Unions and their allies across the country delayed cookouts and bargain shopping, at least for a few hours this Labor Day, to hold rallies promoting organized labor and workplace democracy, and call on elected representatives to support prosperity building measures rather than cuts to the social safety net.

BOSTON/Boston Common - On Monday, people in Boston and around the U.S. celebrated the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. But while many recognize his civil rights accomplishments and his many campaigns for racial justice, few people acknowledge his radical anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-socialist platforms. He was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, for example, long before it became fashionable.

Remembering this aspect of the man, a group known as Black Cross Anarchists, along with the Stop the Wars Coalition, honored Dr. King by speaking out against war and injustice at the Park Street MBTA station in the north east corner of the Boston Common.

BOSTON/Dorchester - Malalai Joya, now 31, was the youngest ever woman elected to the Afghan Parliament in 2005 and is an outspoken critic of the Karzai government and NATO occupation. Press Pass TV caught up with Joya and supporters at an event hosted in Dorchester by United for Justice with Peace and Dorchester People for Peace.

The dust has settled around the preliminary election for Boston Mayor and City Council. A higher percentage of city residents voted in the prelim than in years past but the numbers still represented only a fraction of the total eligible voters.

Not the best scenario for someone running for elected office for the first time.

Running in a field of 15 candidates – including two incumbents, both of whom breezed through the preliminary election – Roxbury native and resident Scotland Willis ran as close to a “green” campaign as he could. An environmental management consultant by trade, this meant he took mass transit or rode his bicycle to campaign events and debates and to canvass neighborhoods.

BOSTON - Today is preliminary election day in Boston, Somerville, Chelsea, and other cities and towns in the greater metropolitan area. Mayors, Selectman, Alderman, City and School Council members throughout the Boston area are facing challenging races. That's good for democracy; especially in a state that consistently features the second greatest number of uncontested races in the country. Arkansas usually takes top billing in that category.

And yet, to state the facts bluntly in political parlance: "winner takes all" in all the races.

Press Pass TV examines the meaning of the word "ghetto" and its impact on our community.

BOSTON/Dorchester – For three years, the Israeli and Egyptian governments have blockaded Gaza; preventing locals and foreign nationals from crossing in and out of the tiny occupied territory.

Jeff Klein, a retired machinist and union leader and now an activist with Dorchester People for Peace, recently returned from Gaza following his participation in the Viva Palestina aid convoy from Cairo, Egypt to Gaza City. Klein, interviewed Thursday, August 6, 2009 in the studios of WMBR, Cambridge, says family members of Palestinian-Americans in the convoy (including children who were born in the United States) are trapped within Gaza, and were prevented from crossing back into Egypt when the convoy left Gaza last month.

Over the course of the last few years, peace and social justice organizations have engaged in an increasing number of collaborations with groups bridging a wide variety of issues and campaigns. From global climate change to job creation and workers rights to health care reform and protection from home foreclosures, community organizers increasingly view "justice" as a continuum of demands and strategies rather than single, isolated issues.

Rainforest Action Network Executive Director Michael Brune recently visited Boston to promote his book, "Coming Clean: Breaking America's Addiction to Oil and Coal" (Sierra Club Books).

In a wide-ranging interview lasting more than an hour, Prof. Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently spoke to Subrata Ghoshroy about the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal, the financial crisis, and other topics of interest.