Jonathan Sas has worked in senior policy and political roles in government, think tanks, and the labor movement. He is an honorary witness to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. His writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, National Post, the Tyee, and Maisonneuve.
Anxiety that automation is coming for workers’ jobs has reached a fever pitch. But talk of robots replacing humans often conceals a less complicated reality: management uses technology to undemocratically reorganize and intensify labor.
Vladimir Putin promised to “denazify Ukraine,” but this week he suppressed Russia’s own watchdog monitoring the far right. Unable to crush Ukraine, his government has turned its fire on domestic critics of war and nationalism.
After bailing out Silicon Valley Bank, the federal government is considering the rescue of First Republic Bank. But just two months ago, First Republic pressured regulators not to adopt rules to minimize the risk of government bailouts for insolvent banks.
On this day in 1980, El Salvadoran archbishop Óscar Romero was murdered by US-backed assassins. Only weeks before, he had written to US President Jimmy Carter to withhold support from El Salvador’s military dictatorship. We reprint the letter here in full.
In the 2023 New York budget fight, Governor Kathy Hochul is relying on billionaires like Michael Bloomberg to try to build support for an austerity budget — rather than listening to wildly popular left-wing demands to tax the rich.
Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas helped create a financial disaster as head of Chicago Public Schools, making bond deals worth $666 million — whose exorbitant interest payments to Wall Street are now robbing the city’s school system.
Conservative commentator Peter Hitchens thinks the Nazis were leftists. His case doesn’t even begin to add up.
Workers’ fear of new artificial intelligence technology makes sense: that technology has the potential to eliminate their jobs. But if we didn’t live under capitalism, AI could be used to liberate us from drudgery rather than hurl us into poverty.
Responding to the Inflation Reduction Act, the EU has unveiled its own green industrial plan. It has little to do with real decarbonization — but hands public money to big business, fueling a global race among “clean-tech” oligopolies.
Over the past two centuries, US imperial interventions have had a devastating impact on the peoples of Latin America. Those interventions have also played a crucial role in US domestic politics, enabling new power blocs to cohere and develop their strategies.
The latest UN climate report was just released, and it’s brought the usual doom loop of grave headlines as emissions keep rising. The way out isn’t getting people to “believe the science” but building a pro-worker climate politics that can win power.
Under existing law, Joe Biden and his health secretary have the power to lower the price of medicines developed with taxpayer funds. They’re refusing to do so for the $180,000-a-year cancer drug Xtandi — after a furious lobbying campaign by Big Pharma.
The wildest fantasy of hypercapitalist ideologues isn’t to expand democracy but to avoid its reach or even snuff it out.
After Silicon Valley Bank’s near collapse, commentators rightly focused on the unfairness of state intervention for an institution that had acted irresponsibly. But little attention was paid to the role that banks like SVB play in financing US militarism.
Twenty years ago, George W. Bush and Tony Blair lied their way into invading Iraq. The mainstream media cheered them along.
Donald Trump has implored conservatives to hit the streets if he ends up indicted in New York. It might be cause for worry — if Trump had any ability to mobilize mass numbers of supporters anymore.
Howard Schultz has yet again left the top executive position at Starbucks. He’s carefully cultivated an image as a progressive CEO. In reality, he has spent his tenure viciously trying to destroy the Starbucks workers’ union.
Public school in the US is already provided universally, free of charge. There’s no reason we shouldn’t provide free lunch to every child at school as well.
Will Sommer, author of the new book Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America, explains where QAnon came from, why it isn’t going away anytime soon, and how material deprivation helps drive conspiracy theories.
Workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have been on strike for nearly half a year. Despite a recent assault on two of the strikers and continued intransigence by the ultrawealthy family who owns the paper, they are digging in for the long haul.