Karl Leffme is a socialist in New York CIty.
Cori Bush, the Ferguson activist and nurse running for Congress in St Louis, caused a political earthquake this week, unseating a powerful centrist incumbent. Yesterday, she sat down with Jacobin to talk about how she took on the political establishment’s big money and won.
The federal relief measures Congress passed this spring were already inadequate. Now they’ve lapsed and millions are facing financial ruin. Here’s a breakdown of what those bills actually did, who benefited, and what we need to do now.
For over two decades, Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan has been held in the Turkish prison on İmralı Island. In this op-ed for Jacobin, he calls for a “democratic nation project” able to unite citizens of different ethnic backgrounds and cultural traditions.
I’m an educator and parent of a seven-year-old who loves school. It’s devastating to keep her home in the fall — but it’s the only way to keep her and her classmates healthy. We shouldn’t have to fight this hard to ensure all schools go remote and all students and teachers stay safe.
The Right couches their arguments about not wearing face masks or reopening their local Baskin Robbins in the language of “freedom.” We have to take that language of freedom back, making the case that real freedom means the ability to democratically decide, together, how to protect everyone from hunger, homelessness, and sickness.
The epicenter of Melbourne’s COVID-19 outbreak is, predictably, aged-care homes, where years of marketization have led to an industry based on low wages, understaffing, and cost cutting. Amid the tragedy taking place in aged care, we need to call for an overhaul of the entire for-profit system.
In the past week, two separate and very painful videos have circulated showing Donald Trump and Joe Biden the presidential nominees of the two major US political parties in action. Watching them, there’s only one conclusion we can reach: we’re so screwed.
Amid this summer’s massive protests, Benyamin Netanyahu’s grip on Israel’s political consciousness began to crack for the first time in a decade. But repairing the damage he’s done to the country’s political landscape will take years.
A new complaint alleges Ilhan Omar’s primary challenger for her House seat is trying to avoid campaign spending disclosures.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pushing to kick military recruiters out of high schools and off Twitch. And she’s right: the military’s recruitment strategy of preying on low-income and working-class students is grotesque.
Bill Clinton’s decision to disparage Kwame Ture, born Stokely Carmichael, at John Lewis’s funeral was a disgraceful attempt to drain the Civil Rights Movement of its radicalism and limit the horizons of political possibility today. But internationalism and black radicalism speak much more to the present moment than Clinton’s tired, centrist politics.
Trump’s Labor Department is trying to help Big Oil prevent retirees’ money from flowing out of the fossil fuel industry and into environmentally sustainable investments. When it comes to climate change or anything else, corporate interests dominate the state.
Last night’s elections brought us some very good news, with Cori Bush securing an historic upset in Missouri and Rashida Tlaib easily cruising to reelection in a race the mainstream media predicted would be close. Leftists are still a small minority in the halls of power — but we’re gaining steam.
The GOP’s proposed coronavirus relief legislation is grotesque — an insult to the working class and a threat to the lives and livelihoods of millions. The fact that Senate Republicans felt at liberty to propose it is a telltale sign of political rot.
The Chicago Teachers Union threatened a strike in response to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s refusal to move city schools to remote learning for the fall. Hours later, the mayor caved. Strikes work — and during a pandemic, they can save lives.
The AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center has a long history of working hand in glove with the US government in undermining democracy and left labor movements throughout the world. The center emphasizes it has shifted away from these Cold War tactics in recent years. But newly obtained documents show that the Solidarity Center has worked closely with the US to undermine the Venezuelan government in the recent past.
A historic leader of moderate nationalism, John Hume is widely eulogized for helping end the war in Northern Ireland. But praise for his rejection of violence shouldn’t be combined with amnesia about the deep injustices that fueled the conflict in the Six Counties.
Democratic socialist Justin Farmer is running for state senate in Connecticut on a platform to reform the criminal justice system and reinvest in communities. We talked to him about it.
Carceral solutions to sexual violence won’t deliver justice. We need investments in public services that will actually reduce sexual violence.
Brazil’s Lava Jato investigation in corruption jailed former president Lula da Silva and was lauded by anticorruption campaigners in the West. But its legacy is the most corrupt president in the country’s history: Jair Bolsonaro.