Portside

'60 Minutes' Benghazi controversy. South Africa flash mob. Evolution of Mars. Somethin' Happenin' Here. Romneycare lesson.

Members of the International Association of Machinists have overwhelmingly rejected a contract proposal that would have eliminated their defined benefit pension plan, increased their health insurance costs, and provided wage increases that would have amounted to a pay cut over the contract's eight-year proposed term.

Review of George Packer's "The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America." This American life is a mess. As responsible as they were for instigating the Great Recession, Wall Street and the securities industry were not the business centers solely at fault for the lead-up to the collapse. An outsized military budget, imperial wars, the decline of unions as counterweights to corporate excesses and the flight of manufacturing overseas played their parts, too.

Reader Comments - More on the AFL-CIO; NFL Bullying; Vets and Peace; Seattle Socialists Win; Obamacare; Babies; Announcements - Organizing Walmart & Fast Food Industry - New York - Nov 19; Fighting Back Against Wall St. - NYC - Nov 25; Mark Rogovin To Be Inducted Into the Illinois Labor History Society's Labor Hall of Honor; 'Spies Of Mississippi' preview - NYC - Dec 15; Audio available -The Hidden History of Workplace Resistance: U.S. Autoworkers Speak Out;