Bernie Sanders Should Embrace the Demand to Defund the Police
Defunding the police means cutting bloated local police budgets and diverting the resources to social programs. Politically, it’s right up Bernie’s alley. He should embrace it.
19639 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.
Bosses in the US Have Far Too Much Power to Lay Off Workers Whenever They Feel Like It
Nearly one in five workers in the United States is currently unemployed. The immediate catalyst for these gargantuan figures is the pandemic, but workers’ rights to “just cause” dismissals had long been eroded by a neoliberal war on labor.
The Police Will Do Everything They Can to Resist Accountability — They Have to Be Defunded and Demilitarized
Cops in New York have responded to pressure for reform with a targeted slowdown, while they continue to dish out violence on the streets. We need to be as determined in forcing change upon the police as they are in resisting it.
Remembering Capitalism’s Crimes
A new book uncovers the reality of America’s victory in the Cold War — detailing how massacres of leftists in twenty-two countries helped to overcome resistance to capitalism across the world, writes Grace Blakeley.
On Policing and Racial Justice, Justin Trudeau Is Offering Empty Gestures, Not Real Action
With thousands of Canadians protesting police violence, Justin Trudeau has offered no plans to combat brutality in Canadian policing — but he did take a knee at an Ottawa protest for the cameras. It’s a tried-and-true Trudeau formula: refuse to take meaningful progressive action, but pose for the press as if he did.
Martin Luther King Knew That There’s Nothing Peaceful About Nonviolence If You’re Doing It Right
Establishment pundits love to cite Martin Luther King as a way to delegitimize militant protests and shame unruly protesters. But King wasn’t a proponent of passive, compliant protest — to him, nonviolent action was about forging a powerful collective force that could coerce ruling elites into conceding to demands for justice.
The Left Loses a Lot. But Sometimes, We Win.
It’s a dark time in the US and across the world, but the last two weeks actually give us some cause for hope. Cities are pledging to shift money from cops to public services, violent officers are being disciplined and fired, and a wave of left victories came in last week’s primaries.
Police Brutality Against Protesters Only Stoked the Anti–Police Brutality Movement
Credit for the unprecedented wave of mass protests should go to anti-police brutality activists, movement journalists, and politicized young people. But let’s not forget the boys in blue themselves: cops’ vicious treatment of protesters proved to millions around the world that the protesters were right.
Why Have a Spate of Police Shootings in New Orleans Suburbs Been Ignored?
Just two days after the murder of George Floyd, a young welder and rapper named Modesto Reyes was killed by police in the New Orleans suburb of Jefferson Parish after a traffic stop. Why aren’t the deaths of Reyes and the other young black men recently killed by police in the New Orleans area national news?
“The Most Effective Way to Stop Police Terror Is Action at the Point of Production”
Longshore workers on the East and West Coast are stopping work today to demand an end to racist police murders. We spoke with one of the protest organizers about the action — and why labor must take the lead in the fight against police violence.
Republicans Only Want Certain Cops on the Beat
Republicans are simply outraged at calls to defund the police. But for years, they’ve had no problem defunding the agencies tasked with enforcing laws against the world’s most hardened, powerful criminals: corporations.
Most Politicians’ Memoirs Are Terrible. Luckily, Ilhan Omar’s Isn’t.
Ilhan Omar, once a refugee, has become a major force in US politics. In her new memoir, she charts her journey from Somalia to the US Congress and explains why, despite hating her politics, she can’t help but admire Margaret Thatcher. Incredibly for a memoir like this, the book is actually good.
Bernie Sanders Lost, But He Advanced the Class Struggle
Critics declaring Bernie Sanders’s campaigns a total failure have discounted a basic socialist proposition: our metric for his success should not just be his winning or losing, but the extent to which the working-class movement has advanced.
“Policing Is Fundamentally a Tool of Social Control to Facilitate Our Exploitation”
The brutality we have repeatedly seen meted out by American police all over the country isn’t a bug of our political-economic system — it’s a feature.
Business Is Booming in the Unemployment Industry
Australia’s mean and punitive benefits system is a key tool for disciplining workers while amassing profits for private firms. The labor movement needs to join with the unemployed to overhaul it entirely.
There’s No Way Around It: Spending on Police in the US Is out of Control
Our cities have siphoned money away from public goods like education and social services, and funneled the cash into ever-larger, ever-more-militarized police forces. It’s time to reverse that.
Protesters’ Demands in Response to Police Brutality Have Come a Long Way Since the 1992 LA Rebellion
While it’s far too soon to declare victory, let’s take stock of how far political demands have come since the 1992 LA Rebellion.
A Joe Biden Presidency Will Require Mass Protests, Too
Donald Trump’s dangerous and unhinged response to the George Floyd protests shows why he must be defeated in November. But Joe Biden’s policy proposals and disturbing record on criminal justice suggests the era of resistance will have to continue with Biden in the White House.
Ending Mass Incarceration Can Help Build the Labor Movement
Workers caught in the grip of the criminal justice system aren’t just denied their human rights by oppressive police and judges — they’re held under the thumb of their bosses. Mass incarceration is devastating for the labor movement.
Yes to Space Exploration. No to Space Capitalism.
Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have a vision of space that serves the narrow interests of capitalists. But we don’t want to be indentured servants on a Martian colony — we want solar exploration that benefits humanity as a whole.