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.
Though commentators like David Brooks see the rise of an authoritarian left, Bernie Sanders’s message is that formal rights are essential — but they’re insufficient if most people are denied the resources necessary for their realization.
Pete Buttigieg has always been a calculating careerist. By ending his campaign yesterday, he may have sacrificed his short-term presidential ambitions — but he did so for the greater good of a Democratic Party establishment that is hell-bent on sabotaging Bernie Sanders.
After three decades of dramatic increases in the cost of living, last month, Berlin’s city government passed a five-year rent freeze. Grassroots campaigns have changed the conversation about rent — and now they’re fighting to break the market’s control over housing.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the Australian labor movement was considered the most successful in the world, but notions of “White Australia” have always haunted and undermined its internationalism.
Bolivia is still reeling from the coup that unseated Evo Morales last November. Amid repression and intimidation from a fortified Right now in power, the Left is preparing itself for new presidential elections.
In South Africa, the political class is scapegoating immigrants to distract from their failure to root out the country’s massive inequality. But just like everywhere else, immigrants aren’t the problem — economic elites and their political handmaidens are.
Microchips, mobile spyware, and perpetual monitoring are all part of capital’s fantasy of twenty-first-century scientific management — a future in which our movements, impulses, and rhythms are perfectly adapted to the needs of profit-making. We need to fight back and regain our autonomy at work.
India’s student movement is one of the main forces challenging the government of Narendra Modi. But the movement against Hindu nationalism needs to take root even deeper in civil society.
Liberalism has become decadent, and conservatism has become particularly vile. The only option for anyone who cares about freedom and decency is to get behind the socialist.
It’s really very simple: the presidential candidate with the most delegates heading into the Democratic National Convention should be the nominee. There’s no good counterargument.
For Republicans, Joe Biden has long been the ideal negotiating partner — because he’s so willing to cave in on most anything Republicans want.
The Egyptian legal system might have acquitted the late Hosni Mubarak of ordering a brutal clampdown on protesters. The verdict of history won’t be so kind.
Empty supermarket shelves and the spread of designer-brand face masks show that Italians are panicking about coronavirus. The spread of the virus demands a planned and coherent response — but the politics of fear are instead turning Italians against each other.
Swedish prime minister Olof Palme was assassinated on this day in 1986. He was an internationalist and the last social-democratic leader to really believe in a world beyond capitalism.
After September 11, George W. Bush decided to blaze a path of death and destruction in Iraq by invading. He was given crucial assistance by Joe Biden.
Knocking on doors is a key part of a grassroots campaign, and can be extremely satisfying work for those involved. But as more gates and security systems transform the fabric of American cities, voters are increasingly out of reach.
Socialist men can be important organizers in the struggle for both workers’ rights and women’s emancipation. Nowhere is that seen more clearly than in the life of German socialist August Bebel, who did more to win women’s rights than any other nineteenth-century politician.
Pundits continue to push the narrative that Bernie Sanders is just another George McGovern, too far to the left to win. He’s not, and by every measure he’s the most competitive candidate to run against Donald Trump.
All of Bernie Sanders’s rivals are open to giving the Democratic nomination to someone besides the candidate with the most delegates at the end of the primary. This is an absolutely horrible idea.
From South Africa’s ANC to Chilean socialists, in the 1970s, liberation movements around the world had few greater allies than Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. He used high office to speak out for the oppressed abroad — and to build an internationalist movement in his homeland.