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.
Antonio Gramsci is remembered as a great theorist of modern politics and culture. But he didn’t think big ideas were just a matter for intellectuals — and he insisted that workers must become the leaders of their own organizations.
Pundits who once decried Joe Biden’s attacks on Social Security are now insisting he never made them, while self-declared “fact-checkers” with an ax to grind are treated like an infallible Ministry of Truth. The anti-Sanders attack machine has taken an Orwellian turn.
Austria’s right-wing chancellor Sebastian Kurz promises his coalition with the Greens will “protect both the climate and the borders.” But while the Greens have accepted a right-wing agenda on immigration, the partners’ shared neoliberal assumptions will hobble action on the climate.
In an absurd interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Hillary Clinton — one of the least popular politicians in modern memory — trashes Bernie Sanders, one of the most popular. Yet again, Clinton has showcased the elitism and cluelessness that cost her the 2016 election.
The phrase “believe women” was coined to demand that women’s experiences of sexual assault be taken seriously. Elizabeth Warren’s defenders cynically using that rhetoric to attack Bernie Sanders isn’t just dishonest — it hurts the movement against sexual harassment and assault.
A batch of quietly released documents confirms what many have long suspected: Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign worked behind the scenes to delay the release of US hostages in Iran, for the benefit of Reagan’s election campaign. It raises the question: When was the last time a Republican won a presidential election without the help of dirty tricks?
With a resurgent left-labor movement and a new crop of progressive and socialist city council members, nervous Chicago real estate developers are hinting they’ll pull their investments in the city. To stop capitalists from undercutting left agendas around the country, we need to recognize when they’re bluffing — and how to stop them when they’re serious.
Coca-Cola killed trade unionists in Latin America. General Motors built vehicles known to catch fire. Tobacco companies suppressed cancer research. And Boeing knew that its planes were dangerous. Corporations don’t care if they kill people — as long as it’s profitable.
A new look at the 2018 midterms shows that while Bernie Sanders has already won back “Obama-Trump” voters, Elizabeth Warren was decimated in exactly the kinds of places Democrats need to win in 2020.
A conspiracy theory rocketing around South African social media claims that the real Nelson Mandela died in 1985. It’s a desperate attempt to make sense of the rampant inequality still gripping the post-apartheid country — but only socialist politics, not conspiracy theories, can diagnose the problem and offer a just solution.
Democrats have signed off on Donald Trump’s latest trade agreements, including NAFTA 2.0. But the rotten deals are nothing to celebrate — they still operate under the absurd assumption that if US companies are profitable, benefits will trickle down to workers.
Joe Biden was once a New Deal Democrat. Then he “evolved” and starting backing decades of Republican plans to cut Medicare and Social Security.
For years, Third Way politicians claimed to be modernizing progressive politics by rejecting leftist policies. But their political project now stands in ruins — and it’s democratic socialism that is on the rise.
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro cheered Trump’s assassination of Qassem Soleimani and the escalation of hostilities with Iran with a simple underlying message — American lives matter in a way that Iranian lives do not.
When Scotland held an independence referendum in 2014, Catalan leaders criticized Madrid’s sharp refusal of any similar vote. There, Spanish nationalists have exploited the Left’s weaknesses on self-determination — and Boris Johnson’s bid to block a fresh vote in Scotland risks bringing the same dynamics to Britain.
Last May, Marc Botenga was elected as the Belgian Workers’ Party’s first member of the European Parliament. In an interview he spoke of the elite echo chamber he found there — and how he’s trying to finally make labor’s voice heard within its walls.
A six-week strike has paralyzed France’s bus and rail networks, forcing Emmanuel Macron to water down his pension reform. The transit workers at the heart of the strike want to block the reform entirely — but their hopes of victory rely on other groups of workers joining them.
There’s a void at the heart of English identity, with its reliance on empty clichés and old dreams of empire. But decentralizing power to the regions points to an alternative — replacing narrow nationalism with an inclusive community pride.
When our housing system’s primary function is to enrich capitalists rather than provide for humans’ basic needs, it’s no surprise that developers would rather deploy a small army complete with guns, a battering ram, and a tank to remove homeless families from an empty home, as they did earlier this week in Oakland, California.
After the Florida Supreme Court upheld the state’s modern-day “poll tax” this week, right-wing governor Ron DeSantis gloated that “voting is a privilege.” He’s wrong — and socialists should be at the forefront of fighting for democratic rights.