Portside

In an executive order issued by Barack Obama, the White House said the situation in Venezuela posed an “extraordinary threat” to US national security. Maduro, the Venezuelan president, reacted with anger in a televised address on Tuesday night, calling on his country’s Congress to grant him additional decree powers to “fight imperialism”.

US President Obama supports Chancellor Merkel's efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. But hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin's approach. And NATO's top commander in Europe hasn't been helping either.

What value would be added by viewing the war from outside the nation? How does it change our understanding of the war to situate it within a larger international context? One simple answer is that the war mattered greatly to the world. In newspapers and magazines, in meeting halls, churches, taverns, lecture halls, workers unions, and at posh dinner parties, foreigners followed the war with great interest and they debated what it meant for their future.

In the November, 2014, special issue of Socialism and Democracy, "The Roots of Mass Incarceration in the US: Locking Up Black Dissidents and Punishing the Poor," provides a penetrating analysis of a range of the issues involved and points toward the steps that are needed to turn around these horrors. This publication couldn't be more timely and relevant, as the mighty river of the Black Lives Matter movement flows across and brings new life into the country.

The left’s big net neutrality win; NN’s mobile revolution; Your snitching gadgets; Community broadband giveth; PBS taketh away

Democrats assert that Gov. Scott Walker’s real motivation for signing the right-to-work legislation is more about politics than job creation: breaking a dwindling union movement in Wisconsin and boosting his standing as the conservative choice for the Republican presidential nomination next year.

The great trial of Job is reborn in Andrey Zvyagintsev’s magnificent Russian film, Leviathan. Compellingly told and stunningly shot, the film is also not subtle. The bad guys—the trinity of the government, the court, and the church—are pure evil. They are Leviathan itself, the Biblical monster that cannot be caught or tamed or killed. The film contended at Cannes, won a Golden Globe, was nominated for an Oscar, but last month was snubbed at the Russian film awards.

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.”