Babylon Is So Bad It Will Hurt Your Brain
It’s not really clear what Damien Chazelle is trying to accomplish in his latest, Babylon. The movie is so awful that he should probably be banished from Hollywood.
19109 Articles by: Alex Press
The Right Tried to Cancel the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The Right has successfully framed “canceling” as something leftists do. But it’s the snowflakes on the Right who have typically led the charge to censor culture. Case in point: when Britain lost its mind over the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Emancipation Is an Action Melodrama That Is Highly Missable
There aren’t enough films depicting runaway slaves fighting off Southern racists on the way to freedom. So when that premise is wasted on a terrible movie, as it is in Will Smith’s Emancipation, it’s a great tragedy.
Howard Brown Health Wants to Lay Off 60 New Union Members
Howard Brown Health Center is well known as an LGBTQ-focused health provider and a stalwart Chicago progressive institution. Workers say that on the heels of their recent unionization, management is laying off 60 workers.
Simone Weil Was a Saint of the Socialist Movement
Simone Weil combined a passionate commitment to socialism and anti-fascism with a heroic, Christian spirit of self-sacrifice. Her legacy continues to pose ethical and philosophical questions for the Left today.
Technocrats in Suits, Not Blackshirts, Rule Europe
The fascist-inspired government in Italy, like the far-right government in Hungary, is part of European neoliberalism, not an alternative to it.
Organizing the Void
The new left in Europe and North America hasn’t made the transition from being a symptom of democratic crisis to offering an effective cure for it.
The Hopeful Dystopian
On the enduring appeal of Christopher Lasch — on both the Left and Right.
Mikhail Lobanov Was Jailed Because Putin’s Cronies Are Afraid
Moscow-based socialist Mikhail Lobanov is a leading left-wing critic of Vladimir Putin. His jailing this Thursday reflects authorities’ determination to silence critics of the war, the disastrous effects of which are playing havoc on Russian society.
New York City’s Public Transit Is Broken. It Doesn’t Have to Be.
America’s largest public transit system is unreliable and often decrepit. Socialist state legislator Zohran Mamdani says that can change. We spoke to Mamdani about his proposal to fully fund city transit, increase service, freeze fares, and make buses free.
What You Should Have Read in 2022
We published 2,500 original essays in 2022. Here’s a recap in case you missed one or two of them.
We Don’t Want a Post-Pandemic “Return to Normal,” We Want the End of Capitalism
In 2022, we limped out of the pandemic frying pan into the fire of resumed capitalist crises. Popular yearning to “get back to normal” is a desire for the good life — and making such a desire a reality will require fighting for socialism.
A Populism of the Left Can Realign American Politics
It’s clear that the GOP is capturing new parts of the working class. It’ll take credible appeals to workers’ frustrations and economic interests to win them back.
Why the Twitter Files Are in Fact a Big Deal
On the Left, there’s been a temptation to dismiss the revelations about Twitter’s internal censorship system that have emerged from the so-called Twitter Files project. But that would be a mistake: the news is important and the details are alarming.
State Officials Have Been Begging Pete Buttigieg to Crack Down on Airlines. He Hasn’t.
Southwest Airlines’ flight cancellations are stranding thousands. Attorneys general have been sounding the alarm about lax airlines oversight, begging transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg and Congress to crack down — to no avail.
Today, We Remember the Women Who Liberated Yugoslavia From Fascism
Eighty years ago, the Women’s Antifascist Front of Yugoslavia was founded to help resist the Axis powers and their local collaborators. Working-class women played a decisive role in fighting fascism — and claimed their place in building a new socialist society.
Why Socialists Need to Talk About Justice
It’s not enough for socialists to point out capitalism’s many faults — we need to explain our positive vision of the future and how it lives up to our ideals of justice.
The New Robert Downey Sr Documentary Is More Annoying Than Avant-Garde
Robert Downey Jr’s documentary tribute to his father, Sr., wants to mimic his dad’s avant-garde filmmaking. But the film lacks coherence, and its subject and filmmaker’s obscene wealth gets in the way of making that case.
Jeremy Corbyn: The Cost-of-Living Crisis Demands That We Democratize the Economy
In the UK, prices for basic goods are soaring while corporations rake in ever-bigger profits. The solution, Jeremy Corbyn argues, is to bring basic resources like energy, water, railways, and the postal service into democratic public ownership.
Why Sweden’s Social Democrats U-Turned on NATO
Sweden’s left has historically been opposed to joining NATO. But as the war in Ukraine made joining the alliance popular, Sweden’s Social Democrats changed tack, alienating many of their supporters and exposing deep divisions among the Left in the process.