Portside

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his friends in the Republican Party here in the USA want a war with Iran. There really is no other conclusion.

The ultra Right tastes blood in the snafu that threatens "Obamacare"; they are gleefully throwing everything into their last, best chance to overturn any expansion of health care. A "broader" coalition, both domestic and international, is feverishly doing its all to abort efforts at easing tensions with Iran.

If the Tea Party is going for a smaller party that's more pure, they're not necessarily deterred by getting beaten. [With incidents like the shutdown,] they just feel like they got sold out, so they redouble their efforts. At some point, this process will curdle on itself and collapse, but I don't think we've reached that point yet. I think the Tea Party's going to keep fighting. If the Republican caucus in Iowa for president was next week, I think Ted Cruz would win it.

Elections show the tide can turn against the unholy alliance of big business, the Tea Party, and the religious right. Growing protests - the "Moral Monday" movement in North Carolina, militant immigrant rights activism, battles to protect women's health clinics from state budget cuts, strikes by low-wage workers, civil disobedience actions to challenge voter suppression, & campaigns against global energy corporations. Virginia - win in a race lost by 17 points in 2009.

Reader Comments- Sports, Police Killing, Tea Party, Robin Hood Tax, Doug Ireland; Announcements- Tim DeChristopher, Environmental Activism-NYC-Nov.02; Perspectives from NYC Food Service Workers-Nov.03; Mario Savio Memorial Lecture-Berkeley-Nov.12; Cuba Skate: Art on Deck-Washington, DC-Nov.16; Politics of Immigration Reform Forum-NYC-Nov.20; Memorial for Stephen Coats-Washington, DC-Nov.25; International Conference In Israel: For A Nuclear Free Zone In The Middle East

This is a movement, not a moment...Moral Mondays have really caught fire. It took several months last spring and early summer for the Moral Monday protests to reach a crescendo. While early statehouse rallies in North Carolina started by attracting about 50 protesters, by July thousands of people from around the state were swarming the state capitol. After three consecutive months of action, there had been around 920 arrests for civil disobedience at the weekly rallies.

The left needs a Karl Rove to target the 144 House GOPers and 19 senators of the Default Caucus. Look out, Ted Cruz

Sociologist Theda Skocpol tells what drives the angry right -- and what comes after the government shutdown. The Right in this country, over the last half century, has recognized that fighting across many localities and states is worth it. And they've developed mechanisms for doing that, and that turned out to have a big payoff in Congress. The real problem that you've got right now on the Left is how to defeat this stuff, how to contain it, how to beat it.