Twee Began as an Unabashedly Radical Subculture
Love it or hate it, twee is back. It’s the subject of innumerable think pieces, but the subculture’s radical roots in feminism, punk, and the fight against Margaret Thatcher often go unnoticed.
19258 Articles by: Elizabeth Mahony
Yemen Could Have Peace — If the Saudis Stop Demanding Victory
Yemen’s rich and complex history was upended by its catastrophic civil war beginning in 2014. A peace agreement could help Yemenis recover the frustrated hopes of the 2011 uprising — if Saudi Arabia stops demanding victory for its allies.
Give Us a Three-Day Weekend
We work too much. Now is the time to change that: we need a four-day workweek and a three-day weekend.
The Rise of the Technocrats Has Pushed Italian Democracy Deeper into Crisis
Today, Italian lawmakers begin electing a new president. The president is often seen as a neutral referee standing above politics — but calls for ex–central banker Mario Draghi to take the job show how pro-market dogmas have been hardwired into public life.
What Will the “Metaverse” Do to Art and Culture?
By privileging immediacy and affect, virtual and augmented reality require us to submit to our senses. But culture is not just a matter of feeling — it is also a way of knowing and understanding the world.
Vaccine Apartheid Has Reinforced US Empire
The Biden administration’s lofty rhetoric about “vaccine diplomacy” is a blatant lie. The reality is that the US government has actively upheld a system of vaccine apartheid that guarantees vaccine scarcity in the Global South and reinforces US empire.
Preston Is Bringing Socialist Ideas to Life
From workers’ cooperatives and community banks to living wage employment and regeneration that benefits the community, municipal socialism in Preston, England, shows what a real alternative to neoliberalism can look like.
A Canadian Company Used COVID Wage Supports to Hire Scabs
While Canadian workers took to picket lines to agitate in the face of the hardships brought on by the pandemic, Canadian businesses collected COVID benefits intended for the very employees they laid off.
The Tragedy of Macbeth Is a Cinematic Feast for Starving Film Lovers
The Tragedy of Macbeth is Joel Coen’s first film without his brother Ethan. And the movie isn’t just a triumph — it’s a reminder that, even with the dismal state of cinema today, movies can still surprise us.
Joe Biden Promised Change. He Hasn’t Delivered.
From immigration and foreign policy to the pandemic and climate, Joe Biden promised a break with the policies of the Donald Trump era. What we’ve mostly gotten, however, is a change in rhetoric and the status quo in substance.
Big Tech Is About to Make Our Terrible Health Care System Even Worse
“It’s like Uber, but for nurses.” Does that scare you? It should. Private hospitals are increasingly teaming up with Silicon Valley to make American health care even more exploitative.
The Green Transition Can’t Be an Excuse to Fire Workers
German engineering giant Bosch is mounting massive layoffs in the name of adapting to the electric car market. But workers insist the move is really about increasing profits — and climate protesters have joined the fight to save their jobs.
Epic Clapbacks Won’t Stop Eric Adams
When dealing with Eric Adams, New York’s eccentric but unabashedly pro-landlord mayor, progressives will need to throw out the old anti-Trump playbook and focus on those issues — like rent laws — that are most important to the working-class New Yorkers who elected him.
With The Right to Sex, Amia Srinivasan Wants to Revitalize Feminism
Amia Srinivasan’s new essay collection, The Right to Sex, is less a manifesto than an attempt to think through the concerns of contemporary feminism. Where the book succeeds, it offers the intellectual heft to power a reinvigorated movement to transform the world.
Succession Is a Show About Capitalism in the Era of Economic Stagnation
Succession captures the insanity of elite culture in contemporary capitalism. Like their real-world counterparts, the show’s characters desperately fight for an ever-higher place at the top as the millions below them suffer.
Cryptocurrency Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme
Cryptocurrency is not merely a bad investment or speculative bubble. It’s worse than that: it’s a full-on fraud.
Joe Biden Missed His Golden Opportunity to Attack the Pandemic
One of the best ways Joe Biden could have attacked the pandemic and boosted the US’s vaccination rate would have been to fight for Medicare for All, or at least a public option. He refused to do so.
Dominicans of Haitian Descent Need to Have Their Citizenship Recognized
Thousands of Dominicans of Haitian descent are forced to live like fugitives because the Dominican government refuses to acknowledge their claims to citizenship. The DR’s racist denaturalization policy is tearing apart families and destroying lives.
Austerity Is Prolonging the Pandemic
The Australian government had two years to build hospitals, train health care workers, strengthen social services, and manufacture COVID tests and vaccines. They didn’t, because it would have gone against the neoliberal consensus that unites both major parties.
Smedley Butler Helped Build American Empire. Then He Turned Against It.
Smedley Butler was born to privilege and power, becoming a powerful general in the most powerful military in the world. But he realized he was playing a key role in an evil system, US imperialism — and used his privilege and power to speak out against it.