Joe Biden’s New Climate Pledge Isn’t Fair or Ambitious
President Joe Biden has announced a new emissions reduction plan. It doesn’t do nearly enough to address the US’s climate impacts on the rest of the world.
19274 Articles by: Alex Press
How Kowtowing to Trump Guided British Support for Juan Guaidó
Recognizing self-proclaimed Venezuelan president Juan Guaidó in 2019, Britain’s Tory government claimed to be standing up for democracy. Recently published ministerial diaries reveal the cynicism of the real discussions behind the move — showing how ministers explicitly saw the crisis as an opportunity to curry favor with Donald Trump.
Progressive Populism Has Transformed Australia Before — It Could Do It Again
In Australian politics today, the neoliberal consensus seems unshakable. But the experience of the Curtin and Whitlam Labor governments shows the potential of progressive populism to deliver social change — a potential we can also glimpse in the recent growth of the Greens.
A Life on the Court’s Left
Leftist lawyer Michael Tigar has spent his life in courtrooms defending a wide range of names big and small on the Left, from Vietnam War draft resisters to Bobby Seale and Angela Davis. He captures them all in a new memoir.
John Desmond Bernal, Marxism, and the Scientific Revolution
J. D. Bernal was one of the twentieth century’s great scientific minds, whose work nurtured the imagination of science-fiction writers. In a world where capitalist priorities distort scientific research, Bernal’s Marxist perspective on science is more relevant than ever.
Stop Pretending Italian Fascists Were Innocent Victims
Today, Italians commemorate the partisans’ victory over Fascism. But in recent years, a right-wing campaign has tried to equate the actions of the Fascists who started the war with the resistance fighters who helped end it.
Social Workers Can’t Help People in Crisis by Partnering With Police
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot recently announced a “co-responder” model for addressing mental health crises, pairing social workers with cops on the scene. That model is wrong. Social workers can’t aid people in need by partnering with a police department that has a long history of unchecked brutality.
In Albania, a New Left Is Challenging the Oligarchs’ Parties
Today’s Albanian election sees Edi Rama’s Partia Socialiste running for a third term, two years after a powerful student movement forced the sacking of half his cabinet. In one of Europe’s poorest countries, green shoots of protest are finally challenging the parties that led Albania to neoliberal capitalism.
Marshall Sahlins (1930–2021)
The radical anthropologist Marshall Sahlins died earlier this month. Throughout his long career, he refused to divorce his academic work from his political commitments. He was an exemplar of a radical intellectual working within the university to change the world.
Justin Trudeau’s New Budget Isn’t Really a Break With Austerity
Canada’s Liberal government recently tabled its first budget since the pandemic began, and it contains some modest shifts away from austerity economics. But these policies fall far short of what’s needed, and the core of Trudeau’s budget is about maintaining the status quo.
Nina Simone Was a Radical
Nina Simone is often remembered for her involvement in the civil rights movement. She was also engaged with the radical political currents of her age, including socialism.
Simply Demanding Trust in Experts Won’t Cure Vaccine Skepticism
With COVID-19 still traveling and mutating, mass vaccination is an urgent and international priority. But dealing with vaccine skepticism will involve more than just dismissing people’s doubt as irrational. It will require genuine engagement with the doubt and uncertainty that is also a fundamental principle of the scientific method.
The Brazilian Right Used Anti-Corruption to Push Its Agenda
Beginning in 2014, Brazil was consumed by a moralizing anti-corruption drive that helped right-wing forces oust the Workers’ Party and undermine Lula’s legacy. It took investigative journalism to unravel Lava Jato’s mythology.
Changing Our Individual Behavior Isn’t Going to Save the Planet
Two years since his fuel tax hike was sunk by the Yellow Vests protests, Emmanuel Macron’s new climate law again exhorts the French to show “willpower” in the fight to “make the world great again.” But the law does nothing to impose limits on the most environmentally damaging businesses — instead blaming climate change on citizens’ failure to alter their habits.
Journalism Is in Crisis. Only Public Funding Can Save It.
For the Left, it’s easy to hate the media, with its entrenched centrist biases and loyalty to the status quo. But a world without high-quality news is a world where meaningful democracy is impossible. That’s the message of media scholar Victor Pickard, who argues for a transformation of our media system away from the model of commercial news and toward a “public option.”
The Social Justice Unionism of Wendell Young III
The Philadelphia union leader Wendell Young III straddled the worlds of the labor movement born out of the New Deal and the social movements of the New Left. He believed that uniting these two worlds in struggle could transform the United States.
Democratic Socialism Must Be Internationalist
At the heart of socialism is the simple idea that everyone, no matter where they’re born, is worthy of a dignified life — and that the fate of workers everywhere is linked together. Turning our back on that idea by dropping our internationalism would be a grave mistake.
Against Meritocracy
When sociologist Michael Young coined the term “meritocracy,” he was warning against the idea that we should have to compete to prove how talented or hardworking we are. A truly egalitarian society would guarantee a dignified existence for us all — regardless of arbitrary measures of how much we deserve it.
Britain’s Labour Party Can’t Become Another PASOK
Social democratic parties across Europe have suffered “Pasokification,” the fate of the Greek center-left party that lost three-quarters of its voters in just three years. If Britain’s Labour Party wants to avoid similar disasters, it needs an economic radicalism that can show the working class that it’s really on their side.
The Derek Chauvin Conviction Is a Victory for Justice and Democracy
When state officials can murder ordinary citizens in plain sight and get away with it, our society is less democratic. The Derek Chauvins of the world need to be in prison.