Citizens Water; New Voices for Peace by Jews; Politics and Lies Triggered an Unintended War; UK's Largest Union Backs Boycott; Portside Readers Respond - Whither the Socialist Left; How Social Movements Can Win; Bernie Sanders; On the Waterfront and Working-Class Studies; Scotland; Common Core and Bill Gates; Equal Rights Amendment

The recent French municipal elections...The abstention levels of 39% were a record high for municipal elections. They were particularly high in areas most affected by the crisis; in metropolitan communes; among the young; workers; and voters of the Front de Gauche (Left Front) and of the FN (National Front). In addition, almost 3 million potential voters were not registered to vote.

The elections to the European Parliament (EP) in May 2014 will be marked by the capitalist crisis and its - regionally quite differentiated - political impact. By contrast to 2009 when the elections evidenced a shift to the right, this time they may result in a polarisation between a new bloc of right-wing populist parties and the left wing of the left.

Benn stood by his principles, even when they were damaging to his career and his party’s electoral ambitions. “Charming, persuasive and sometimes deeply frustrating,” is how former British Home Secretary David Blunkett described him to The Independent newspaper. “[But] what you would learn from Tony Benn was to think for yourself.”

With new strategies, the Working Families Party is shaking up the two-party system.Bertha Lewis knows perhaps better than anyone else how hard those fights can be. But she thinks they're worth it. "Sometimes, in years past, you couldn't tell a Democrat from a Republican. No one wanted to talk about race; no one wanted to talk poverty. This conversation that we're having nationally about inequality is because [groups like WFP] kept to our principles and our ideas...' "

New Year's Fireworks: While the statistics prove that the immigrants, their labor, their taxes and their children are actually a boon to the economy, those on the right only increase their ranting about the “continuing misuse of European travel freedom for poverty migration”, helped by all those in the media who stoke fears of “free loaders and criminals”.

IF the fundamental issues that are of concern to the great mass of Americans - the collapse of the middle class, growing wealth and income inequality, growth in poverty, global warming - then (big IF), just maybe Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders will run for President in 2016. Both could challenge Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Taxing the wealthy and not cutting but expanding Social Security, could become their rallying cry.

Tuesday's election showed gains for progressives and labor-backed candidates, and also for socialists. In Seattle, Kshama Sawant received 46.1% of the total vote for City Council. However, the count of the most recently counted votes gives her 49.69%. Even if her opponent holds on, he has announced that he will not run again - against her or anyone else.

Bill de Blasio's win in New York's Democratic primary isn't a local story. It's part of a vast shift that could upend three decades of American political thinking. Americans don't necessarily grow more conservative as they age. Sometimes they do. Economic circumstances that have pushed Millennials left are also unlikely to change dramatically anytime soon. de Blasio's mayoral campaign offers a glimpse into what an Occupy-inspired challenge to Clintonism might look like.