Portside

The way major U.S. companies provide for retiring workers has been shifting for about three decades, with more dropping traditional pensions every year. The first full generation of workers to retire since this turn offers a sobering preview of a labor force more and more dependent on their own savings for retirement.

Erica was a rare person whose honesty far outweighed her self-interest. In a life full of tragedy, she died too soon.

The democratically-elected president and parliament (let alone the media and ordinary citizens) have no prayer of checking the powers of the Supreme Leader. As a result, the system has remained opaque, blind to its own flaws, resistant to growth and incapable of adaptation to its evolving internal and external environments. These uprisings express the frustration of the people with that obdurate rigidity.

Christian Picciolini on his new book, "White American Youth: My Descent into America’s Most Violent Hate Movement—and How I Got Out."

The dominant role played by U.S. corporations in the international arms trade owes a great deal to the efforts of U.S. government officials. “Significant parts of the government,” notes military analyst William Hartung, “are intent on ensuring that American arms will flood the global market and companies like Lockheed and Boeing will live the good life.

Year-end lists; Bluegrass at the end of the world; Bass action

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force." The German Ideology, Karl Marx

The Affordable Care Act may create serious problems for workers covered by negotiated health insurance plans.

Sing Out! Magazine's obituary for Toshi Seeger - progressive organizer, mother, filmmaker, gardener and wife of Pete Seeger, and veteran peace and environmental activist; 2012 interview with Toshi-Aline Ohta Seeger; appreciation from the Hudson River Clearwater - a living testament to both Toshi and Pete Seeger.

Ginsburg attacks the ahistorical character of the majority decision. Quoting Shakespeare, she notes that the majority "ignores that `what's past is prologue'". What a profound observation, `the past is prologue'. It neatly, and with a literary flourish, sums up the deep defect with the Court's decision, its deliberate ignoring of both the contemporary ramifications of historical racism in this country as well as its current vitality.