labor

India: Workers Vow to Fight Maruti Suzuki Murder Charges

Sindhu Menon Equal Times
Since 16 March, over 100,000 workers across India have participated in work stoppages after a court sentenced 13 unionists to life imprisonment. The charges stem from deadly clashes that took place at the at the Maruti Suzuki India Limited auto plant in 2012 after management refused to recognize a union formed in a bid to end the mass casualisation of jobs and improve working conditions. India's auto industry is one of the world's largest.

books

Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality

Christopher Vials Against the Current
Based on research during and immediately following World War 2, this pathbreaking book analyzed the proclivities individuals might have toward support for authoritarian regimes, stressing preconceived attitudes on race, class, sexuality and nationalism, concluding that fascism’s attraction came not (or not just) from political agreement but from a personality structured by larger, repressive social forces in which sociological influences upon ideology are mediated.

New Anti-Protesting Legislation: A Deeper Look

Traci Yoder National Lawyers Guild
Trump’s three executive orders on policing, the large number of state legislatures dominated by Republicans, the pro-policing and pro-business attitude of the current administration, and the constant and growing spontaneous demonstrations protesting Trump all combine to produce an atmosphere in which many powerful interests have a stake in suppressing mass dissent.

Sovereignty and the State of Emergency

Jean-Claude Paye Monthly Review
The U.S. government, following the 9/11 attacks, expressed no intention of reforming its Constitution. It was left free of any procedure for exception or emergency. This does not mean that the United States has remained a more democratic country than France. Attacks against privacy, civil rights, and, above all, habeas corpus have proven even more virulent in the United States than in Europe.

Sixty Years Ago: Congressional Red-Hunters Set Their Sights on Bridgeport

Andy Piascik Portside
Passed into law in 1940, the Smith Act made it illegal to "teach, advocate or encourage the overthrow" of the government and extended to any member of an organization that allegedly did so. The notion that in 1956 the Communist Party was interested in, let alone capable of, overthrowing anything was patently absurd. From a 1940's peak of around 80,000, the CP's national membership had dwindled to perhaps 10,000 by the time of the hearings in Connecticut.

Exonerate Our Mother, Ethel Rosenberg

Robert Meeropol and Michael Meeropol Rosenberg Fund for Children
Petitioning Attorney General Lynch and President Obama: Exonerate our mother, Ethel Rosenberg. Our mother was not a spy, and her execution was wrongful. Her conviction was based on perjured testimony and prosecutorial and judicial misconduct. The charges against our mother and the threat of the death penalty were meant to intimidate her and our father into cooperating. Sign te petition (below) -

labor

The Renewal and Repression of Turkey's Civil Society Grassroots

Jennifer Hattam Equal Times
Turkey’s major trade unions called for a one-day strike on 29 December to protest the government-led military operations against the Kurds. Union representatives declared that they would persist in struggle against those who are trying to destroy the hope of both peoples [Turks and Kurds] to live together and build a common future.

Tidbits - June 4, 2015 - Korean War End?; Spanish elections; Puerto Rico; Oscar López Rivera; Emmy Noether; Gaza Peace Concert; Tiananmen Square; Angela Acquitted; more...

Portside
Reader Comments: Can Women End Korean War?; Countess vs. Communist-Battle to Become Madrid's Mayor; How the United States Strangled Puerto Rico; Obama's Human and Moral Challenge: Oscar López Rivera; The Press and Bernie Sanders; The Female Mathematician Who Changed the Course of Physics; Appeal by Dr. Kristin Neuhaus, successor to Dr. George Tiller; Cross Borders Concert at the Gaza Strip border; Today in History - Tiananmen Square Massacre; Angela Davis Acquitted

Victims of Chicago Police Savagery Hope Reparations Fund is 'Beacon' for World

Spencer Ackerman; Zach Stafford; Katie O'Brien;
Over a period of nearly 20 years, Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge and his "midnight crew" allegedly tortured at least 119 people, forcing them to make confessions. The police officers beat the victims, burned them with lit cigarettes and handcuffed them to hot radiators. They tied plastic bags over their heads and nearly suffocated them. They put cattle prods on their genitals and in their mouths and electrocuted them. (Adeshina Emmanuel, The Chicago Reporter)*
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