Portside

Many have praised the recent AFL-CIO convention for the delegates' efforts to fundamentally change organized labor's direction and strategy. The hope is that a reinvigorated labor movement will reverse the decline in union power and forge a broad coalition that can effectively fight the rising tide of wealth and income inequality and the growing impoverishment of the working-class. The following article from the AFL-CIO's online blog highlights ten new initiatives.

Reader Comments - German Election; Average American Family Pays $6,000 a Year in Subsidies to Big Business; Monsanto and GMO Labeling; Pope Francis; Announcements - Political Economy of the Environment -- URPE Conference in Brooklyn - Oct. 5; A Message from Cynthia Nixon - Curriculum of Change Celebration - New York - Oct. 17; New Populisms and the European Right and far Right Parties (new resource)

Saturday's Draw the Line held over 200 demonstrations across the United States - it was a day of action marked by song - a phenomenon that is starting to become a major feature of the climate movement.

Potential diplomatic breakthroughs in Syria and Iran are apparently unnerving Israel's right-wing leadership.

The Dumbest Retirement Policy in the World - A failed public policy experiment is tearing the country apart. It was a bad idea from the get-go, but new research shows that America's 401(k) revolution has left us even worse off than we thought. Here's a look at how we got into this mess, and where it will take us if we don't wise up.

Ripped from the headlines! America is exceptional! So the president said at the U.N. two days ago and two weeks ago in his address to the nation on the Syrian crisis. Tho show how exceptional we are is a list of eight exceptional(ly dumb) American achievements of the twenty-first century -- all ripped from the headlines, all Ripley's Believe It or Not material, none made up, none conceivable for any other nation on the planet.

While some of us have been sleeping (metaphorically speaking) Republican senators have been slipping into the White House and over repasts possibly working with Administration staffers on a new version of “Simpson-Bowles."