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Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it.

'You're Fired!' The Abuses of 'Skilled' Worker Visa Programs

Sarah Jaffe The Progressive
The H-1B visa program is supposed to have safeguards against abuse, including rules designed to ensure that guest workers are not a significantly cheaper option for companies looking to save a buck. But Costa says 83 percent of the H-1B recipients are paid wages below the average for that occupation, because of flaws in the system.

Afghanistan: How a Pink Flower Defeated the World’s Sole Superpower

Alfred W. McCoy TomDispatch
Each stage in Afghanistan’s tragic 40-year history of intervention-- the 1980s covert war, the 1990s civil war, and the U.S. occupation since 2001 --- helped transform this remote, landlocked nation into the world’s first true narco-state --where illicit drugs dominate the economy, fuel corruption and determine the fate of foreign interventions. Afghanistan can only progress when it is no longer a client narco-state with its rural areas dependent upon the opium crop.

Friday Nite Videos -- February 26, 2016

Portside
Get Up Stand Up | Song Around The World. The Big Lebowski Silences Donald Trump. Gravitational Waves Hit the Late Show. Trump Ad by the Poorly Educated. Boots Riley Performs "Underdogs."

Why Big Tech Companies Are Open-Sourcing Their AI Systems

Patrick Shafto
Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon have been making remarkable progress in artificial intelligence. Recently they have released much of their work to the public for free use, and adaptation. This seems bizarre: why would companies reveal the methods at the core of their businesses? And what does their embrace of open-source AI say about the current state of artificial intelligence?

Exit Polls Show Democrats Embrace “Liberal,” Republicans Embrace Hatred

Bill Scher Campaign for America's Future
In the primaries held so far this year, many more Democrats are identifying as liberal than in the past, powered by dramatic changes in the views of young voters. Is the Republican Party undergoing a similar shift to the right? Yes, but the picture is a little more complicated.

Major American Jewish Leader Changes His Mind About Israel

David Gordis Tikkun
An amazing turn for a major leader of the American Jewish mainstream - David Gordis rethinking view of Israel. He writes: Present day Israel has discarded the rational, the universal and the visionary. These values have been subordinated to a cruel and oppressive occupation, an emphatic materialism, severe inequalities...and distorted by a fanatic, obscurantist and fundamentalist religion which encourages the worst behaviors rather than the best.

The Sanders "Economic Plan" Controversy

Dave Johnson; Chris Sturr Campaign for America's Future
When you dare to do big things, big results should be expected. The Sanders program is big, and when you run it through a standard model, you get a big result. - James K. Galbraith (former Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee - the congressional counterpart to the CEA). Paul Krugman in The New York Times has attacked Sanders' economics. Here a number of prominent economists respond, showing how big a change the proposals actually are. They are HUUUGE.

Betty Friedan Would Vote for Bernie: Gloria Steinem and Other Feminists Need to Hear This

Lucy Komisar Salon
I knew Friedan and I know she believed the system wasn't just about men and women, either. The author recounts her hours long conversation with Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, Labor Day weekend 2005, five months before her death. Betty was thoughtful. Finally, she commented: 'We didn't challenge the system enough.'
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