Enver Motala is an associate of the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (CERT) at the University of Johannesburg and of the Centre for Integrated Post-School Education and Training at the Nelson Mandela University.
Critics insist that socialists want to squelch freedom. But the exact opposite is the case: democratic socialism is about expanding freedom — and liberating us from the tyranny that pervades everyday life under capitalism.
We cannot afford to come out of the coronavirus crisis without ending a health care system that decides whether we live or die based on our ability to pay the bill. Luckily, we already have working models to do just that.
The coronavirus is exposing anew the barbarity of our for-profit health system, which blocks people from getting tested and doles out treatment on the basis of ability to pay. We need Medicare for All, full stop.
We live in an interwoven, interconnected world where an injury to one is truly an injury to all. We must confront the coronavirus with solidarity and fight for a society where the health of all is more important than profits for a few.
Faced with the threat of coronavirus, Boris Johnson has said statutory sick pay will apply from the first day off work. But the meager payment isn’t enough to live on — and won’t even be made to all workers.
It is indefensible that people should have to fear eviction during a health crisis. Coronavirus calls for emergency controls on the housing market now.
For Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialists of America–backed candidate for the New York State Assembly, organizing victims of the foreclosure crisis and supporting threatened immigrants are part of the same fight: the struggle for the right to a home.
After more than a year of Jair Bolsonaro’s rule in Brazil, the country is hurtling toward authoritarianism. Now the president is calling on his supporters to take to the streets in a “Fuck You March” against the democratic institutions that are standing in the way of his far-right agenda.
The European country hit hardest by coronavirus, Italy has announced a near-total shutdown of shops and public venues, but many nonessential workplaces are still running. Refusing to let bosses risk their safety, workers are now going on strike.
The coronavirus is already exposing the profound damage a decade of Tory austerity has wrought on British society. And it’s about to get a lot worse.
For decades, the Democratic establishment has been determined to avoid “another George McGovern.” They’ve been perfectly willing to risk another Walter Mondale.
Fascists groups in Australia, though tiny, regularly threaten violence. The state is traditionally blind to terror from the Right; don’t expect it to intervene.
All of the fretting about social media addiction and smartphones destroying our attention span misses the point. Capitalism and the profit-seeking of big tech is the real problem.
Joe Biden emerged victorious last night, but his disastrous interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell last week was yet another indicator of why Biden’s handlers have been trying to keep their candidate out of public view. Even in friendly exchanges, Biden can’t help but perform terribly.
The bad news is that the Democratic Party isn’t going anywhere. The good news is that today’s commonsense political demands are, almost unthinkably, democratic socialist ones. Our work continues today.
Morbid despair won’t get us anywhere — win or lose, we should fight to the end for Bernie’s campaign.
Author of Broadway hit The Women, the Vanity Fair managing editor Clare Boothe Luce was a dogged anticommunist. As US ambassador to Italy, she worked tirelessly to keep the Left out of office — and set a precedent for Washington’s meddling in democracies abroad.
Noam Chomsky says that Bernie Sanders is vilified by the media because he’s trying to shape US politics in the interest of working people. We shouldn’t expect anything else.
We deserve a presidential candidate who will eradicate high-stakes testing, champion teachers and public schools, and help free students from the shackles of student debt. Joe Biden is not that candidate.
Bernie Sanders’s competent, evidence-based approach to the pandemic provides a much-needed contrast to the shambolic public health menace of Donald Trump. We need legislation providing for free COVID-19 tests, mandatory paid sick leave, free health care for COVID-19 patients, and quarantine pay.