The Coronavirus Vaccine Must Be Free for Everyone
After receiving boatloads of public money, one of the companies developing a COVID-19 vaccine is trying to profit from it. That’s immoral — any COVID-19 vaccine must be free and available to all.
19643 Articles by: Jonathan Sas
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.
Alex Morse: “I Would Be One of the Few Democrats That Stands Up To the Democratic Party”
The progressive congressional candidate talks to Jacobin about the smear campaign he’s endured, the limitations of a Joe Biden presidency plus Richard Neal chairmanship, his record on policing, his personal relationship to the opioid crisis, and democratic socialism.
In Belarus, Labor Is Struggling to Find Its Voice
Since Belarus’s disputed election, both President Alexander Lukashenko and the liberal opposition have recognized the importance of strike actions in deciding what happens next. But while there have been protests across Belarus’s major workplaces, a long-shackled labor movement faces an uphill struggle to advance a political agenda of its own.
Red-Scare Rhetoric Isn’t Gone From Histories of American Sport
The Cold War may be over, but its rhetoric demonizing the former Eastern Bloc and valorizing the United States isn’t. Nowhere is that clearer than in popular sport history productions like ESPN’s 30 for 30 podcast Heavy Medals and the Netflix documentary Athlete A, chronicling the abuse of elite gymnasts.
The Government’s Pantry Isn’t Bare — the People’s Pantry Is Bare
At a moment where tens of millions of families will require the government to help fill their pantries and medicine cabinets, this is not the moment to thrust our country into another age of austerity. Resist the call of fiscal hawks everywhere.
Bringing H. P. Lovecraft to Jim Crow America
The new HBO series Lovecraft Country melds the macabre monster stories of H. P. Lovecraft with the real-life horror of Jim Crow America. Once again, Jordan Peele shows that the scariest American monster is the white-supremacist cop.
Republicans Run Toward Their Base. Democrats Run Away From Theirs.
This year’s RNC was predictably a circus, while the DNC was largely pitched to a relatively small sliver of affluent professionals and suburban conservatives. While conservatives are pulled ever rightward by an increasingly radicalized fringe, liberal elites discipline their base into accepting a message crafted for someone else.
With Their Wildcat Strike, NBA Players Have Pointed the Way Forward
Despite its outcome, this week’s NBA wildcat strike provided a crucial lesson for all of us: we have to disrupt owners’ profits and engage in collective action if we have any hope of making change.
Greece Is Dropping Migrants into the Sea — And Europe Is Turning a Blind Eye
Reports this month showed how Greek authorities have pushed at least 1,072 migrants into the sea, forcing them to fend for their lives on rickety rafts and dinghies. The murderous policy is a gross violation of international law — yet faced with a harshened anti-migrant mood, other European governments have remained silent.
Richard Neal Has Spent Decades Carrying Water for Corporate America
Richard Neal’s career is the story of a low-profile lawmaker keeping his head down, doing the work, and serving the interests of the corporate donors who give him money.
From QAnon to Kyle Rittenhouse, the Right Is Sinking Deeper Into an Alternate Reality
Instability is a permanent feature of capitalism, but the coronavirus pandemic has introduced a whole new level of volatility. Amid the turmoil, the American right is dreaming more feverishly than ever of apocalypse and heroism.
Will New York Teachers Strike for Safe Schools?
In response to Mayor Bill de Blasio pushing a public schools reopening despite the serious dangers it would pose, New York City’s United Federation of Teachers is considering their first strike in almost half a century. We talked to union activist and Brooklyn teacher Jia Lee about why a school reopening isn’t safe and what teachers are willing to do to stop it.
The Young Eugene V. Debs
A pair of leftist historians has undertaken a massive project: compiling a six-volume collection of Eugene Debs’s writings and speeches. We spoke with one of them, who detailed Debs’s extraordinary journey from moderate young trade union leader to courageous socialist militant.
Richard Neal Is Making Sure a Wall Street Tax Break Survives to Keep Enriching His Donors
Proposed Democratic legislation would end a special tax break for Wall Street executives — but the bill is stalled in Rep. Richard Neal’s committee, as Wall Street bankrolls his campaign to try to fight off his progressive primary challenger, Alex Morse.
Bernie Sanders’s Five-Year War
How he lost and where we go from here.
Cori Bush: “I’m Coming With the Whole Activist Community, Not Just By Myself”
Earlier this month, Cori Bush ousted a ten-time incumbent to become Democratic nominee for Missouri’s 1st congressional district. She told Jacobin how her experience as a BLM and public housing activist shaped her campaign — and how she’s planning to bring the movements’ demands into Congress.
In Sports and Everywhere Else, Collective Action Can Make Change
The history of American professional sports is inseparable from a history of protest. But never before has such a large cross-section of leagues been impacted by political action. We should celebrate the development.
New Orleans Sanitation Workers Are On Strike for a Raise, Hazard Pay, and PPE
Sanitation workers for Metro Services Group in New Orleans are currently in week sixteen of a strike. They say their working conditions are abysmal, deeply unsafe in the middle of a pandemic — and that they’re paid only $10.25 an hour.
Joe Biden’s Strategy of Appealing to Republicans Is Courting Disaster
In 2016, Democrats put their chips on winning over conservative voters disgusted with Donald Trump and ended up with their worst electoral college margin since the days of Michael Dukakis. For some reason, they seem intent on trying the same strategy again.
Cops Have Long Encouraged Armed Right-Wing Counterprotesters Like the Teenage Shooter in Kenosha
Since the latest uprising for racial justice began, police throughout the country have been very friendly with cop-worshipping, armed right-wingers who have shown up on the streets across America to oppose protesters. The teenage shooter in Kenosha who killed two protesters this week wasn’t the first and probably won’t be the last.