Portside

The enduring thrust of the Grapes of Wrath is the call to “be there,” to supply the missing response to the “imminent social change.” We see one answer today in the groundswell of support by ordinary people across Europe for welcoming and hosting the migrants, while their governments discuss quotas and border enforcement. But Steinbeck’s novel provokes other responses: a grasp of the meaning of home and homeland — and the trauma of being uprooted from them.

Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the British Labour Party on September 12. He gave his first major speech three days later, September 15, to delegate attending the UK's Trade Union Congress, annual gathering three days later on 15 September. He rejected a style of top down leadership, in favor of one that enables everybody, every union branch, every party branch and every union, so we organically develop their strengths, ideas, and imagination.

With the spotlight directly on the shortcomings of his government, Stephen Harper tries to capitalize on normal fears about the future and turn them into fear of voting NDP. This means identifying Muslims as a threat to Canada and talking about "old stock" Canadians, to create divisions within the electorate that Conservatives can exploit.

The challenge for the Left, at this point, is to provide a space for those who have been newly politicized by the Sanders campaign to continue their work for the progressive positions he advances, rather than accepting the role of being mobilized (as “sheep”) only to support a supposedly lesser-evil DP candidate.

Postwar U.S. authorities helped rehabilitate erstwhile collaborators with the Japanese occupation in the name of fighting communism. Generations later, it’s led to the grandson of a despised Philippine collaborator endorsing the re-militarization of his country’s former occupiers — by the grandson of a war criminal, no less.

No girls allowed; Everyday Islamophobia; Pope protests; The Adelson primary; Refugee hell; Judaism without Zionism

Despite being disinvited to speak, Hagler said, “in the spirit of defiance, I am going to Rochester anyway.” Because he was disinvited by the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, he had to seek a new venue at which to speak. Rev. Hagler will now instead be speaking at the Historic German House, on the same date.

Walker returns home badly damaged by his ill-starred foray onto the national stage. Wisconsin’s once-dominant chief executive looks decidedly fallible, and even his allies doubt that he will run for a third term in 2018.

As the long and painful presidential election season unfolds, it is useful to analyze the three competing ideologies that dominate current debate. Each has its adherents. Each represents interests. Each explains how the world works in a different way. And each has a different vision of a better future.

Obama's trade policy is in tatters. The grand design, created by Obama's old friend and former Wall Street deal-maker, trade chief Mike Froman, comes in two parts -- a grand bargain with Pacific nations aimed at building a U.S.-led trading bloc to contain the influence of China, and an Atlantic agreement to cement economic relations with the European Union. Both are on the verge of collapse from their own contradictory goals and incoherent logic.