Portside

Reader Comments - Obama and the TPP; Stop-and-Frisk; White Americans and Police Accountability; Vietnam and Anti-War History and the Ongoing Debate; Remembering Jackson State Murders; Greece, Organizing New York; Those Who Work in Customer Call Centers; Announcements - Immigration, Work and Wages - Washington - May 21; Film Showing and Discussion - Blood Fruit - New York - May 22

Greece has ‘become a laboratory: persons facing extreme processes of expropriation and pauperisation have to make existential decisions that may challenge habitual norms and lead in all sorts of directions’ (86). The author is undoubtedly correct that it is urgent that forces of the radical left in the rest of Europe engage with the theoretical and organisational challenges thrown up by this critical conjuncture.

Videos: Fraud city: Atlanta & Wall Street. Football Town Nights. Battle for the Internet. Greece: Austerity Isn't Working. Willie Nelson & Trigger.

Are European leaders making impossible demands of the current Greek government as part of a strategy to get rid of it? The European Central Bank not only trained its guns on the new government but started firing on Feb. 4, just nine days after the election, when they cut off the main line of credit to the Greek government.

How do Syriza's origins and Greece's political economy affect its capacity to govern? Jacobin interviews Michalis Nikolakakis, political adviser to the minister of economy, infrastructure, maritime affairs and tourism. Before joining Syriza, Nikolakakis was also active in the youth wing of Synaspismos. Here he discusses the origins of the Greek crisis, the relationship between Syriza and the state, and what accounts for the rise of the radical left in Greece.

What is at stake in Greece goes very far beyond merely financial questions. It goes beyond the question of the fate of a small and historically very badly governed country with weak institutions that has suffered abominably in the wake of the crisis over the last five years...It goes even beyond that very grave situation...It goes beyond that to the future of Europe and beyond that, to the meaning of the word democracy in our time.

Die Linke's Oskar Lafontaine on "anti-systemic" parties and how to forge a democratic Europe. His views on solidarity with Greece and Syriza, as well as developments in Spain, Italy, France, and Germany. His insight on a future socialism - recognizing that past socialist endeavors have failed because they were undemocratic and centralized. In this sense, another path has to be chosen. In my opinion, it is the path of employee-managed enterprises in which democracy flows

Reader Comments - Mexican Farmworkers Strike; Innocent Man on Death Row - Prosecutor Apologizes; Stealing Africa's Seeds; Fighting Water Privatization - Ireland and Mexico; Run Elizabeth, Run; Jews Who Speak Out Against Israeli Policies; Cesar Chavez, the UFW - Lessons for Today; Feminist Heroes for Children; Cuba Eradicates Syphilis; Billie Holiday and Ethel Rosenberg; Resources for Passover; To Better Understand Greece and Syriza; Announcements

Golden Dawn's penchant for violence led to the charge that it is a criminal organization. It is accused of several murders, as well as attacks on immigrants, leftists, and trade unionists. Raids uncovered weapon caches. Investigators turned up information suggesting close ties to wealthy shipping owners, and the National Intelligence Service (EYP) and municipal police departments. Close ties between the extreme right and Greek security forces is not new in Greece.