Portside

A relatively small number of fossil fuel producers and their investors could hold the key to tackling climate change

In the summer of 1967, the streets of Newark exploded in violence. Here is a first-hand account of the tragic events that changed the city, and the country forever. Newark’s population is still exceedingly low income. Crime, gang warfare, drugs, joblessness and failing schools are still facts of life in some Newark neighborhoods. But the cultures of many ethnic groups continue to lift the spirit of its many peoples. Increasingly, Newark is a good place to call home.

Truly free countries tolerate peaceful dissent. The 50-year occupation of the Palestinian territories seized during the Six-Day War has gone on for too long and must eventually be brought to an end. For Israeli authorities to demonize — or exclude — those who publicly oppose it is a terrible mistake. - Los Angeles Times Editorial.

Victor Grossman reports from Germany, giving a European left perspective on the recently concluded G20 Summit in Hamburg. Was anything accomplished in polished conference rooms and luxurious hotel suites carefully protected from the wild, fiery street scenes? Was it worth hundreds of injured police officers and arrests and millions in damage? His answer: maybe.

Airline travelers are willing to compromise on personal comfort and convenience in return for lower fares and regularly scheduled flights. But I doubt the flying public would agree to deeply discount their own safety by letting the government hack away at an essential industry standard designed to protect flyers from inexperienced pilots.

China Miéville looks at the Revolution as a hopeful flashpoint that briefly showed the promise of socialist transformation, before descending first into an authoritarian nightmare and then today's corrupt capitalism. Written with an urgency designed for our era of struggle absent clear political ideologies or unified mass socialist organizations, Mieville focuses on the revolutionary moment, using his skill as a story teller to see the participants in real time.

Isolated examples exist of union resistance and victory. Important as these are, they do not yet approach the scale needed to respond to the challenges that labor faces in the coming years. But they show that it is still possible to strike, and it is still possible to win. In each case, building workplace union culture and organization was key. Broadening this model outwards could provide ways of reversing labor’s fortunes.

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"On Tuesday, the U.A.W. said a petition for a union election had been filed by employees at a Nissan plant in Mississippi with more than 6,000 workers. They asked for a vote within a month."

The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) was a well-known Cold War era CIA-sponsored organization whose role was to promote an international anti-communist, pro-US cultural policy. This latest study examines the well-funded and influential intellectual periodicals the CCF bankrolled all over the world.