Will Smith Is Stunning in King Richard
Based on the true story of Venus and Serena Williams’s coach and father, King Richard shows us the toll racism took on a generation of black men — but also the fight it inspired in them.
19274 Articles by: Abigail Torre
Abigail Torre grew up in Chile and now lives in Berkeley, California where she is cochair of the East Bay chapter of Democratic Socialists of America.
Chile Is Still in the Midst of a Political Revolution
Three decades after Augusto Pinochet’s fall, Chile stands at the precipice of electing a socialist president and reordering its political system. But the achievement of genuine democracy in the birthplace of neoliberalism is far from guaranteed.
Ontario’s Pension Fund Managers Are Propping up the Fossil Fuel and Real Estate Industries
The Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System, like pension funds everywhere, engages in socially harmful speculation and investment. Pension funds should be paid for by contributions and taxes, not financialization.
Kathy Hochul Is Putting Her Real Estate Donors Over Workers
New York governor Kathy Hochul is pushing to end remote work — not to help workers, but to do the commercial real estate industry a favor.
Barbados Has Rid Itself of the Queen But Not Neocolonialism
Barbados’s decision to become a republic happily brings to an end its centuries-long formal subjection to the British Empire. But as the country has already discovered in its dealings with the IMF and World Bank, not all forms of colonialism are so easily rebuffed.
Forza Horizon 5 Is Gaming’s Gateway Drug to Dystopia
Millions of players agree that Microsoft’s Forza Horizon 5 is a beautiful, fun, and endlessly seductive video game. It’s also an eerie transitional technology that hints at the dystopian metaverse to come.
Making Health Care “Accessible and Affordable” Isn’t the Same as Making It Universal and Free
Centrist Democrats use phrases like “accessible and quality health care” to sound like they support reforming the broken US health care system while avoiding the only genuine reform: removing health care from the market altogether.
The Neoliberal View of Inflation Is Convenient for Capitalists — But It’s Wrong
Neoliberals say that inflation is directly caused by high social spending and good wages, and that working-class people must sacrifice these to bring prices down. But there are other causes of inflation, and solutions to it that don’t pit us against ourselves.
The Climate Crisis Is Highlighting the Mistreatment of Canada’s Migrant Workers
After a summer of disastrous forest fires, British Columbia is now experiencing extreme flooding. As well as causing untold misery for Canadian citizens, environmental catastrophe is also exposing how few protections exist for migrant workers.
Indian Farmers Made Modi Back Down
Narendra Modi has faced few serious barriers to his authoritarian, far-right agenda since taking office — which makes his backing down on proposed free-market agricultural reforms in response to mass protest from farmers all the more remarkable.
Liberals Are Increasingly Embarking on Dangerous Flights from Reality
Democrats like to think of themselves as “reality-based” people who “follow the science.” But lately, they have been engaged in irrational fearmongering over Russia and China that is reminiscent of their disastrous Cold War–era paranoia about the Soviets.
Big Pharma Is Making a Killing From Vaccine Apartheid
With the spread of the new Omicron variant and low levels of vaccination throughout much of the world, there’s still no real end to COVID in sight. It’s bad news for global public health — but great news for big pharmaceutical companies.
A Group of Midwestern Retirees Are Trying to Stop Wall Street’s Abuse of Retirement Funds
Ohio retirees and whistleblowers are on the verge of exposing how hedge funds and private equity firms are abusing workers’ retirement savings.
COP26 Was a Flop, but the Climate Justice Movement Is Still Growing
The COP26 summit in Glasgow this month ended with a set of vague and inadequate pledges that won’t tackle the climate crisis. Real hope lies not with corporate-sponsored elite gatherings but with the popular movements linking climate action to social justice.
Australia’s Religious Discrimination Bill Is About Attacking Workers’ Rights
The Australian government has introduced a new “religious freedom” bill that enshrines the right of employers to hire, fire, and discriminate on the basis of anything those employers deem to be not in keeping with their faith.
In Copenhagen, the Radical Left Just Beat the Danish Social Democrats for the First Time Ever
Recent elections in Denmark saw a sharp rise in vote share for the Red-Green Alliance, making it the biggest party in Copenhagen. The result shows that the ruling Social Democrats can’t keep letting down Danes who want action on the climate and soaring rents.
The Democrats’ Childcare Plan Is Disastrous. These Graphs Explain Why.
Democrats are deliberately choosing to put forward a childcare plan that will be completely disastrous for millions of American families.
Novelist Almudena Grandes Told the Truth About the Spanish Dictatorship
Spanish author Almudena Grandes, who died on Saturday, aged 61, was famed for her novels portraying ordinary Spaniards’ experience of civil war and dictatorship. Against attempts to veil the past in silence, she insisted that unearthing historical memory was fundamental to building a democratic Spain.
Stop Rubber-Stamping Exorbitant Defense Spending
The US government is set to spend twice as much on the military as on Joe Biden’s social spending programs over ten years. Instead of apologizing for social spending, Biden should stop rubber-stamping defense spending and start using it as leverage.
Capitalism Is Making Us All Miserable — Even the Superrich
Capitalism imposes massive suffering on the poor and working class. But even the detestable superrich are being made miserable by the sadistic things market competition implores them to do to the rest of us.