Portside

It's true. The "Communist Manifesto" co-author has gotten a second life — and he has some advice for progressives

Last year Portside published Whither the Socialist Left? Thinking the "Unthinkable", which created a lot of controversy, discussion and debate. Now, the author has written an update "Whither the Socialist Left? Round 2." Today he finds the broad progressive community remains largely fragmented, lacking a coherent overarching vision that would not only react to recurring crises, but offer ideas and values to guide and illuminate the road to more transforming change.

Samir Amin writes "the movement toward socialism" is a new stage in the decades old struggle of humankind for a more just and equitable society, since the time that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels first wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848. Introduction by the editors of Monthly Review on attempt to bring together a variety of global struggles under the rubric of the "movement toward socialism,"

Reader Comments - Politics and Post-Capitalism; Gabriel Kolko; Shondes - Blacklisted by the `Jewish Community; Yuri Kochiyama; Guantanamo: Bowe Bergdahl; Jewish Day School vs. Teachers Union; Blood Type; Europe post Elections; Supreme Court Ruling on Teacher Tenure; US Foreign Policy. Announcements - Dialogue with Leaders of Mexican Labor Movement - June 26 - New York: 45th contingent Venceremos Brigade; Peoples Climate March - New York - Sept. 20-21

A hundred years after publication, the central message of this British classic still rings true . . . These fictional but very representative working people are under the thumb of papers such as the Daily Obscurer and the Weekly Chloroform; attend the Church of the Whited Sepulchre; work for bosses named Sweater, Makehaste, and Slogg; elect a town council comprising "The Forty Thieves"; and have daughters who work as maids for the likes of Mrs. Starvum and Lady Slumrent.

Piketty's central theme is not that inequality of the ownership of wealth is going to skyrocket. The central theme is that the 1% already owns a lot of the capital stock, and the capital stock is going to get gigantic relative to the rest of the economy. Whatever the weakness this meg-tome and mega-best seller, there is no denying - the rich are getting richer, the poor, poorer. (And Piketty is not a Marxist.)

Carl Bloice, Portside moderator, journalist, editor, political theorist, activist and teacher, died April 12 in San Francisco, after a long battle with cancer. He was 75. He was one of the founding moderators of Portside, responsible for the Saturday posts, including writing REWIND, composed of the Quote of the Day and Toon of the Day, which he assembled. Carl leaves behind a world enriched by his contributions, with friends throughout the world.

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.

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.