Labor

Today, May Day, workers, students, immigrants, and all those who struggle for equality and democracy worldwide will take to the streets in a show of strength and solidarity. On May Day 2013, coming just a week after a factory collapse in Bangladesh cost the lives of more than 400, as technocrats in Brussels continue to bleed the sick economies of Southern Europe with self-defeating austerity measures, and here, in the United States, as more and more men and women, young and old alike are added to rolls of the precarious workforce, we at The Mantle add our voices to all those in the square:

by Chris Albin-Lackey

The peasant engaged in backbreaking work is a common motif in paintings. Characteristics of the theme include peasants bent and crumpled (often below a horizon, earthbound), faces hidden (anonymous), and painted realistically (rather than in exalted or virtuous tones).

MASERU, Lesotho – Living overseas, I sometimes fall out of touch with the latest “buzz” within American culture. Like which Hollywood sleepers are garnering acclaim from the critics.

On September 20, I attended a lecture by former UK Prime Minster Gordon Brown at The New School University. As he paced the stage, Brown outlined the themes of his new book, Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalization.

Quite a title! I am sure we could come up with a globalization crisis that precedes the contemporary one he speaks of, but that's not the point of this post.

Who wants to work anymore really? This quick Economist vid tells us a little bit about which countries you might want to move to or shy away from when it comes to "holidaying" it up or taking some chill time away from the office.

John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Beat since 1999 for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin.

Preempting the Left Forum's opening plenary with Cornel West, Barbara Ehrenreich, Laura Flanders, and Paul Mason, JK Fowler and I interviewed Cornel West at the pre-conference cocktail party.