Portside

Mexican labor unions and workers are, overall, in the worst situation in decades. President Peña Nieto has succeeded in passing a series of so-called reforms - education, labor, energy, and communications - that will have devastating effects on an already weakened labor movement. The Mexican government has controlled unions since the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, but it was in the 1930s that the system of one-party state control over the unions was fully developed.

Congress is in revolt, inflation is rising, Brazil’s credit rating is flirting with junk status, a huge corruption scandal looms, and polls put her approval rating at 8% ahead of Sunday’s planned protests – can things get any worse for Rousseff?

Reader Comments - Chicago election; Police Killings; Reparations; Prisons; Jewish Anti-Zionism; Charter Schools vs. Public Schools; Cuba; Latin America; Iran; Burkina Faso; Guatemala; Scientologists; Game of Thrones; Science Fiction and the Hugo Awards; San Francisco and Labor History; April 26 - Peace and Planet for nuclear abolition; Remembering Jim Knutson

Two weeks ago Portside published an essay by Michael Brie, The Tragedy of Party Communism. Here Kurt Stand, David Cohen and Jack Radey reflect on their participation in the socialist movement, what lessons there may be to draw on, as well as which to forget. For today's and tomorrow's socialists, they see socialism as a system that could be reformed, capitalism a system that needs to be abolished.

Reader Comments - Police Killings are Epidemic; Jewish Establishment Tries to Silence Critics; Yavon Kaplan - new Israeli refusknik; New Video - Feeling Good About Apartheid; Guatemalans Infected with STDs; US Cold War with Iran; Indiana; Islamic State - Cancer of Modern Capitalism; US Trains Neo-Nazis in Ukraine; Announcements - Worker Rights Conference; #BlackLivesMatter; 79th Annual ALBA Celebration; Today in History - Paul Robeson - Born 1898

Reader Comments - Today's Student Protests; Vietnam War History, My Lai; Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism; Israel - Right Wing Nation with Nukes; Unions Key to Fighting Inequality; Women Fighters; Venezuela Sanctions; Socialists, Socialist Movement and Socialism; Human Genome Tinkering; Hey, World! Let's create a nuclear-free future -- April 24-26, New York City Remembering Jean Hardisty, Geraldine Blankinship and Grace Paley

Reader Comments: Congress Plots to Undermine Retiree Pensions; Is It Bad Enough Yet?; Angela Davis: the unbroken line of police violence; James Baldwin on Racism; LAWCHA's Teacher/Public Sector Initiative; #BlackLivesMatter Takes the Field; They Fear and The Kill; Thousands March to Protest Police Brutality; Torture - Senate Report, Lessons from Latin America; Trade; Chanukah 2014; CELEBRATING CHARLIE HADEN memorial and celebration of his life - New York - Jan. 13