Portside

A Lebanese poet from Dubai, Zeina Hashem Beck offers two poems, Thirty-Two and in a Different Country and The Invented Mothers, both touching the deep trauma of warfare on civilians.

The Euro Summit statement (or Terms of Greece's Surrender - as it will go down in history) follows, annotated by yours truly. The original text is untouched with my notes confined to square brackets (and in red). Read and weep.

Bernie Sanders is campaigning on behalf of the 99 percent against the 1 percent. And, he is getting lots of supports, drawing thousands to his campaign rallies. Sanders is not running an explicit socialist campaign for public or worker ownership of major firms. Sanders's socialist values underpin his argument that the economy should serve the needs of the people and be governed not by corporate oligarchs, but by democratic means.

Hillary Clinton's record in office suggests that she is more liberal than either her husband or Barack Obama, and in a Monday speech outlining her economic vision she set out to confirm that. However, still lacking is much policy detail as to how this difference might look in practice. A future Clinton administration might help change the norms of corporate governance to foster the kind of labor relations that everyday workers have not experienced in decades.

As a political symbol and an athletic powerhouse, Serena Williams is 'the greatest' in her sport. After her Wimbledon victory, Serena Williams was asked which athlete she admired the most. She said that it was Muhammad Ali. Not for his boxing but for 'what he stood for' outside the ring. For years people have asked who would be "the next Muhammad Ali." If we dare to lift our heads, it will be clear that she is right in front of us.

Reader Comments: Response to Occupy; Greece and Debt Forgiveness; Why Bernie Sanders; Confederate Flags, Symbols, and Racism; U.S. Torture Program; Death Penalty; and more... Announcements: Benefit Concert for Civil Rights; Rally for Eric Garner; NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and The Voting Rights Act at 50; Rosenberg Case Bombshell - Key Witness Lied; Robert Meeropol statement

The book under review examines the rise of American capitalism, the visionary attempts by workers to resist and the housebreaking of a long-running anti-capitalist ethos from imaginative, frenzied opposition to diffuse, angry, but ultimate accommodation. While a residual 19th century fight-back culture built the CIO and defended the New Deal into the 1960s, it lacked the same emancipatory charge it had earlier, and unions shifted to cautious monitors of the working class

A special convention of Cosatu -- the Congress of South African Trade Unions -- concluded a special convention rejecting an appeal by the expelled metal workers union to rejoin the federation. The future of former Cosatu President Zwelinzima Vavi was also debated. Although the Federation's unity was preserved and its political orientation was, deep divisions remain.

“There was never really any solid evidence that she had been involved in any part of espionage,” said Ilene Philipson, author of Ethel Rosenberg: Beyond the Myths. “It just confirms this idea that the government was using her, imprisoning her to get at Julius Rosenberg to try and persuade him to confess.”

“The idea is pretty simple behind this one,” Senator Elizabeth Warren said a few days ago, explaining her bill to resurrect Glass-Steagall. “If banks want to engage in high-risk trading — they can go for it, but they can’t get access to ensured deposits and put the taxpayers on the hook for that reason.”