Portside

A&F Gets a Brand Readjustment. Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate. Just Cancel the Sequester. Everyone But Cheney and Rumsfeld. Absolutamente Quilapayun.

Unions face an existential problem: If they can’t represent more than a sliver of American workers on the job, what is their mission? Are there other ways they can advance workers’ interests even if those workers aren’t their members? A new labor movement might resemble a latter-day version of the Knights of Labor, the workers’ organization of the 1880s that was a cross between a union federation, a working-class political vehicle, and a fraternal lodge.

The current political environment shows that activists must be flexible in choosing which political arenas are most open to their goals. Opportunities for state government to enact progressive economic measures are there for the taking, but are not being seized due to a lack of grassroots pressure that is connected to the exclusive focus on federal action.

New York Times is asked to examine its coverage of Venezuela and Honduras by leading journalists, activists and media scholars. "Whatever one thinks of the democratic credentials of Chávez's presidency-and we recognize that reasonable people can disagree about it-there is nothing in the record, when compared with that of his Honduran counterparts, to warrant the discrepancies in the Times's coverage of the two governments."

The strike has long been labor's most powerful weapon. Strikes put pressure on the employer - which needs the employees' labor to run the business. Congress understood the importance of the strike to labor unions, so it protected strikes in two ways in the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Although Congress made it clear that it viewed the strike as a right of utmost importance, the Supreme Court wasted no time in limiting and weakening the right to strike.

Reader's Comments - Assata Shakur, Israel, Korea, Thoreau's Radicalism, Thoreau's Plea for John Brown, Cuba, Benghazi, Spanish town solves unemployment, Viet Nam, more. Announcements - Conference on the Veterans' Peace Movement - New York - May 18; Greek American Radicals - screening - New York - May 25; Radical Teacher on line; Symphony for Palestine; The Future of the Left - Conversation on Socialist Unity - New York - June 5; NY Times full page ad to close Guantanamo

The "deficit problem" is man-made. The deficit is now down 60 percent as a percent of gross domestic product. It is down more than the deficit hawks Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles asked for. This rapid reduction is seriously hurting the economy and jobs, but demands for cuts continue. It is time for Congress and the President to "pivot" to focusing on our real problems: the jobs gap, the wage gap and the trade gap.