Portside

The hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who found themselves under Israeli military control in 1967 quickly became a source of blue-collar labour for the Israeli economy, performing jobs that few Israelis were willing to do, for far less money and far fewer legal protections.

When the heirs and heiresses of billionaire fortunes can take over an entire political party and force them to pass public policies that the vast majority of even their own voters don't want, there is a problem with democracy. A conversation with Michael Kink, executive director of the Strong Economy for All Coalition.

Despite the court rulings in our favor, Muslim travelers remain confused and intimidated. Rules for travel are changing all the time, and many travelers are still being stopped at the border due to racial profiling or arbitrary bureaucratic snafus. Banning researchers and grandmas makes us no safer. Instead it damages our families, communities, and academic institutions. The Supreme Court must strike down this reprehensible ban once and for all.

Retail work does not have to pay poverty wages. New study compares work in Europe and the U.S. For all the power of market forces, from automation taking over routine tasks to globalization squeezing retailers’ margins, there is nothing inevitable about low-quality retail jobs. Social norms and political institutions can make them better, or worse.

All people around the world and across time crave similar things. They want the chance to raise their families within a peaceful and fair environment. Also, one that affords a decent quality of life without fear of one’s fellow man. This was the main take away from our voyage into another world: Middle Eastern, Muslim, working class, rural and “occupied.” (If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?" ~ Hillel)

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Greece's former finance minister under the radical Syriza government offers a revealing tell-all about modern capitalism through his battles over Greece’s debt with the “Troika”: the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB), and eventually with his own prime minister.

The House and Senate passed a “CROmnibus” spending bill packed with giveaways to Wall Street, big banks and big corporations and then quit town. Congress failed to take what the unions representing postal workers identify as the most necessary immediate step to aid the postal service: initiation of “a one-year moratorium on a reduction in service standards and plant closings.”

Lords take a stand; Michael’s protest single is back; D’Angelo carries it on; Wall Street’s generosity; GOP Cuba snit; Woody sez

Established in 1930 after a schism within the Jewish socialist Workmen's Circle, the IWO's founding members came from the ranks of prominent leaders of the American communist movement. Supporting the left wing of the New Deal, IWO leaders hoped that once workers came to see state-supported healthcare, unemployment insurance, and minimum wage as a right, they would work to put the Communist Party at the helm of a worker-led American revolution.