Portside

Portside previously ran Mark Solomon's piece, Whither the Socialist Left - 2. Portside previously posted some of the comments received in Tidbits. Here are two, longer and more in depth responses by Duncan McFarland and Ethan Young. Portside welcomes additional reader responses, and will help further facilitate this discussion.

Reader Comments - Defending Immigrants; Protecting Detroit's Water; Israeli and Palestinian Families Comfort Each Other; Hobby Lobby; Peoples Climate March; Overtime Pay; Global Action on Antibiotics; Homeopathy was quackery - readers respond; Full Employment and Shared Prosperity; Mapping Militarism; Limits of Corporate Citizenship; Abe Cohen - R.I.P. Seeger Family's Memorial Concert Series for Pete and Toshi - July 17 - 21 - New York City and surrounding area

Rallies, marches and picket lines were held at schools, council offices and town and city centres across Great Britain and Northern Ireland as public workers protested decline living standards, working conditions and a threat to their right to strike.

While teachers led their classrooms, a judge in a Los Angeles courtroom said that for students to win, teachers have to lose. If we want every child to have a chance to thrive, we must retain and support a stable teaching force-especially in high-poverty schools. By attacking the rules that protect and support teachers, the "Vergara "decision destabilizes public education.

On CTV's Question Period yesterday, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, said, "We fully expected the Harper government to make every effort to ram this project through. But…there's enormous solidarity here in British Columbia between First Nations people, British Columbians, Canadians, and we'll do what's necessary and whatever it takes to stop this project."

Two middle-aged men, former residents of Favelo do Metro, sat around a plastic table between the sidewalk and a demolished home. We asked them why the city would hastily evict this community, only to leave wreckage behind: “They didn’t give us a reason why we had to leave. They just came, pushed us out, and knocked the buildings down. Brazil spends and spends on ‘the future.’ Meanwhile, there’s nothing for the people of today.”

What were the class forces behind the overthrow of the Yanukovich regime, the installing of a new regime in Kiev, and the rise of the anti-Maidan and of the movement in the south-east?

The fall of several Iraqi cities in the hands of armed groups does not represent the dreams of the people who live there. Their demands to be rid of sectarianism are clear and direct. They expressed them through nonviolent sit-ins, but armed terrorist groups took advantage of this environment to take power. In the meantime, ISIS' control of cities and people poses a serious threat to everyday life and to society.