Bernie Showed Us a Different Way
Bernie Sanders didn’t just put forward a set of progressive policies that we can fight for — he showed us that a completely different way of doing politics was possible.
19420 Articles by: Alex Press
Iowa Governor: Your Job or Your Life
In states like Iowa, right-wing governors have used the coronavirus pandemic to continue their assault on workers — forcing thousands to go back to work prematurely and promising to pull unemployment benefits for anyone who has the temerity to put their health first.
In Iraq, a Destroyed State Struggles to Cope With Coronavirus
Since the 2003 war against Iraq, a massive 70 percent of the country’s health care infrastructure has been destroyed. As hospitals are besieged by victims of the COVID-19 pandemic, a state enfeebled by two decades of conflict is again at a breaking point.
Modi’s Government Is Exploiting the Pandemic to Ramp up Repression in Kashmir
The people of Kashmir have been left badly exposed to COVID-19 by a state that spends lavishly on tools of repression while neglecting public health services. The Indian government is using the lockdown to extend its regime of surveillance and control.
How Pakistan’s Terrible COVID-19 Response Forced Doctors Onto a Hunger Strike
Pakistani authorities made a bad start to the coronavirus response, using the crisis to push through an IMF agenda of hospital privatization. Faced with protests by health professionals, the government immediately opted for repression — showing that it considers health care for the masses mere unnecessary spending.
The Australian Greens Must Democratize Their Party Structures
With Adam Bandt as leader, the Australian Greens are charting a leftward course and developing the country’s most ambitious policy proposals. The next step is to build a strong movement behind it — and to achieve that, it will need a democratically empowered membership.
Why Migrant Farm Workers Are Living Four to a Caravan in a Time of Social Distancing
Even as governments halt nonessential travel, thousands of workers are being flown from Eastern Europe to pick farm produce in Britain. Housed several workers to a caravan and often paid below minimum wage, their experience shows how “flexible” seasonal hiring allows bosses to flout the most basic workers’ rights.
Unions Can Fight for and Win COVID-19 Protections
A year before the coronavirus pandemic, graduate workers at the University of Illinois-Chicago went on strike for three weeks and won. Last month, they built off of the infrastructure created during that strike to demand and win COVID-19 protections.
Chile’s Six Months of Struggle
The feminist movement in Chile is one of the strongest in the world, last month bringing millions of women into the streets for International Women’s Day. Building on the mass protests that erupted in October, their movement is only growing bolder, and articulating meaningful alternatives to the country’s neoliberal order.
Liberal Democracy Is in Trouble — And Liberals Won’t Save It
The term “post-democracy” refers to the recent process where democratic institutions have been hollowed out and citizens increasingly excluded from decision-making. But a serious response to this problem can’t just denounce its “populist” symptoms — rather, we need to examine the deeper social ills stemming from economic liberalism itself.
The Committee to Save the Rich
By recruiting notorious neoliberal economist Larry Summers to advise him on coronavirus policy, Joe Biden has shown that since 2008, liberal elites have learned nothing and forgotten everything.
Why You Should Join a Socialist Organization
There’s only one way to get the political education, organizing skills, and institutional support you need to be an effective socialist: join a socialist organization.
Workers at Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart, and Target Are on Strike and Need Your Solidarity
Today, workers at Amazon, Whole Foods, Instacart, and Target are striking and asking customers to stage a one-day solidarity boycott. They’re fighting for what they deserve — and we should have their backs.
When the Seattle General Strike and the 1918 Flu Collided
The first major general strike in the United States coincided with the last major pandemic. Here’s the full story.
On Strike — No Rent
This May 1 in New York City, housing activists are organizing “Can’t Pay May,” a citywide rent strike that will dramatize the impossibility of making rent under lockdown — and the need for a radical overhaul of the housing system.
It Took Guts for Chris Hayes to Cover Tara Reade’s Accusations Against Joe Biden
Bucking a liberal establishment that has ignored, downplayed, and dismissed Tara Reade’s accusations of sexual assault against Joe Biden, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes has urged his viewers to take it seriously. TV news needs more anchors like him.
For a Left Cultural Politics
Much of our contemporary culture works to deny the existence of class and inequality, at the same time as its structures of nepotism and unpaid internships keep working-class voices marginalized. We need to wrestle back control at the point of cultural production.
“We Were Called Comrades Without Condescension or Patronage”
In the Jim Crow South, the Alabama Communist Party distinguished itself as a champion of racial and economic justice — fighting for the rights of black defendants, helping organize hyper-exploited sharecroppers, and welcoming black workers into its ranks on completely equal terms.
Don’t Listen to David Brooks: It’s Not You, It’s the 1 Percent
How do commentators like David Brooks account for the undeniable rise in inequality? Not by analyzing the dynamics of wealth distribution and power that would help us address the problem, but by pointing the finger at the rest of us.
Your Classes Are on Zoom and Your Teaching Staff Is Being Cut
Through decades of marketization, universities have replaced permanent teaching staff with temporary and often low-paid hires. Faced with COVID-19, they’re pulling the purse strings even tighter — as students pay high fees for online seminars with a shrinking band of overworked lecturers.