Jacob Remes points out a History News Network account of the tension at the annual Business meeting of the American Historical Association, which he attended, over the successfully passed resolution calling on Yale to respect the right of its graduate students to organize. Yale History Chairman and candidate for Yale College Dean Jon Butler made the unfortunate argument that it was "presumptuous" for historians to concern themselves in a dispute over free speech and the right to organize and the specious argument that calling for a fair process to determine whether GESO represents the majority of graduate students is unfair to any other potential graduate student organizations, and finally tried and failed to stall the resolution on procedural grounds.

Jacob highlights (first here, then here) a deeply troubling and shamefully unreported story: US troops being used to destroy and dismantle Iraqi trade union headquarters and arrest their leaders - this in the context of continued US maintenance of Ba'athist labor laws. Of course, it's easy to become numb to this kind of rank hypocrisy from this administration - but vital not to. Enforcing Saddam's Pinkerton policies ranks up there with appealing to Cuban sovereignty to justify abusing POWs in Camp X-Ray and co-operating with the "evildoers" at the UN to hamstring global access to contraception. Let's not forget the Bush Doctrine: If you can make something that others value, you should be able to sell it to them. If others make something that you value, you should be able to buy it. This is real freedom... Those other freedoms are just to be trotted out when the situation calls for a moral fig leaf. Lodge your protest here.

Breaking news from Business Week: Howard Dean's Presidential ambitions are poised to get a major lift on Nov. 6 when the AFL-CIO's largest union, the 1.3 million member Service Employees International Union, is set to endorse him, BusinessWeek has learned. The SEIU's action, coming shortly after Dean won pledges from two small unions, the International Union of Painters and the California Teachers Assn., goes a long way toward completing the transformation of the former Vermont governor from a niche candidate backed by limousine liberals, antiwar activists, and tech-savvy young people into a mainstream candidate who can also connect with blue-collar America. Says SEIU President Andy Stern: "It's clear that Dean has gained the most support amongst our members and local leaders." For all my reservations about Dean, I do see truth in Jacob's argument that if anyone is going to win against Bush, that candidate needs to unite the foreign policy left wing of the party with the economic policy left wing of the party, and combine all that with a strategy that gets people riled up, donating money, and voting. I'd happly back anyone I thought could do that, from John Edwards to Al Sharpton. Kucinich tries to to the part where he unites the two important parts of the party, but fails at actually running a campaign. Gephardt was thought to have the unions but his wishy-washy politics on the war, combined with his proven record of failure (most recently in 2002) make him a poor candidate. Dean is the man to unite around, and now it seems that the biggest unions in the country agree As I've probably said here before, Dean is the candidate who has had the most success so far in building a left "Contract with America" - mounting a (generally) coherent, passionate, and resonant critique of the current administration and articulating a vision of a more (if insufficiently) progressive alternative - and he knows better than many of the other eight how to organize around it. Shame that he has a record of prioritizing balanced budgets over social services. One place where I agree with Jacob wholeheartedly: ...it's nice to see SEIU, AFSCME, and CWA working together on something. If only SEIU can get AFSCME and CWA on board with the New Unity Partnership...