Portside

Each case, in its own way, has demonstrated both the potential of electoral engagement and the limits of democratic control. The left is finally developing the strategic skills to gain office; it has yet to work out how to exercise power in the interests of those who put it there.

In the best cases, unions are taking the urgency of the threats as a motivator--not just to sign up new members, but more importantly, to make members feel the union is theirs, by training more rank-and-file leaders and helping them take on workplace fights.

This paper was presented at "Color Revolution and Cultural Hegemony," the 6th World Socialism Forum in Beijing, China, October 16-7, 2015. "The best defense is an offence. We need to struggle against dictatorship ourselves -- the dictatorship of capital. To really fight against the color revolutions, we need a color revolution -- a color revolution of a different color. A red revolution. Remember that red is the primary color of the rainbow."

Bathtub manufacturer's new contract retains two tiers, but workers and union say fight achieved vital goal of reducing pay gap.

"Half of American voters say they'd be embarrassed to have Donald Trump as their Commander in Chief and most Americans think he doesn't have a good chance in November, but there he is still at the top of the Republican heap," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "Hillary Clinton tops him. Sen. Bernie Sanders hammers him and Sen. Ted Cruz is snapping at his heels.

New Zealand poet John Sweden describes life as "seamless," meaning that the human-made divisions of nationality, ethnicity, even bodily labels and ego, are part of seamless flow that transcends one's life. .

A nasty and incurable fungus has spread through the banana-producing countries around the world, and it could be making its way straight toward banana heartland: Latin America, which produces 80 percent of the world's exports, threatening to drive the most popular variety of banana to extinction. So scientists are focusing on building a better banana to withstand the fungal assault.

After World War II, the Red Scare built the careers of redbaiters like Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon while undermining the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and stifling prospects for progressive politics in America, a tale touched on by the movie, “Trumbo.”

There’s no getting around the fact that climate change is a bummer. The planet is warming, ice is melting, oceans are acidifying and, well, you get the point. While the bad news is important — it lets us know what we’re getting into with this whole climate change thing — it’s also worth remembering there’s reason for hope.