Joe Wilkins is a writer and musician from Saginaw, Michigan.
After being found responsible for starting a deadly wildfire last summer, Hawaii’s for-profit energy utility is set to receive a public bailout. The episode makes a powerful case for bringing utilities under public ownership.
Juggalos, the intense Insane Clown Posse fanbase, have long been targeted by police, including in a dubious federal investigation under the legacy of a Red Scare law. The group’s crime, it seems, is its very existence as a visible working-class counterculture.
Amid a historic upsurge of worker militancy in 1960s Italy, communist composer Luigi Nono turned his efforts to dramatizing the plight of exploited factory employees. The result was musically groundbreaking, and beloved by the workers who inspired it.
For years, Puerto Rico has endured a ruthless campaign of austerity and privatization, including a corporate takeover of its once-public power grid. The result: nearly a quarter-million people have been without power for over two weeks since Hurricane Fiona.
American businesses received billions of dollars to continue providing jobs during the pandemic. But workers haven’t seen much of that money — so where did it all go? In one typical Michigan town, it seems to have gone straight into employers’ pockets.