Portside

Reader Comments - Flashmob for Mandela; The Progressive 'Left"; War and Christmas Truce of 1914; Socialist Origins of the Pledge; Radicals in City Hall; Fidel Castro on Mandela's Death and Who Supported Apartheid; Korea; MSNBC; Announcements - "No Separate Justice" Launch in New York City Jan. 7; Esperanza Spalding Protest Song & Video Calling For Guantanamo Bay

Large new cooperative opens in Havana. The official view is that cooperatives are a more social form of production that private businesses and therefore will receive preferential treatment with respect to taxes and other fees. The government also is making credits available to cooperatives, credits denied private business owners.

Every year Dispatches From The edge gives awards to news stories and newsmakers that fall under the category of “Are you serious?” Here are the awards for 2013.

Liberals are on the ascendance on faith-based issues, and as a long-time advocate of these views, I think it's great.

Pioneering Porn Publisher Al Goldstein Passes Away; Spy Agencies Bring Real Espionage to Virtual Worlds; Duck Dynasty Embraces Jim Crow; Pope Francis Embraces Just Catholic Economics; Islamophobia Pretends to be Feminism

Raising the floor for our lowest-paid workers is an absolute necessity, and continued victories in this area should be a priority for workers everywhere. However, these victories are not enough by themselves. For community-labor coalitions to reach their full potential, they must go beyond the political agenda that Richard Trumka outlined prior to the AFL-CIO’s convention. They must also be able to defend the gains that unionized workers have already won.