Mass Politics, Not Movementism, Is the Future of the Left
Bernie Sanders is out of the race, but we can’t retreat to the subcultural politics that were hegemonic on the Left before his campaigns began. Mass politics is still our way forward.
19093 Articles by: Alex Press
Bernie Must Retool His Campaign Organization, Not Dismantle It
Bernie Sanders has officially suspended his campaign, but its infrastructure is our best hope at organizing to win a just response to the coronavirus pandemic. Bernie can’t dismantle that infrastructure now — we need it more than ever.
Even in a Pandemic, Workers Can Fight Back
During the Great Depression, radicals played key roles in helping organize the worker upsurges that led to the New Deal’s pro-worker policies. We can do the same today in fighting back against the economic misery and unsafe working conditions of the coronavirus pandemic.
Manufacturing Consent One Chyron at a Time
Matt Taibbi’s Hate Inc. is a raucous updating of Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman’s classic dissection of capitalist news. Its message is hilarious yet grim: behind the buffoonery of the 24-hour partisan news machine is a propaganda system devoted to upholding the power of entrenched elites.
A Brief Intermission in the Age of Unrest
A new report from a national security think tank documents the historically unprecedented spread of mass protest across the globe over the past decade. As the world economy sinks into its worst downturn since the 1930s, we are likely entering an era of explosive change.
We Just Lost a Giant of Development Economics
When the world was shifting toward neoliberalism, blind to shocking inequalities, Thandika Mkandawire (1940–2020) bravely stood up for the welfare state. We should remember him as a brilliant economist and committed egalitarian.
“Different Policies Wouldn’t Have Prevented Coronavirus — But They Would Have Improved Our Response”
Just months after emergency room staff went on strike to protest their lack of resources, Paris’s hospitals are having to skimp on masks and thermometers. We spoke to frontline health workers about how they’re coping with the pandemic — and how years of underinvestment is making their job harder.
We Can’t Let Tech Companies Use This Crisis to Expand Their Power
Whether in China or the United States, tech companies are teaming up with governments to boost surveillance amid the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a slippery slope that threatens to bring more civil liberties violations and more power for profit-hungry tech companies.
Read Vivian Gornick’s Romance of American Communism
Based on interviews with former Communist Party members, Vivian Gornick’s The Romance of American Communism is a book full of emotional people who struggle to talk about their emotions. It shows how Party commitment gave everyday life an epic dimension — and made political defeats into personal traumas.
Italy Is Discovering that European Solidarity Doesn’t Exist
Thursday’s Eurogroup agreement promised Italy loans to deal with the health care costs of coronavirus — but refused to help it stave off economic catastrophe. EU leaders have once again put neoliberal dogmas above the welfare of ordinary citizens — further undermining Italians’ once-dogged pro-Europeanism.
The War on Drugs Victimized a Generation. Now We Have to Give Them a Future.
Pedro Carrizales — “El Mijis” — came to Mexican politics by an unconventional route: a former gang member from the barrios of San Luis Potosí, he is now a left-wing state legislator, dedicated to the plight of Mexico’s poor young people, collateral damage of the war on drugs.
Biden’s First Concessions to the Left Are Pathetic
Joe Biden will need to win over the vast majority of Sanders supporters if he wants to defeat Trump. But his campaign’s first effort proves he’d rather risk losing than embrace even a fraction of the Sanders program.
The Coronavirus and the Crisis
Coronavirus has exposed capitalism as unable to meet our most basic needs, but that has never been enough for the Left. We need to develop democratic organizations and build our social power, even in the middle of a pandemic, to win.
A Democratic Virus
As the coronavirus sweeps the entire globe, democracy is becoming just another casualty.
Building Picket Lines When We Can’t Stand Together
The wave of strikes demanding better workplace protections shows labor’s impressive resilience faced with the COVID-19 crisis. Social distancing and the rise of homeworking are blocking off many traditional forms of collective action — but also bringing about new ways of pressuring employers.
We’re in a Plague — Yet Andrew Cuomo Just Passed an Absolutely Brutal Austerity Budget
The media is fawning over Andrew Cuomo’s performance on the national stage in response to the coronavirus pandemic. They’re ignoring the devastating austerity budget that he just rammed down the state of New York’s throat.
Socialists, Stay in the Labour Party
Recent developments in the Labour Party have many socialists wondering if they should give up on the party for good. That would be a disaster. Leftists should stay in the party and focus on building power at the local level.
Bernie Sanders’s Campaign Was Trying to Save American Democracy
Bernie Sanders’s campaign was caricatured as irrationally angry, even Trumpian. In reality, it gave voice to the voiceless, raised people’s sense of what’s possible through collective action, and refused to accept that exploitation and the fear of economic devastation should be the lot of millions.
Weekends With Ana Kasparian and Michael Brooks
This Saturday at 1 PM Eastern, we’re debuting a live YouTube show, “Weekends,” hosted by Ana Kasparian and Michael Brooks. Liberals are hypocrites, conservatives are cruel, but we have an alternative.
Socialize Big Pharma Today. Save Your Life Tomorrow.
Deaths from antibiotic resistance will hit 10 million a year by 2050. But despite recent breakthroughs using artificial intelligence to discover antibiotics, the private sector doesn’t find it profitable enough to make new and better antibiotics. We’re all going to suffer unless the pharmaceutical sector is socialized.