Archives

For posts before June 2012, please follow these links to our archives.

E.g., 2013-06-19

Sightseeing in the Apartheid State: From Ben Gurion to the West Bank

June 13, 2013
Portside
Portside
Eyewitness to the still-unfolding history of ethnic cleansing and Occupation. Report from East Jerusalem and the West Bank. this land, together with Gaza, is referred to by the United Nations and other international bodies as the Occupied Palestinian Territories, or oPt - Palestinian land under Israeli Occupation. We met with students and faculty members from five different Palestinian universities, toured towns and refugee camps in the West Bank.

Women Fighting For Their Homes Face Jail, While Bankers Go Free

June 13, 2013
Portside
http://blog.ourfuture.org/20130612/women-fighting-for-their-homes-face-jail-while-bankers-go-free
Campaign for America's Future
Five years after Wall Street crashed the economy, not one banker has been prosecuted for the reckless and fraudulent practices that cost millions of Americans their jobs, threw our cities and schools into crisis, and left families and communities ravaged by a foreclosure crisis and epidemic of underwater mortgages.

Tidbits - June 13, 2013

June 13, 2013
Portside
Portside
Reader Comments - Dirty Wars and Jeremy Scahill,; Alice Walker's open letter to Alicia Keys; Syrian proxy war; False economic recovery; NSA spying; It's the Corporations; We Steal Secrets; Baseball and drugs; Spain and the International Brigades - today; Berlin demonstrations against Obama visit; Announcement - Milton Rogovin DVD now available on sale

For Radical Freedom - Angela Davis' New Book

June 13, 2013
Portside
http://www.frontline.in/books/for-radical-freedom/article4698482.ece
Frontline (India)
Angela Davis' lectures take the reader towards a serious reconsideration of ideology and the state apparatus and the deplorable question of oppression on the basis of race, gender, class and sexual orientation. The wholesale criminalisation of young black men cannot be permitted and the concept of rehabilitation has to find some ground. The Meaning of Freedom articulates a bold vision of the society we need to build and the path to get there.

Fletcher Calls for Urgency and New Approaches to Organizing in Book Talk

June 13, 2013
Portside
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Other-News/Fletcher-Calls-for-Urgency-and-New-Approaches-to-Organizing-in-Book-Talk
AFL-CIO Blog
Many in the labor movement recognize some of the problems that working people face, however there isn't enough urgency and there isn't a recognition that fundamental change is necessary. The opposition sees this as a tremendous moment to eliminate unions as a viable force for working people.

Do private-sector unions still have a future in the U.S.?

June 13, 2013
Portside Labor
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/13/do-private-sector-unions-still-have-a-future-in-the-u-s/
Washington Post
Brad Plumer's blog post summarizes a long and interesting essay in the latest issue of "Democracy" that analyzes the decline, and long-term outlook, of private-sector unions in the United States. He highlights 3 factors: Taft-Hartley was the beginning of the end for unions in the private sector; labor’s recent attempts to launch new organizing drives aren’t working; and organized labor tends to expand only at rare points in history.

How Taxpayers Subsidize Union Avoidance by Wal-Mart and Nissan

June 12, 2013
Portside Labor
http://dirtdiggersdigest.org/archives/3864
Dirt Diggers Digest
The study, which updates a 2004 report by the committee, reviews the hidden taxpayer costs stemming from the fact that many Wal-Mart workers have no choice but to use social safety net programs -- such as Medicaid, Section 8 Housing, food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit -- that were designed for individuals not in the labor force or those working for small companies that failed to provide decent compensation, not a leviathan with $17 billion in annual profits.

Can Unions Prevent Austerity from Killing Off the Middle Class?

June 12, 2013
Portside
www.thenewcrossroads.com/2013/06/09/can-unions-prevent-austerity-from-killing-off-the-middle-class/
The New Crossroads
If the September convention lives up to the spirit of today’s internal debate and AFL-CIO pursues policies recommended by the white paper, it stands to be the most significant convention since the 1995, when John J. Sweeny and his backers ousted the old guard Cold War warriors.

86 Civil Liberties Groups and Internet Companies Demand an End to NSA Spying

June 12, 2013
Portside
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/86-civil-liberties-groups-and-internet-companies-demand-end-nsa-spying
Electronic Frontier Foundation
"This type of blanket data collection by the government strikes at bedrock American values of freedom and privacy. This dragnet surveillance violates the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens’ right to speak and associate anonymously and guard against unreasonable searches and seizures..."

Wal-Mart's Low Wages Cost Taxpayers

June 12, 2013
Portside
http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/04/news/companies/walmart-medicaid/
CNN Money
The cost of low wages at Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) are at the center of a new report released last week by the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Low wages are an issue across the economy, but Wal-Mart, as the country's largest private employer, has long faced closer scrutiny than other companies.

Revenue Blues: The Case for Higher Taxes

June 12, 2013
Portside
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/revenue-blues-the-case-for-higher-taxes
Dissent: A Quarterly of Politics and Culture
There is no conceivable benchmark—in our past, or in comparison to our international peers—by which one could sustain the argument that we are taxed too much, or “taxed enough already.”

Spanish Unions to Protest Against Austerity Measures

June 11, 2013
Portside
http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&idioma=2&id=1501921&Itemid=1
Prensa Latina
The objective of the protests is to push institutions in the European Union to change radically their policies of social and labor cuts and to fulfil the commitments of promoting economy and employment.

Brussels Failed to Act Against US Surveillance of EU Citizens

June 11, 2013
Portside
http://www.dw.de/brussels-failed-to-act-against-us-surveillance-of-eu-citizens/a-16872631
Deutsche Welle (Germany)
There has been widespread outrage in Europe over the scope of the National Security Agency's PRISM surveillance program. European experts, however, are not surprised by American whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations.

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