Portside

On both sides of the Atlantic, citizens are seizing upon trade agreements as a source of their woes. While this is an over-simplification, it is understandable. Today's trade agreements are negotiated in secret, with corporate interests well represented, but ordinary citizens or workers completely shut out. Not surprisingly, the results have been one-sided: workers' bargaining position has been weakened further, compounding the effects of legislation undermining unions.

Reader Comments: Bernie, Endorse?, What Next?; Dominican Republic; Indigenous Peoples in US; Hawaii; Tair Kaminer - Israeli Political Prisoner - Inspiring People Worldwide; Elie Wiesel - Responses to Max Blumenthal; Austrian Election Update; On Socialism; on the IWW; Angry response to post about Viet Thanh Nguyen; Resources: The Invention of the White Race; Mining and Resistance in Dinétah; Announcement: From Sanders to the Grassroots: National Student Conference

The Encyclopedia Britannica has gone through many editions, but the 1910-1911 scholars edition is nonpareil. Dennis Boyles' book says why, and enumerates what is lost when readers gain accessibility and cost-savings from easy access to Wikipedia and other venues but lose in depth and authority.

South Korea's unions, once one of the best organized segments of the global labor movement, have suffered setbacks since the late 1990s, when the government made it easier for employers to lay off workers and hire casuals. Fewer than one in 10 workers is now unionized, the country’s lowest level ever. South Korea’s government and business leaders want to put Han away because he represents a pivotal segment of what is left of labor militancy.

"Our action was in the tradition of resistance that is Pride. We didn’t halt progress; we made progress."

“The Sympathizer,” which is narrated by the unnamed spy, begins with the Communist takeover of South Vietnam in 1975 and then continues in Southern California among a group of die-hard exiles whose motto is “Always resent, never relent.”

Mother Jones Senior Reporter Shane Bauer has previously reported on solitary confinement, police militarization, and the Middle East. Here he writes about his four months as a private prison guard.

This memoir by physics and geology professor Anatole Dolgoff of his father, IWW activist Sam Dolgoff (1902-1990), beautifully captures the aura of the anarchist and related movements in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century, says reviewer Peter Cole.

 Sanders is extracting meaningful and necessary concessions from the party establishment.

By popularizing an understanding of the Holocaust as a unique event that existed outside of history, Wiesel helped cast Jews as history's ultimate victims. In turn, he fueled support for the walled-in Spartan state that was supposed to represent their deliverance. In the face on increasingly unspeakable crimes against Palestinians, Wiesel counseled silence: "I must identify with whatever Israel does -- even with her errors."