Portside

People making power, challenges to center-left heads of state, new developments in Nigeria and Namibia, Engels at 200, and more

Schools are making the hybrid learning plan work as best they can, but our teachers are likely not okay. They are getting the work done—but their physical, emotional, and mental health may be suffering in the process.

A recent survey on workers and learners in Los Angeles County by the UCLA Labor Center found that “52% have been laid off, terminated, or furloughed from their jobs due to the pandemic.” It is very hard to study with many insecurities in your life.

Austerity policy-making over the past 50 years has been racialized, withering services in public agencies ranging from K-12 schooling to hospitals to higher education. Matters of race must be made more visible, placed at the center of policy-making.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pushing to kick military recruiters out of high schools and off Twitch. And she’s right: the military’s recruitment strategy of preying on low-income and working-class students is grotesque.

I expect to watch with terror as many of our nation’s schools, woefully unprepared, open in the midst of a pandemic. Exhausted and heartbroken, I will worry nonstop about the students and teachers walking through those doors.

Since 2011, Arab labor organizations and left parties have been central to movements for democracy and social justice in the Middle East. Frequently overlooked in Western media coverage...they’ve carried on this fight against tremendous odds.

“Tin soldiers and Nixon’s coming, We’re finally on our own. This summer, I hear the drummin’ Four dead in O-hi-o…” --“Ohio” (1970) Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Women's protests worldwide, reports, photos and more

No light reading this week. The Isles, Canada, Mideast, Asia, Africa, Latin America - and a call for eco-socialism