Joe Biden Should Decriminalize Marijuana Right Now
Joe Biden campaigned on decriminalizing marijuana but has done nothing about it while in office. He has the power to stop the senseless persecution of weed — he should use it immediately.
19512 Articles by: Alex Press
When Texas Cowboys Fought Private Property
Cattle barons carved up Texas with barbed wire in the late 19th century, separating poor farmers and landless cowboys from vital resources for their struggling cattle herds. So the cowboys formed fence-cutting gangs to preserve the open range.
Does the Constitution Apply on the Assembly Line?
In the early 1980s, Jon Melrod worked in a Wisconsin auto plant and published a shop-floor newspaper, Fighting Times. When the company sued him and his coworkers for denouncing a “scab of the month” in the paper, the rank and filers fought back — and won.
Canada Is Cheerleading New NATO Expansion
Justin Trudeau’s Canadian government has eagerly embraced NATO’s new “strategic concept”: expansion. The strategy is a return to the Cold War — and a recipe for more frequent military conflict.
Lula Should Still Win Brazil’s Presidential Race. But Bolsonaro Is Alarmingly Strong.
Lula won the first round of Brazil’s presidential election yesterday and should beat Jair Bolsonaro in the runoff later this month. But Bolsonaro and his allies outperformed expectations — and Brazil’s far right remains a potent threat to democracy.
Behind Russia’s War Is Thirty Years of Post-Soviet Class Conflict
The invasion of Ukraine is not simply a product of Vladimir Putin’s expansionist mindset. It corresponds to a project for Russian capitalism that he and his allies have pursued since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Black and White Workers and Communists Built a “Civil Rights Unionism” Under Jim Crow
Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein on why today’s union activists should look to the example of North Carolina black and white tobacco workers, who organized a union and went on strike in the teeth of the Jim Crow South.
The War in Ukraine Could Lead to Nuclear War
With his original war aims in shambles, a desperate Vladimir Putin is openly threatening nuclear warfare in Ukraine. The rhetoric of nuclear retaliation and escalation is a risk to the entire world, and, yes, you should be alarmed.
Barry Hines’s The Gamekeeper Is a Novel About How Capitalism Steals Nature From Us
Barry Hines is best known as author of Kestrel for a Knave, adapted for film by Ken Loach. His newly rereleased novel, The Gamekeeper, offers a searing portrait of how capitalism steals nature from working-class people.
In 1946, Aboriginal Workers in Western Australia Struck Against Racist Hyperexploitation
Twentieth-century Aboriginal workers laboring for sheep and cattle stations in Western Australia’s Pilbara region endured conditions comparable to slavery. In 1946, they walked off the job — and founded the modern land rights movement.
Calls for Artifact Repatriation Are Exposing the Political History of Urban Monuments
The mass destruction caused by 20th-century wars created new forms of artifact preservation and exhibition, backed by Western international groups. But calls to repatriate artifacts are calling into question norms of commemoration and public display.
Quebec Is Trading Social Solidarity for the Politics of Exclusion
As Quebecers head to the polls on Monday, the waning sovereignty movement has lost ground to insular, xenophobic traditionalism. In an increasingly disenfranchised society, an exclusionary Quebec is a sign of fractured federalism.
Lula Can End the Jair Bolsonaro Nightmare Today
Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency has been a destructive clown show. A Lula win today can help rebuild Brazil’s democracy.
When Paul Robeson Played Toussaint Louverture
Socialist actor, musician, and civil rights campaigner Paul Robeson viewed the Haitian Revolution as a guiding light in the struggle for freedom and dignity. In 1936, he played the revolutionary leader in C. L. R. James’s play Toussaint Louverture.
The Best Solution to Fixing Your Crappy Job Is a Union
It’s no mystery why millions of workers are quitting their jobs: pay is low, conditions are terrible, and on-the-job disrespect is rampant. But the best way to transform a terrible job isn’t to leave it — it’s to organize a union.
Neoliberal Disaster Management Is Forcing Puerto Ricans to Create Their Own Recovery
Enmeshed in a colonial relationship with the US and abandoned by their own establishment politicians, Puerto Ricans are being forced to forge their own recovery after Hurricane Fiona. But they’re also dreaming of a different, more just future.
The 1919 Elaine Massacre Was a Violent Response to Black Sharecropper Organizing
Black sharecroppers organizing a union were slaughtered en masse 103 years ago this week in the Elaine Massacre. It was one of the US’s worst episodes of racist violence — and a reminder that Jim Crow was about keeping the masses divided and labor brutalized.
Ian McEwan’s Centrist Agitprop Novel Is a Creative Failure
British writer Ian McEwan wanted to deliver a literary manifesto for liberal centrism with his new book Lessons. But the result is an aimless, meandering novel that reveals his creative exhaustion and bewilderment at the state of the world.
Left-Wing Journalist Katie Halper Has Been Fired for Calling Israel an Apartheid State
The Hill has fired Katie Halper from its morning show, Rising, for describing Israel’s policies as tantamount to apartheid. It’s a blatant act of censorship to silence a pro-Palestinian journalist.
A Postelection Coup in Brazil Is Unlikely. But the Military Is Still Too Powerful.
Despite fears that a military coup could follow Sunday’s elections in Brazil, the country’s military brass is unlikely to feel threatened enough to attempt one. Whoever wins, the military’s growing institutional hold on power looks likely to continue.