Don’t Be a Coward, Joe Biden: Debate Bernie Sanders on Health Care
Bernie Sanders challenged Joe Biden to an hour-long debate on health care last week. But Biden still hasn’t taken him up on the offer — because he knows Bernie would trounce him.
19420 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.
“Democratic Socialism Is Fighting for Regular Working-Class People”
Mckayla Wilkes is a first-time candidate for Maryland’s 5th congressional district. In an interview with Jacobin, she talks about her experiences with incarceration, how Bernie Sanders inspired her to run, and what it means to run a working-class campaign against a corporate-funded incumbent.
Wall Street Is High on Government Supply
For more than a decade, the US government has been taking over ever larger portions of the financial system to prop up shaky markets. It hasn’t worked. We need a real socialization of finance — for the majority, not the banks.
Jeff Bezos Wants America to Be One Giant Amazon Marketplace
Amazon just opened a 10,000-square-foot cashierless grocery store in Seattle. It’s part of a dangerous drive to undermine workers and control and commodify new spheres of life. The company and its plans for us should be resisted.
Yanis Varoufakis: “Syriza Was a Bigger Blow to the Left Than Thatcher”
Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis told Jacobin why he’s publishing his secret recordings of the critical Eurogroup meetings of 2015 — and why the Left around Europe is struggling to overcome Syriza’s disastrous legacy.
Tech Workers for Bernie
Bernie Sanders wants to rein in Big Tech, but tech workers love him anyway. Why? Because tech workers, like all workers, recognize the impact that policies such as Medicare for All and student loan debt relief could have on their well-being.
When the Carpetbaggers Came to Georgia (the One Near Russia)
Founded by a former Bill Clinton aide, Frontera is a failed oil firm known for its bid for domination in the former Soviet Union. Now, US congressmen are trying to stop it being expelled from Georgia — blaming its well-deserved legal woes on “Russian interference.”
Saving Swedish Social Democracy From Itself
Sweden was once a paragon of social democracy. But after years of austerity and a deteriorating welfare state, a left-wing challenge is finally growing within the Swedish Social Democratic Party.
When Soviet Women Won the Right to Abortion (For the Second Time)
After a liberalization period following the Russian Revolution, the Stalin-era Soviet Union drastically restricted women’s right to abortion. But in the 1950s Soviet women won free and legal terminations — achieving the right to choose before almost all of their sisters in the West.
We’re in She’ll
To celebrate International Women’s Day, the oil and gas company Shell is renaming itself “She’ll” for the day. What better way to celebrate a holiday founded by German socialists who were inspired by a prolonged strike among immigrant garment workers in New York City, and whose ultimate goal was to overthrow capitalism?
Why I’m a Feminist — and a Socialist
The feminism I fight for does not snuggle comfortably in the lap of capitalism. It is rooted in the understanding that capitalism is the problem, and that a feminism rooted in democratic, egalitarian, anti-capitalist principles is the solution.
“The Labor Movement Needs to Learn Its History”
With union membership at record lows, we need to look to the past to dig ourselves out of the present. The radical-led Farm Equipment Workers Union, which fought for shop-floor democracy and racial equality, is a guide.
“My SS Uniform Is Just My Heritage”
Each February, Europe’s neo-Nazis converge in Budapest for the “Day of Honor,” a celebration of the SS’s record in Hungary. For years, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been erasing all traces of antifascism from the official national history — and now the uniformed marchers enjoy government endorsement.
Emmanuel Macron Has No Mandate for His Attack on Pensions
After months of strikes, Emmanuel Macron’s government has imposed its pension cuts using constitutional article 49-3 — decreeing the law without a vote in parliament. With no mandate for its unpopular reforms, Macron’s administration is bypassing the democratic process itself.
When the “Scum” From the Paris Suburbs Built Picket Lines
For decades, establishment French politicians have painted youths from Paris’s majority-minority suburbs as antisocial “scum.” But the generation of the banlieue revolts are now of working age — and they’ve been at the forefront of the strike to defend France’s pension system.
Welcome to Our Movement, Warren Voters
Rather than dwell on Elizabeth Warren’s mistakes, let’s focus on her supporters. It’s good to see some of them switching to Bernie Sanders, and there ought to be many more — here are just a few reasons why.
The Long Shadow of the 1978 Bridgeport, Connecticut Teachers Strike
A 1978 strike by Connecticut teachers led to hundreds of arrests — and ended with a move to mandatory arbitration between educators and the school district. If unions in Connecticut and around the country are to get back on their feet, ending mandatory arbitration and re-embracing strikes will be crucial.
Fareed Zakaria Has No Idea How the Nordic Model Works
Just about everything Fareed Zakaria says about Bernie Sanders, the Nordics, and social democracy is incorrect. He’s faked his way through another column on something he knows nothing about.
Jack Welch Is Dead. Neoliberalism Lives On.
Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, who died this week, turned GE into a private equity company. He was celebrated as the “manager of the century” for ruthlessly exploiting workers and their communities and promoting an economic model that increasingly appears to be incompatible with continued human civilization.
Where Standing Up for Kurdish Rights Is a Crime
In Germany, that supposed bastion of liberal democracy, the state treats standing up for Kurdish rights as tantamount to terrorism — and hits activists with house searches, imprisonment, and even deportation.