Portside

Our aim is to build an independent base of political power that can put forward our progressive, populist values and mean it. America actually needs a political movement that can say that increasing union density is a good thing, without blushing. One that knows that declining wages and eroding retirement security are not a “new normal” we must adjust to; that market solutions are not always wise; and that an increasingly financialized economy only benefits the top.

The Dean 2004 vet explains why she's running for NY governor -- and how the left can take over the Democratic Party. Teachout's run is as much a challenge to the fatalistic, anti-electoral politics left as to Cuomo. The Fordham Law professor says progressives shouldn't merely complain about the corporate takeover of the Democratic Party; they should fight for its soul.

Reader Comments - Iraq; Ruby Dee; Cecily McMillan and Wall Street; Ukraine; Detroit Shuts Off Water to Thousands; Working Families Party; Civil Rights Movement; Children's Literature and Diversity; Common Core; Testing; Support Philly Jewish school teachers; Gabriel Kolko; Hatriot Politics and Las Vegas Killers; Argentina and US Banks; The Presbyterian Church and Divestment; Net Neutrality; Historic Slave Cemetery Bulldozed In Houston; Freedom Summer 2014

The Working Families Party recently concluded their New York State convention. Zephyr Teachout, prominent Fordham law professor announced her challenge to Gov. Coumo three days before, and she received 42% of the weighted vote. Gov. Coumo tried to bully the endorsement - it didn't work. Before writing off the WFP's Cuomo endorsement as yet another capitulation, consider the concessions wrung out of him. Will he keep the promises, what happened, what next...read on.

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...' "