Portside

Playing for Change: I'd Rather Go Blind. Defending the Right to Protest. UNMANNED: America's Drone Wars. Organisms Do Evolve.

As America’s labor unions have lost members and clout, new types of worker advocacy groups have sprouted nationwide, and they have started to get on businesses’ nerves — protesting low wages at Capital Grille restaurants and demonstrating outside Austin City Hall in Texas against giving Apple tax breaks. Now, business groups and powerful lobbyists, heavily backed by the restaurant industry, are mounting an aggressive campaign against them.

For now, Bill de Blasio is a populist hero of our times, at least for now. Is a revived Populism blowing in that wind? Maybe so. Signs of a change in the weather have been sprouting here and there. There was the occupation of the State House in Madison. And then there was the occupation of Wall Street. Mini uprisings of the most abused and intimidated workers at fast food outlets, car washes, even at Wal-mart register not so much desperation as bravery, a will to resist

The wrangling between the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) had two main goals. In its election campaign the SPD had tried to sound leftish so as to keep or win back the votes of union members and at least some progressive voters. But now, to become part of a "grand coalition" government, it had to tone down such escapades and sooth the fears of big biz bosses.

Reader Comments - Kshama Sawant's election; The Vietnam Antiwar Movement; AFL-CIO's new road; Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA; Religious Freedom, or Reproductive Freedom; Israel Boycott Movement Controversy; Chris Christie; Bill de Blasio; Announcements - Chicago (Jan. 18); New York (Jan. 21, 24 and 30); Bay Area (Jan. 22) Today in History

Prohibition on Palestinian appeals to military court decisions confiscating their property embodies the essence of occupation. Returning the legal situation to the narrow province of military law harms the rights of the Palestinian residents, and the removal of judicial oversight for the proceedings against them allows these rights to be harmed arbitrarily, in violation of international law and the basic rules of justice.

Retail giant faces trial over its campaign to snuff out worker strikes. The NLRB complaint, similar to an indictment, lists incidents involving more than 60 workers in 34 states, as well as a Wal-Mart official's warning on national television to workers not to participate in Black Friday actions.