The Definition of Insanity
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.
19670 Articles by: Karl Leffme
Karl Leffme is a socialist in New York CIty.
No, Sinn Féin Won’t Be Voting in Parliament
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.
Assassinating Podemos
Data theft, spying, fabricated documents. The Spanish state is trying to derail Podemos and its challenge to elites.
First They Came for the Undocumented
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 Is Pushing for Nothing Less Than Medicare for All, Again
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.
France’s Repressed Fascist Past
A self-serving national myth portrays France as immune to fascism. Yet the Vichy regime had deep roots in the country’s prewar history.
Our Welfare Isn’t Business’s Business
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.
Votes For All
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.
Why I’m Boycotting Today’s Israeli Elections
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.
Israel’s Insider Radical
Haneen Zoabi has survived insults, death threats, and the vagaries of the Israeli justice system. But the first Palestinian woman to represent an Arab party in Israel’s Knesset wants something more — to be heard.
Britain’s Austerity Has Gone From Cradle To Grave
A decade of austerity in Britain has stunted, immiserated, and impoverished millions of lives. Now, the inevitable has happened: it’s started to shorten them.
Taking a Stan
An interview with the anonymous owner of @LegitTayUpdates. She’s a nineteen-year-old Taylor Swift fan in Israel — and she just finished a two-month prison sentence for refusing to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces.
Chess in the Cloud
The battle between the US and China over global hegemony has moved to the technological arena. But what we really need is a democratic digital commons.
Italy’s War on the Roma
Today is International Roma Day. Long oppressed, the beleaguered minority group is facing intensifying racist attacks in Salvini’s Italy.
Gung Ho For Privatization
How a troubled army recruit from a privileged background became an angry advocate for veterans health care privatization.
Workers Can Do What the Wonks Can’t
When the IRS discovered widespread tax fraud by the rich, the agency assembled a special team to crack down. They failed, but through politics we can take on elites and win.
Assessing 40 Years of Labor Notes
Labor Notes is one of the most successful socialist projects in the labor movement in US history. It has trained and connected tens of thousands of union militants throughout the world.
From the Union Hall to the Church
Jair Bolsonaro’s election in Brazil marked the decline of trade unions as the primary site of working-class organization; and the rise of Evangelical churches in their place.
How Neoliberalism Reinvented Democracy
Neoliberalism replaces the citizen with the consumer — pushing people out of political life and into the marketplace.
Housing for the People
A public vote on expropriating the big landlords offers Berliners a chance to push down soaring rents.