Portside

White nash fash in Houston; World Social Forum in Montreal; Indian eco power in Cannon Ball; Armed sisters in Rojava; New debtors’ prison

Last week, the first tranche of those declassified documents was released. The documents revealed that White House and U.S. State Department officials were intimately aware of the Argentine military’s bloody nature, and that some were horrified by what they knew. Others, most notably Henry Kissinger, were not.

Bringing together weak unions and weak social movements isn’t enough. We need a new kind of socialist party.

Although wall construction began during Bill Clinton’s administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) built most of the approximately 700 miles of fencing after the Secure Fence Act of 2006 was passed. The 2006 wall-building project was expected to be so environmentally destructive that homeland security chief Michael Chertoff waived 37 environmental and cultural laws in the name of national security.

The new joint-employer standard provides a much more favorable legal framework for workers to form unions at temped-out warehouses, manufacturing and food processing plants, recycling facilities, hotels, and franchised janitorial services and fast food outlets.

The upsurge in interest in the ideas of Socialism also means a reassessment of its traditions. Jack Ross offers a new, ambitious attempt to come to terms with the history of the Socialist Party in the United States, an organization, and movement, whose story is one of this country's modern legends. In this review, Harold Meyerson, who, as he points out, was a part of this history, takes a look.

The National Labor Relations Board's decision on Columbia University graduate students seeking to unionize only applies to private colleges. Organizing rights for graduate students at public colleges depend on each state's labor laws. Graduate students have formed unions in more than a dozen states.

Data released by the Department of Defense on August 1st shows the military administered its 3-hour enlistment exam to nearly 700,000 students in 12,000 high schools during the 2013-14 school year, a 2% increase over the prior year.

Government spying is a problem for everyone. But people of color, religious minorities, and political dissidents are far more likely to be victims of unwarranted monitoring.

Private creditors have replaced the public sector as lead borrower to developing countries, which has contributed to a new borrowing and lending boom.