Karl Leffme is a socialist in New York CIty.
Chile’s socialist leader Salvador Allende became an icon of resistance to oligarchic tyranny after the right-wing coup that began 50 years ago today. His ideas and his sacrifice remain a powerful example for anyone seeking to build a movement for change.
For years, the history of Chile’s Popular Unity government under Salvador Allende has only been accessible through written records and photographs. Thanks to new research, the vibrant and politically engaged music it helped produce is playing online until tomorrow.
Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the brutal coup that overthrew Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. North American support for the coup wasn’t limited to US policymakers — the Canadian government was also complicit.
Across the political spectrum, Americans whitewash the working class and exclude labor struggle from black history. Blair LM Kelley’s Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class is a necessary corrective — and provides lessons for struggle today.
Before Chile’s coup, Salvador Allende’s government was engaged in plans to reform the environmentally destructive copper industry. Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship put a stop to them, crushing organized labor in the process.
Fifty years after Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship came to power, Chile’s government has now admitted guilt for “disappearing” over 2,000 people. Yet many on the Chilean right still defend Pinochet — disturbing evidence of the dictator’s lingering legacy.
Canada’s housing crisis is off the charts, and half the country lives paycheck to paycheck. In a classic show of disconnect, some Trudeau Liberals think the party’s greatest problem is that people don’t understand how fabulous a job they’re actually doing.
For decades, France has kept control over its old African colonies by backing pliant local strongmen. Recent coups in Niger and Gabon against governments accused of alignment to Paris show that France’s informal empire is breaking apart.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke with Jacobin following her recent trip to Latin America and on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the coup in Chile. She discussed the crimes of US intervention and the struggles for justice and democracy across the Americas.
The European Union’s supporters often call it an antidote to nationalism — yet today the bloc is hardening its borders against the outside world. With citizens unable to change its basic economic orientation, the EU is ever more obsessed by identity.
Amazon forces its warehouse employees to work at breakneck paces in unsafe conditions — and then tries to keep them from getting medical care when they’re injured. In response, Amazon workers across the US are organizing for health and safety improvements.
Pundits and liberal strategists alike keep scratching their heads as to why Joe Biden’s economic approval ratings are so low. But the sweeping rollback of pandemic-era social programs is a glaringly obvious culprit.
Recent footage from around the world showcases how the harrowing effects of climate change are pushing more people to migrate. But international law, stuck with Cold War–era persecution-based criteria, remains incapable of offering protection to climate refugees.
Joe Biden is shouldering historically low poll numbers heading into his reelection campaign. The good news is that he has a readymade platform in the form of the defunct Build Back Better bill. The bad news? He’ll have to be forced to run on it.
The US’s air traffic control workforce is overstretched, which has led to a big rise in airplane “near misses.” The crisis has roots in Ronald Reagan’s crushing of the 1981 PATCO strike and in the neoliberal attack on public services he helped spearhead.
Neoliberal reformers often call France’s welfare model an unsustainable burden on private enterprise. But in recent decades, public aid to firms has almost tripled as a share of GDP — showing how state interventions increasingly prop up private profits.
After launching a monthlong strike this summer, union grocery workers in Toronto have ratified a contract that improves wages, enhances benefits, and sets a major precedent for the sector.
Whether because of Trump fatigue or COVID or both, the Biden years have been defined by a kind of anti-politics. Many fewer Americans are now paying politics much attention at all.
Most workers in the US are barred from claiming unemployment benefits if they go on strike, penalizing them for exercising one of their most fundamental rights. New legislation in California and elsewhere is trying to rectify that injustice.
Scores of Stop Cop City activists were hit this week with RICO charges and are now facing serious prison time. Prosecutors allege a sprawling, violent conspiracy — but what they’re really doing is trampling on democratic rights as basic as handing out flyers.