Portside

Raoul Peck’s The Young Karl Marx is the best buddy movie since George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969. It’s also among the most important films in decades, bringing to a mass audience not just the revolutionary ideas of Marx and his friend and collaborator Frederick Engels in the early days of modern capitalism, but an approach to politics and history that still has no peer.

Employers use lockouts to weaken unions. Lockouts sabotage the functioning of the union-management relationship, and they undermine standard and secure jobs in favour of more precariousness. Lockouts are also sometimes used to shift production from one plant or country to another, as well as to close unionized plants.

Fearing the federal government’s new recommendations against added sugars will embolden cities to adopt soda taxes, Big Soda is using tobacco industry tactics to stop cities like Seattle from regulating their products. Seattle was one of six cities awarded a grant from the American Beverage Association (ABA) and the U.S. Conference of Mayors to fight childhood obesity, which is like getting a grant from the tobacco industry to fight cancer.

Revolutionary changes are taking place in the global labor process. Observers predict that within the next decade, one in every three labor transactions will be done online, carried out by “taskers” with no job security, low and fluctuating incomes, perpetual uncertainty, and no control over time. British social scientist Guy Standing describes the role of these taskers, who are expanding the ranks of the “precariat” in the so-called “sharing” economy.

The number of homes under construction in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank rose last year by 40 percent, the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said Monday. Peace Now said the construction of 3,100 “residential units” began last year in illegal West Bank settlements, while 4,485 tenders for construction there and in annexed East Jerusalem settlement districts were launched in 2014 — “a record high for at least a decade.”

The extent and complexity of China’s myriad transformations barely filter into the American media. Stories in the U.S. tend to emphasize the country’s “shrinking” economy, or its role as a military “threat” to Washington and the world. The U.S. media has a China fever, which results in typically feverish reports that don’t take the pulse of the country or its leaders. In the process, so much is missed, including the vast scope of China’s plans for the future.

As part of a clear national strategy, an array of anti-choice legislation is being rolled out in state houses around the country, putting women's health at risk. Already, 57 percent of American women of reproductive age live in states that are considered 'hostile' or 'extremely hostile' to abortion rights. That percentage could go up if recent proposals are enacted into law, and U.S. women’s constitutional rights may well differ depending on where they live.

Jon Stewart challenges Fox to a lie-off. Beethoven and the epigenome. The evolution of religion. Men in skirts protest violence against women in Turkey. 'Chuy' Garcia for mayor of Chicago.