The Party Was Not Always Right
The tragedies, brutalities, and absurdities of Stalinism are all there onscreen in Costa-Gavras’s classic 1970 film The Confession.
19500 Articles by: Karl Leffme
Karl Leffme is a socialist in New York CIty.
In France, Secularism Is a Justification for Discrimination Against Muslims
Growing up in the US, I admired France’s secular vision of social democracy. But teaching in Lyon’s working-class suburbs taught me that, in practice, laïcité is a rallying cry for a Right desperate to exclude Muslims from public life.
How Hindu Nationalists Became Best Friends With Israel
Narendra Modi’s friendship with Benjamin Netanyahu may seem to clash with India’s historic anti-colonial stances. Yet their collaboration is rooted in a long history of Hindutva admiration for Zionist ethnonationalism.
Ontario’s Family Doctor Shortage Is Putting Lives on the Line
Ontario’s doctor deficit has left 2.2 million people without a primary care physician. The shortage, a consequence of for-profit models, worsens health issues, strains emergency departments, and fuels the vulture-like leveraging of profit-driven “solutions.”
Pablo Picasso Was a Communist. Why Don’t We Ever Talk About This?
In the imbroglio over Pablo Picasso’s misogyny and many personal flaws, the memory of his unabashed leftist politics has been lost — and with it our ability to fully consider his place in history.
In This Is Not Miami, Fernanda Melchor Transforms Violence Into Folklore
The Mexican journalist turned novelist Fernanda Melchor’s This Is Not Miami looks unsentimentally at crime and violence. Unable to address its structural causes, Melchor’s characters create mythical explanations of human cruelty.
Issue 49: Inside the Teamsters’ Preparations for a UPS Strike
This summer could see 350,000 UPS workers walk off the job in the United States’ largest strike in decades. The Teamsters are getting ready. Here’s a look at how.
With the Debt Ceiling Deal, Joe Biden Has Abandoned Student Debtors
As part of the debt ceiling deal, Joe Biden forfeited his authority to help student debtors and set a ticking time bomb for tens of millions of Americans whose student loan payments are about to restart.
GOP Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy Wants Real-Life Starship Troopers
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy thinks young people should earn the right to vote by joining the army, like in the sci-fi classic Starship Troopers. It’s a political nonstarter, but it says a lot about how conservatives see the world.
Barack Obama’s New Netflix Series Shows That He Has Critiques but No Answers
While it’s always refreshing to see the lives of working people centered in our media, the docuseries Working: What We Do All Day is hampered by the limitations of its host and narrator, former president Barack Obama.
The Recent SCOTUS Ruling Against Unions Was Bad. But It Could’ve Been Far Worse.
The Supreme Court’s Glacier pro-employer ruling this week opens the door to further erosion of workers’ rights to strike. But the right to walk off the job is far from extinguished in the US, and workers shouldn’t let the court scare them away from doing so.
The US Is Punishing Cuba to Send a Message to the Whole World
The original goal of the United States blockade against Cuba was to worsen conditions and inspire Cubans to overthrow their government. Regime change hasn’t been forthcoming. Now the US maintains the devastating sanctions as a threat to other nations.
Rabble Rousers Shows How Activists Beat the Rich to Build Social Housing in New York City
The documentary Rabble Rousers tells the story of the New York activists who overcame enormous odds to build the Cooper Square community land trust — and points to the limits of movements that don’t contend for broader control over the state and capital.
One Hundred Years of Mrinal Sen
This year marks the centennial of Mrinal Sen, one of India’s most brilliant Marxist filmmakers. His work combined a formal inventiveness that rivaled that of the French New Wave with an unflinching commitment to attacking the hypocrisies of India’s elite.
Meta Is Trying, and Failing, to Crush Unions in Kenya
Kenyan content moderators at Meta have been fighting for better compensation for workers forced to watch videos of murder, rape, and ethnic cleansing. Meta was initially unwilling to give in to these demands, but Kenyan courts are intervening on the side of workers.
Pennsylvania Could Become the First State to Pass Universal Parental Leave
The state just has to make one small tweak to their parental leave proposal — otherwise a large number of new Pennsylvania parents will be ineligible for the program and receive no financial support while they care for their newborns.
Isaias Afwerki Led Eritrea’s Freedom Struggle, But Turned His Country Into a Prison Camp
Eritrea spent decades fighting for independence against enormous odds. Its people finally achieved their goal in the 1990s, but Eritrean leader Isaias Afwerki has since created one of the world’s bleakest dictatorships, prompting countless Eritreans to flee.
Right-Wing Dark Money Funded Kansas’s Failed Anti-Abortion Campaign
Leonard Leo’s massive conservative dark money network is quietly working behind the scenes to try to eliminate abortion protections at the state level.
Australia Is Facing the Biggest Housing Crisis in Generations, and Labor’s Plan Will Make It Worse
Anthony Albanese’s Labor government is accusing Greens MPs of standing in the way of solutions to the housing crisis. But under Labor’s plan, the proportion of public housing will drop while rents keep rising.
Chicago Socialist Elected Official Anthony Quezada: “We Cannot Demobilize”
Working-class reformer Brandon Johnson is now Chicago’s mayor. The next task, as socialist elected official Anthony Quezada argues in an interview, is to bring more ordinary people into the political process so Johnson can actually pass sweeping reforms.