How Big Pharma Flipped Kyrsten Sinema
Big Pharma needed a senator to do their dirty work to kill or gut Democrats’ drug pricing plan. They found someone willing and able in Kyrsten Sinema.
19083 Articles by: Alex Press
The Czech Left Is Being Punished for Its Disastrous Record in Government
Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš is a scandal-plagued, right-wing billionaire. In this weekend’s elections, the Czech Republic’s social democratic and communist parties are set to be punished for keeping his government in power.
Emmanuel Macron’s Africa Policies Are Still Rooted in French Colonialism
Today’s Africa-France summit is a typical show of French president Emmanuel Macron’s imperial grandstanding. But it wouldn’t be possible without business leaders and intellectuals who paint France’s interference in its old colonies in a humanitarian light.
Dominic Perrottet Is Bad News for New South Wales
After Gladys Berejiklian’s resignation last week, New South Wales has a new premier. The rise of Dominic Perrottet — with links to Opus Dei, a raft of reactionary opinions, and close ties to big business — is bad news for Australia’s most populous state.
We Can’t Leave Society. We Can Only Change It.
Capitalism is all-encompassing — we can’t simply opt out and cultivate our personal purity. Like so many others, the protagonist of Tao Lin’s latest novel wants to leave society, but the point is to change it.
Workers at Kellogg’s Cereal Plants Across the Country Are on Strike
More than 1,400 workers at Kellogg’s cereal plants across the US are on strike. Fed up with 12- to 16-hour days, seven days a week, with mandatory overtime, they were pushed over the edge by the company’s drive to downgrade wages and benefits for new workers.
CIA Op or Not, the Pandora Papers Are a Big Deal
There’s good reason to speculate that the Pandora Papers, the massive leak exposing the tax-dodging practices of the global superrich — which includes plenty of Russians and Chinese, but almost no Americans — is a CIA plant. Nevertheless, it’s a newsworthy story that deserves the attention it’s gotten.
In Berlin, We Won a Vote to Nationalize the Big Landlords
Last Sunday, Berliners voted to nationalize the big landlords and win housing justice. We managed to get over a million people to vote to expropriate 240,000 apartments owned by mega-corporations.
The Many Saints of Newark Sets Itself an Impossible Task — and Does Okay
The jumble of characters and subplots in the Sopranos prequel makes for a less-than-focused production that can’t stack up to the original series. But then, what can?
Jacques Derrida’s Defense of Marx and the Birth of Hauntology
French philosopher Jacques Derrida is best known as one of the champions of postmodernism. But in the early 1990s, at the height of capitalist triumphalism, Derrida took up the cudgels in defense of Karl Marx — and inadvertently spawned a whole musical genre.
Teamster Rank-and-File Reformers Are Making a Bid for Union Leadership
At last weekend’s Teamsters for a Democratic Union convention, nearly 400 rank-and-file Teamsters convened to discuss taking power in their union and organizing Amazon.
The Pandora Papers Have Exposed the Corrupt System that Lets the Rich Worldwide Avoid Paying Taxes
The Pandora Papers — 12 million files on the global 1 percent and the legal tricks they use to get out of paying taxes — are one of the biggest journalistic bombshells in years. They expose a system with one set of standards for the rich and another for everyone else.
Congress Can’t Let Opioid Billionaires Get Legal Immunity
Legislation to hold the Purdue Pharma Sackler family accountable is stalled as the Chamber of Commerce begins lobbying on the bill. Congress can’t let the criminals that fueled the opioid crisis get away with murder.
Steven Donziger Was Imprisoned by the 1 Percent’s Favorite Judge
Loretta Preska, the judge who did Chevron’s bidding in the case against activist Steven Donziger, has a history of conflicts of interest and pro-corporate rulings. And she’s not alone — corporate influence and conflicts of interest are rampant in the courts.
Squid Game Is an Allegory of Capitalist Hell
Like Parasite before it, Netflix’s survival thriller Squid Game dramatizes the horrors of modern inequality and exploitation in South Korea — and shreds the capitalist myth that hard work guarantees prosperity.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Jacobin: On Kyrie Irving’s Vaccine Refusal
NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes in Jacobin arguing that athletes like Kyrie Irving aren’t making a “personal choice” by refusing the COVID vaccine — they’re jeopardizing the public health of all through their platforms.
Pablo Iglesias: The Left Needs to Break the Reactionary Stranglehold Over the Spanish State
In Spain, a center-left coalition government faces opposition not just from right-wingers and business leaders but from parts of the judiciary and police. For Pablo Iglesias, it’s time the Left pushed back against right-wing dominance in the state machine.
Australia’s Welfare System Is Designed to Force the Unemployed Into Low-Wage Casual Work
Australia’s unemployment benefit is one of the lowest in the OECD. This isn’t just a by-product of austerity politics — it’s designed to force the unemployed into low-paid, casual work, undermining wages and conditions across the board.
Saadi Yacef Fought for Algeria’s Freedom — Then Immortalized It on Film
Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 film The Battle of Algiers immortalized Algeria’s fight against French colonial rule. But Saadi Yacef, who died last month at age 93, stood out among the movie’s stars, for he had also been a key leader of the armed struggle in real life.
Canada’s National Energy Program Showed What a Public Energy Policy Can Achieve
In 1980, Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau introduced the National Energy Program. Though flawed, the policy showed how state intervention in the energy sector could overcome the boom-and-bust of the business cycle.