James Bloodworth is a writer and journalist from London.
In an environment where the Left is still weak, teasing out creative uses of executive power to win progressive gains and raise expectations is essential to building power. That includes figuring out how we can cancel all student debt through executive action.
December 17 will see the biggest strikes yet against Emmanuel Macron’s assault on pensions. But with the neoliberal president well aware that this battle will define his presidency, defeating him will take more than single days of action.
So far in the Democratic primary, unions have been riding the fence. But they could play the decisive factor in Bernie Sanders’s efforts to defeat the Democratic Party establishment, oust Donald Trump, and win transformative social change.
Getting rid of Trump would be great, but Congress isn’t going to do it — we actually have to vote him out. And impeachment, a therapeutic ritual for MSNBC hosts and an act of score-settling by the national security state, isn’t helping.
Impeachment is about more than Donald Trump — it has the potential to undermine the right-wing forces that stand behind him. Socialists should see impeachment as an opportunity to attack a movement that poses a long-run threat to the Left’s very existence.
Celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz has done so many bad things during his life, joining Donald Trump’s impeachment legal team doesn’t even rank among the worst of them.
In 2017, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party transcended the divides of the Brexit referendum to spread a message of economic change and democratic renewal. But a fringe within Labour insisted that overturning the referendum was the only issue that mattered — and succeeded in undermining Corbynism’s promise of uniting working people.
After last week’s defeat, our immediate task must be to protect the current political project within the Labour Party — the only one able to meaningfully unite the broad working class.
Following cataclysmic bushfires, Sydney has spent the last fortnight choked by poisonous smoke. While Prime Minister Scott Morrison pretends all is normal, construction and dock workers have refused to put business as usual above their health, and are walking off the job.
This presidential campaign, the Center for American Progress has been put in the comical position of having to promote policies that they just a few months ago claimed were insane and politically suicidal. But one constant remains — they can’t stand Bernie Sanders.
Labour’s policies were popular across the country, but we’ve learned it takes much more than good ideas to win an election. Whether in or out of office, Labour must be a force for good in people’s lives if we’re to win back the heartland seats.
The publication of the “Afghanistan Papers” has underscored what a bloody disaster the US occupation has been. Whether it’s Trump or Obama or Bush, we must oppose US imperialism no matter who is in the White House.
For Labour door-knockers, defeat was bitter, but the experience built skills and solidarities that will carry them into the next fights: preserving Labour as a vehicle for socialism, battling austerity and despair at the local level, and preparing the ground for victory at the next election.
Democrats and labor leaders are touting the renegotiated NAFTA deal as a win for workers and the planet. Don’t believe them: it’s a pro-corporate framework that will continue to bludgeon working people in Mexico, Canada, and the United States.
Amazon went all out to defeat Seattle’s socialist city council member Kshama Sawant in this year’s election — but Sawant emerged victorious. In an interview with Jacobin, she reflects on why it’s so important to pick fights with capitalists, and what every socialist running for office should know.
The concept of “emotional labor” can help us better understand work and exploitation. But when it’s used to keep score between friends and family rather than examine our relationship as workers, it doesn’t bring us any closer to liberation.
Jeff Bezos helped save the sci-fi TV show The Expanse because he wants to promote space colonization — on capitalist terms. But ironically, the show he saved depicts a grim and brutal life for workers on Earth and beyond.
This is not the time to abandon the socialist policies that would most improve lives in the very areas Labour lost. Instead, we must build a more effective movement that can win them.
It’s okay to talk to your kids about politics. In fact, it’s a good idea — if you do it the right way. Here’s how.
James Baldwin was many things: a brilliant writer, a trenchant social critic, a dogged activist. He was also an unapologetic radical.