Karl Leffme is a socialist in New York CIty.
In theory, punditry is supposed to offer a forum for political analysis and debate from a range of perspectives. In practice, it’s little more than an exercise in defending the self-serving orthodoxies of a privileged few.
Detroit autoworkers put out excellent rap videos from the GM picket lines supporting the strike. If the working-class movement is going to get stronger, we will need a lot more class-struggle culture like this.
AOC and Ilhan Omar’s inspiring victories and brave advocacy helped create a narrative about “fresh-faced insurgents.” But beware: young neoliberals will use the same rhetoric to oust veteran progressives and call them the “establishment.”
Uber is rotten to its core. Despite the years of terrible press, it has not changed any of its anti-worker, profit-crazed ways. Uber should be abolished.
Boris Johnson is positioning himself for a hard-right election campaign, accusing Parliament of “betrayal” for blocking a no-deal Brexit. But his government is a mess, and people aren’t falling for his lies.
The United Auto Workers strike against General Motors continues to grind on, now approaching week four. The company has dug in its heels. But so have the workers.
Melodrama was an ultra-popular entertainment form of the Gilded Age. It seems fitting, then, that in 2019, we have returned to the genre in Joker.
The Chicago Teachers Union and SEIU Local 73 are on the verge of a strike. Their demands are focused on improving conditions in classrooms — and they’re willing to walk off the job to make it happen.
Dave Rubin prides himself on challenging dogmas and slaying sacred cows. But his constant invocations of “reason and logic” can’t hide the fact that he trots out the same tired, intellectually lazy anecdotes about triggered college students — and that he refuses to actually debate living, breathing leftists.
Trump’s sadistic border policy is just the most visible part of a bipartisan — and worldwide — clampdown on freedom of movement. But resistance to it is growing.
The Supreme Court should rule in favor of LGBTQ workers. But whether it does or doesn’t, those workers need unions and stronger labor laws to fight discrimination.
In Bulgaria, campaigns that equate Communism with Nazism aren’t about defending democracy against “Russian meddling,” they’re about rehabilitating Bulgarian fascism and its complicity in the Holocaust.
Unions should fight for both their members and the entire working class. Yet in Puerto Rico, the American Federation of Teachers affiliate is doing neither, partnering with the island’s unaccountable Fiscal Control Board to impose massive cuts to teachers’ retirement funds.
Donald Trump’s bait and switch with American workers is his greatest fraud of all. While uttering meaningless platitudes about fighting for workers, he is setting back the labor movement in ways that previous administrations could never do.
Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey might get fired for tweeting in solidarity with Hong Kong protesters. For all the NBA’s liberal pretenses, it’s a reminder that the league — and woke capital as a whole — really cares about profits, not principles.
Runaway inequality, regressive taxes, rampant labor exploitation. It’s often said the US economy “isn’t working,” but the truth is that capitalism is a class system that’s working exactly as intended.
Bernie Sanders is the only candidate who has absorbed the sobering lessons of US empire and embraced the internationalist traditions of democratic socialism. When it comes to foreign policy, there is only one candidate of the Left.
Let’s nationalize General Motors. Why not? We could completely overhaul the company to benefit its workers, the planet, and the entire society.
A US withdrawal from Syria that cleared the way for the destruction of the Kurds’ radical democratic experiment would not serve the cause of peace — and it would not be a blow to US imperialism.
Austria’s general election brought welcome setbacks for the far-right Freedom Party. But the surging Green Party looks ready to betray its founding mission and form a government with establishment conservatives.