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Indonesia: Global tTade Unions and NGOs back PepsiCo-linked Palm Oil Workers

Nithin Coca Equal Times
The Indonesian union OPPUK (Organisasi Penguatan dan Pengembangan Usaha-Usaha Kerakyatan) representing palm oil workers indirectly employed by PepsiCo and the Teamsters in the United States representing about 200,000 PepsiCo workers in North America reaffirmed their solidarity in a shared fight for global labor and human rights.

With Kafka, The Ending is at the Beginning

John Banville The New York Review of Books
Kafka's life was itself Kafkaesque, and if you want to know its span and its ending better- the book's author contends and the reviewer agrees - readers need to start at the beginning. The book under review is the third of a three-volume biography that critics widely call definitive.

Klan 2.0

Scott McLemee Inside Higher Ed
This new book reminds us of the scope and power of the second incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan, beginning a century ago. As reviewer Scott McLemee points out, however, to only point out the Klan's racist heritage can be deceptively simplistic. McLemee reminds us that what made the Klan a mass force in the 1920s was that the movement's reactionary politics and racist passions "were widespread enough to count as mainstream.'

The Long Arc of Protest

David Karpf The American Prospect
Successful social movements rarely travel along a linear route toward victory, or a fast one. Even with new digital media, organizing for change requires all the old virtues.

From the Supreme Court to a Constitutional Convention, Labor is on the Defensive

BY BOB HENNELLY City & State
“Millennials view unions favorably and are worried about their economic security and are appalled by the monstrous economic inequality that threatens to reduce the future of the American dream to rubble." said Henry Garrido, executive director of District Council 37, which represents roughly a third of New York City’s municipal workforce If we don’t focus on engaging the next generation of American workers, then ours may be the last generation of unionized workers.”

Fascism, American Style

Paul Krugman The New York Times
Let’s call things by their proper names here. Arpaio is, of course, a white supremacist. But he’s more than that. There’s a word for political regimes that round up members of minority groups and send them to concentration camps, while rejecting the rule of law: What Arpaio brought to Maricopa, and what the president of the United States has just endorsed, was fascism, American style.