From Posting to Politics
The Left has no choice but to engage in organizing and propagandizing online. But we also have to understand that online organizing is not capable of building the kind of solidarity or coordination our politics demand.
19516 Articles by: Frances Abele
Frances Abele CM is Distinguished Research Professor and Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy Emerita at Carleton University. She is a research fellow at the Carleton Centre for Community Innovation and the Broadbent Institute. Much of her work focuses on indigenous-Canada relations.
Italy’s New “Pro-European” Government Is Intensifying the War on Migrants
When former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi was appointed Italy’s prime minister, he was widely hailed as a pro-European bulwark against the populist right. Yet the first weeks of his government have seen a wave of attacks against migrant rescue NGOs and refugees.
Revisiting the Life and Intellectual Legacy of Primo Levi
The author, anti-fascist partisan, and Nazi death camp survivor Primo Levi died on this day in 1987. His life and the cautious Enlightenment ideology he advanced in his work, Enzo Traverso writes, told the story of the twentieth century and its battles.
Justin Trudeau Hasn’t Delivered On His Pledge to Establish Public Pharmacare
Canada’s public health system is often seen as a model for the US. When it comes to pharmacare, however, Canada imitates its neighbor’s lousy practices, and Justin Trudeau has broken his pledge to establish a public prescription system that would be more just and more efficient.
Daniel Hale Blew the Whistle on the US’s Illegal Drone Program. He’s a Hero, Not a Criminal.
Former intelligence analyst Daniel Hale is being prosecuted for blowing the whistle on America’s drone program. It’s the latest in the topsy-turvy world of national security whistleblowers, who reveal illegal and immoral conduct by the US military yet face prison time as if they committed the real crimes.
France’s Far Right Is Setting the Agenda Because the Mainstream Allows It To
Ahead of the 2022 election, French media are presenting an inevitable duel between incumbent Emmanuel Macron and the “populist” Marine Le Pen. Yet for decades we’ve seen how this liberal framing fuels far-right talking points — echoing Le Pen’s false claim to stand for those “left behind” against the status quo.
Joe Manchin Took Corporate Cash — Now He’s Defending Corporate Interests
West Virginia senator Joe Manchin’s opposition to increasing the corporate tax rate benefits the legal services industry that bankrolled his election bids. It’s simple — Democrats need to pick between pro-working-class legislation and the business interests they’re aligned with.
Amazon Can Only Claim Their Jobs Are Decent Because American Work Has Gotten So Miserable
Amazon maims its workers and drives wages down, yet the company still attracts job applicants and claims to provide “good jobs.” Those claims were strong enough to play a role in the defeat of a union effort in Bessemer, Alabama — but that says less about Amazon than it does about the miserable state of the labor market.
Under Capitalism, the Deck Is Always Stacked Against Unionizing at Companies Like Amazon
The failed Amazon union drive in Alabama is a stark reminder of a basic fact of life under capitalism: it’s always easier for bosses to destroy a fledgling unionization effort than it is for workers to get together and fight for their own interests.
New York Times Headline Writers Declare Amazon Union Vote Free and Fair
The New York Times’ Amazon union election coverage is a tale as old as time: When workers vote to back a union, employers blame outside agitators. When workers reject a union after a massive anti-union campaign by the boss, it was the workers’ own free choice.
Canada’s NDP Needs to Go Big or Go Home
With an aggressive wealth tax and Green New Deal in their platform, the New Democratic Party of Canada has the potential to change the national conversation. But if the NDP can’t outflank the Trudeau Liberals from the left, it might as well pick up and go home.
Amazon Waged a Brutal Anti-Union Campaign. Unsurprisingly, They Won.
Amazon won the majority of ballots cast in the union election by the company’s warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama. There’s no way around it: the result is a major setback in the fight to organize one of the most powerful corporations on the planet.
Denmark’s Frederik Borgbjerg Wanted to Win Democratic Socialism, Not Just the Welfare State
The Nordic social democracies are rightly praised for their robust welfare states and worker protections. But the aspirations of early Social Democrats like Denmark’s Frederik Borgbjerg went far beyond the welfare state: they wanted to liberate humanity from the shackles of capitalist domination.
Democrat Blanche Lincoln Is Helping Big Business Avoid Paying Taxes
Blanche Lincoln, a former two-term “Blue Dog” conservative Democrat from Arkansas, is lobbying against increases in the corporate tax rate in Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan. It’s all about protecting the highly profitable business interests filling her wallet.
CIA Whistleblower: “Julian Assange Will Not Receive an Impartial Jury”
Jeffrey Sterling is a former CIA officer and whistleblower, jailed on trumped-up charges under the Espionage Act. He spoke to Jacobin about how he was victimized — and why the district court that convicted him is sure to be stacked against Julian Assange.
The Algerian Revolution Changed the World for the Better
The Algerian struggle for freedom from French imperialism was absolutely central to the political landscape of the twentieth century. We should remember its heroic history and honor its legacy today.
Private Equity and Hedge Funds Survived the 2008 Crisis. Now They’re Making a Killing Off COVID-19.
The COVID-19 crisis has been a case study in the destructiveness of predatory financial institutions like private equity and hedge funds. From private-equity-owned hospitals that cut staff to the bone to the growing investor interest in disaster-driven industries like insurance, the pandemic has been a gold mine for some of the finance industry’s most rapacious and socially useless segments.
Hundreds of Pittsburgh-Area Charter School Educators Are Voting on Unionization
Facing down anti-union threats from an increasingly brazen management, educators at more than a dozen Pittsburgh-area charter schools are voting on unionization. For teachers already burdened by impossible workloads, the charters’ handling of the COVID-19 crisis prompted them to act.
The 21st-Century Road to Serfdom Runs Through Silicon Valley
The danger posed by California’s Proposition 22, the tech-backed ballot measure that dismantles existing labor protections for gig workers, isn’t just about low wages and poor working conditions. It signals the creation of an entirely new kind of servant class.
In the Caucasus, There Is a Peace Agreement but Not Peace
Last fall, Armenia was devastated by a six-week war with its neighbor Azerbaijan, ending in the deployment of Russian peacekeepers across the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh. Yet the “peace agreement” has done nothing to resolve the deeper reasons for the conflict, in the ethno-nationalist strife which has simmered since the fall of the USSR.