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Almost 50% of union members in the United States today work in the public sector. By necessity, they will have to play a major role in the rebuilding of organized labor. But like private sector unions before them, government employee unions face circumstances threatening their very existence.

Years ago the 35th US president made a speech in Germany, four words of which, in American-accented German, remain famous: “Ich bin ein Berliner!”—“I am a Berliner!” That was John F. Kennedy. Will the 45th president, soon to visit Germany’s second city, emulate him and tweet “I am a Hamburger! Wow!”

The fundamental changes I would advocate are those that would: dramatically boost worker power; secure a progressive and growing funding base for a needed expansion of public housing and infrastructure and public spending on health care, education, and transportation; and end the production and use of fossil fuels and significantly reduce greenhouse emissions.

On June 20 The Atlantic posted an article by Peter Beinart claiming that the Democrats had “lost their way on immigration.” While the article has been lauded by Rightwingers, it is mostly a compendium of familiar sound bites on immigration, presented without much understanding of the issues.

This year, Ramadan—the ninth month of the Islamic year, in which observant Muslims fast to commemorate the revelation of the Quran—happens to coincide with most of Gay Pride month. Quiet as it’s kept, there are uncounted numbers of queer Muslims in the gay community. One of them is Izzadine Mustafa.

President Donald Trump ignored important intelligence reports when he decided to attack Syria after he saw pictures of dying children. Seymour M. Hersh investigated the case of the alleged Sarin gas attack.

With the reassertion of the dominance of finance, in the guise now of an international finance capital, the third world States have withdrawn from supporting petty producers, a process of income deflation is in full swing, and the imperialist arrangement is back in place, because of which we can see once more a tendency towards a secular decline in per capita food-grain availability in the third world as in the colonial period.

Capitalism is characterized by both centripetal and centrifugal tendencies. There is not and cannot be a transnational capitalist state and for that reason there cannot be a transnational capitalist class.

The experience of the last three decades has clearly demonstrated that social struggles in and of themselves are not sufficient to stop the drift to the right and re-establish a dynamic of social advances. That requires going beyond defensive strategies and creating a positive alternative project that is authentically social and democratic.

The major contradiction for working people in the USA in the 21^st century is now abundantly clear: while working for a living is a necessity for the majority of Americans and the wealth of the nation continues to grow, real wages and the number of decent jobs are in steady decline.

For Klein, developing a meaningful anti-shock politics involves some combination of what Sanders represented and what Clinton symbolized: Sanders with respect to class and economics, Clinton as far as race and gender, and everything else. Imperialism and war scarcely enter the argument.

While Jeremy Corbyn didn’t become Prime Minister, he did pull off the most stunning upset in recent political history. And he did this by turning out voters who, according to all received wisdom, would never vote, above all the young and poor.

In a number of recently posted articles (see here) it seemed clear that a UK General Election upset was in the making, despite the tirade of anti-Corbyn commentary from mainstream media in the UK. Now it has happened.

Haitian writer, producer, and director, Roal Peck—whose blockbuster documentary I Am Not Your Negro has become the highest-grossing non-fiction release from Magnolia Pictures—has chosen the Young Karl Marx as the topic of his next film.

This expert has some shocking revelations about @jeremycorbyn‘s past…

“For the first time in my adult life and perhaps for the first time in British history someone I would consider to be a fundamentally decent human being…has a chance of being elected.”

This short satirical film from Bella Caledonia (by Edinburgh filmmaker Bonnie Prince Bob) was originally banned by YouTube when it was released three weeks ago (it has since returned). As far as we are concerned it is a brilliant piece of propaganda that should go viral once again.

“There were always two parallel streams in the Syrian uprising at the beginning. The civil activists who wanted democratic reform and change in the form of a secular state, and the conservative stream, which was markedly more Islamist and sectarian in its tone and demands.… the former was mostly urban, the latter rural.… As the uprising went on and the violence intensified, the civil movement became increasingly silenced and weak, while the Islamist movement became quickly more militant and radicalized”

The host of the daytime NPR program asked his guests how serious, and how “unprecedented” Trump’s decision to fire his FBI chief was. The guests answers were strange: they spoke about “rule of law” and “violating the Constitution” but then switched to Trump “violating norms”—and back again, interchanging “norms” and “laws” as if they’re synonyms. One of the guests admitted that Trump firing Comey was 100% legal, but that didn’t seem to matter in this talk about Trump having abandoned rule-of-law for a Putinist dictatorship. These guys wouldn’t pass a high school civics class, but there they were, garbling it all up. What mattered was the proper sense of panic and outrage—I’m not sure anyone really cared about the actual legality of the thing, or the legal, political or “normative” history of the FBI.

With a few days to go to Iran’s upcoming presidential elections on 19 May, six candidates could survive the vetting process of the Guardian Councils.… The role of the media, both in Iran and throughout the diaspora, to shape public opinion is significant. Iranian state media, radio and television are supposed to give the “hopefuls” an opportunity to continue campaigning for office, as they speak about their future plans and defend past performances, but they often fall short.