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.
The United States is commonly thought of as a low-tax country. But workers effectively pay some of the highest taxes in the developed world — without getting a decent welfare state in return.
The rank-and-file strategy isn’t enough. We should examine the broad range of working-class organizing strategies and experiences that are today’s socialists’ collective heritage.
On why the rise of fundamentalism in Muslim-majority countries owes much to the failings of the secular left.
The arc of Paul Krugman’s thinking shows the paradox of liberal reformism constrained by a conservative understanding of the possible.
Yes, it was absurd for Trump to suggest nominating Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve. But the Fed is already political — our goal should be to make it democratic.
For decades, the Highlander School has nurtured some of the most important radical movements by pushing a simple idea: ordinary people can act as agents of change. It’s an idea that’s threatening to the Right — and it should be.
In 1861, coastal South Carolina witnessed an experiment in what Southern slave emancipation could have looked like: communities of freedmen owning their land and passing it on to their heirs. Those island communities have survived to this day — but real estate development is now threatening to destroy them.
Democrats could propose a simple, social-democratic plan to help families with children. Instead they’ve unveiled a complicated, means-tested scheme that would shortchange poor kids.
The Sudanese people just toppled their longtime autocratic leader, Omar al-Bashir. It’s a confirmation that the revolutionary ferment of the Arab Spring didn’t die out in 2011.
With the Julian Assange indictment, the Trump administration is launching its boldest attack on press freedom yet. And the #Resistance is cheering it on.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s apparent victory shows that the Israeli electorate is more right-wing than ever — and that the occupation will only end if the US finally stops funding it.
Eight years ago, liberals cheered as the Obama administration deposed an autocrat in Libya. The result was mayhem and chaos — and now they want to do the same in Venezuela.
It’s the British media’s favorite fantasy: Sinn Féin breaking with a century of practice and riding to rescue a dramatically close vote in the House of Commons. It’s also an insult to Irish voters.
Data theft, spying, fabricated documents. The Spanish state is trying to derail Podemos and its challenge to elites.
The deportation state that Obama and Trump radically expanded is no longer content to just go after the undocumented. Its targets increasingly include citizens and political dissenters of all kinds.
Bernie Sanders introduced a new Medicare for All Act today in the Senate that would guarantee universal health benefits with no means-testing or exclusions. It’s the kind of bill Sanders would fight for as president.
A self-serving national myth portrays France as immune to fascism. Yet the Vichy regime had deep roots in the country’s prewar history.
Finland’s millionaire prime minister sought to reorganize the welfare state along the lines of a private business. But his hard-line policies and failed assault on health care have revitalized the Finnish left.
By calling for the enfranchisement of the incarcerated, Bernie Sanders is carrying on a long and venerable socialist tradition of fighting for the universal right to vote.
As an Arab Palestinian citizen of Israel, I won’t serve as a fig leaf for a democracy in name only. I refuse to vote in today’s elections.