The US is shifting a substantial portion of its military resources to the Asia-Pacific region. This “Pacific Pivot” initiative rests on a perception of China as a major threat. Koohan Paik describes what the new initiative entails; she also considers the impact of militarization on local communities and ecosystems. Also, Part Two of an interview with Ron Glass about the radical thinker and educator Paulo Freire. (Part One is here.)

While politicians proclaim the foreclosure crisis over, distressed homeowners around the country tell a different story. In Portland, they're taking action, in a union-initiated effort that brings together neighbors, labor, and Occupy activists.  As organizer Angela MacWhinnie lays out, militant direct action to keep people in their houses has proved the most successful way to fight foreclosure. She details the contours and challenges of their campaign, which has involved facing off dozens of riot police.

Many people want to reform education. Paulo Freire sought to revolutionize it; he wanted to put learning in the service of liberation and social justice. The Brazilian educator and thinker laid out many of his ideas and strategies in the classic volume Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Ron Glass has studied and written about Freire; he also collaborated with Freire in the mid-1980s.

How did a small gathering of San Francisco radical cyclists inspire mass bike riding in 350 cities around the world -- which in some places involves up to 80,000 riders? Critical Mass co-founder Chris Carlsson and writer Adriana Camarena discuss the origins, trajectory, and complexities of taking back the streets on bike. They explore the international scope of Critical Mass -- which was founded over twenty years ago -- the ways that it has shaped the broader politics of cities, and thorny questions about success, cooptation, race, and class.

Why were they so radical? What accounts for the disportionate involvement of American Jews in leftist causes, socialist parties, and radical debates? In a new book, Tony Michels traces the significant contributions of Jewish immigrants and their offspring to left-wing theory and movements. Also, Colleen Stockmann discusses New York's Photo League, to which many Jews belonged.

Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley brings suburbia to mind, but its landscape and reality are much more complex. Sociologist Laura Barraclough explores how a white, rural settler identity was shaped in the San Fernando Valley -- and how the politics of land use in the region reveal much about how notions of whiteness have been formed in the American West.