When Rioting Works
Rioting is a rational response to grinding poverty and oppression. And though it’s not always the case, research shows that it can be effective in winning social change.
19274 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.
Young People Today Are Uniquely Radical Because Capitalism Has Failed Them
It’s a myth that young people are inherently left-wing, or that older people are always conservative. Millennials and zoomers are turning to radicalism not because they’re young, but because capitalism has failed them.
Donald Trump’s Antifa Bogeyman Has a Long, Proud History of Fighting Fascists
Donald Trump has threatened to ban “Antifa” as a terrorist organization. But you can’t ban a set of ideas. As long as we face the threat of a violent, authoritarian right, anti-fascism will remain an essential force.
Private Prisons Should Be Abolished — But They Aren’t the Real Problem
Anyone who examines privately owned US prisons has to come to the conclusion that they are abhorrent and must be eliminated. But they can also be low-hanging fruit used by opportunistic Democrats to ignore the much larger problem of — and solutions to — mass incarceration.
Minneapolis Bus Driver: “It’s Imperative That Unions Fight for All Workers”
Unions must play a central role in the fight against police brutality. We spoke with a rank-and-file bus driver in Minneapolis who is organizing his coworkers to refuse to assist police in transporting protesters — because, he says, “an injury to one is an injury to all.”
Don’t Fall for the Myth of the “Outside Agitator” in Racial Justice Protests
Whenever mass protests of any kind kick off, defenders of the status quo immediately accuse protesters as being duped by “outside agitators.” Don’t fall for it — the lie of the outside agitator is designed to weaken protests and downplay our widespread anger at injustice.
Coronavirus’s Devastation Has Been Made Far Worse by Years of Democrats’ Neoliberal Policies
Coronavirus isn’t only exposing Donald Trump’s incompetence. The crisis is laying bare the consequences of the neoliberal economic agenda corporate Democrats have been pushing for decades.
We Are Living in a Red Spring
In the Red Summer of 1919, racist violence hit America as the Spanish flu ravaged the country. With mass protests against police murders sweeping the pandemic-plagued United States, it appears we might be now living in a Red Spring.
The Climate Crisis and COVID-19 Are Inseparable
Commentators like to point to Wuhan’s “wet markets” as the source of the pandemic, but COVID-19 is the result of a much larger, global phenomenon of environmental degradation. Combatting both means putting the politics of food production and land use at the very heart of our socialist project.
How Colonialism and Austerity Are Shaping Africa’s Response to the Coronavirus
African countries have shown impressive ingenuity in dealing with the coronavirus. But the legacies of colonialism and Western-imposed austerity have left them ill-equipped to attack the deadly virus.
China Is Not the Enemy — Neoliberalism Is
China’s united response to COVID-19 is often painted as a reflection of authoritarian “Asian values.” But the collective mobilization relied on real public support — a temporary social truce that today threatens to fracture.
Joe Biden Wants to Be the Anti-Trump — So Why Does He Support Building Trump’s Signature Border Wall?
Professional Democrats used to paint Donald Trump’s border wall as the symbol of everything that was grotesque about him. But now that Joe Biden has come out in favor of it, they’ve offered barely a whisper of protest.
Bolivia’s Post-Coup President Has Unleashed a Campaign of Terror
In November, Evo Morales was forced out of office in a right-wing coup. He was trying to avoid a campaign of terror from the Right — but under Bolivia’s new ultraconservative president, Jeanine Áñez, that terror, now carried out by paramilitaries, is still escalating.
Who Exactly Is Doing the Looting, and Who’s Being Looted?
We live in an Orwellian era, in which working-class people pilfering convenience store goods is called “looting.” Rich people stealing hundreds of billions of dollars, on the other hand, is just well-functioning “public policy.”
Israel’s Bloated New Government Is Entering Dangerous Waters
Benjamin Netayahu’s newly convened government, the largest in Israeli history, is also facing the country’s greatest economic crisis in decades. As signs of public disaffection start to grow, it may try to avoid challenges to its power by provoking a violent confrontation with Palestinians.
States Are Copying and Pasting Immunity Laws for Nursing Home Executives
Lawmakers across the country are using identical legislative language to shield hospital and nursing home corporations from prosecution for COVID–19-related illness and deaths — after those companies pumped huge amounts of cash into state elections.
Reclaiming Harrisburg
There’s a pandemic raging and Bernie Sanders is off the ballot, but other candidates inspired by his campaign are still running — like Rick Krajewski and Nikil Saval, two candidates for the Pennsylvania state legislature with roots in working-class fights, who are backed by Sanders and the Democratic Socialists of America.
Social Media Companies Can’t Be Trusted to Protect Our Democracy
Social media platforms have become a central element of modern political life — too important to allow them to be run according to the whims of either an unbalanced president like Donald Trump or a few tech billionaires like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
“No Matter How Different the Movements Were, the LAPD Targeted Every One of Them”
From the Black Panthers to the Communist Party, radical Los Angeles in the ’60s was a seething cauldron of unrest, united by the brutal, lawless repression of the LAPD. In a rollicking new book, Mike Davis and Jon Wiener tell the story of a decade of explosions.
A Socialist Takes on Big Real Estate in North Brooklyn
Emily Gallagher is running to be the first socialist in a century to represent her North Brooklyn district in the New York state assembly. Her focus on residential displacement and workers’ rights is drawing a steady flow of small donations — while big corporate money from companies like Lyft is being mobilized against her.