2023 Was a Year of Hope Amid the Horrors
This year had plenty of horrors. But there was also much cause for hope, from the burgeoning pro-Palestine movement to the UAW’s historic strike.
258 Articles by: Liza Featherstone
Liza Featherstone is a columnist for Jacobin, a freelance journalist, and the author of Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Workers’ Rights at Wal-Mart.
Pro-Israel Billionaires Are Spending Big to Oust Socialists From Office
Across the country, pro-Israel groups and billionaires are trying to stop the antiwar movement pushing for a cease-fire in Gaza by bringing down its elected leaders, including Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. These are fights the Left can win with popular support.
Georgia Socialist Candidate: “I Want to Be an Organizer Bringing People to the Capitol.”
Gabriel Sanchez is a democratic socialist campaigning for Georgia state house. Raised in a working-class family, Sanchez is running in a district that went for Bernie Sanders but is represented by a moderate Democrat who takes money from Lockheed Martin.
Unions and Elected Officials Are Joining the Movement for Palestinian Freedom
When a group of pro-Palestine state legislators and activists launched a five-day hunger strike outside the White House this week, members of Congress and major unions showed up in solidarity. The movement against Israel’s war on Gaza just keeps growing.
Commie Camp Celebrates a Socialist Summer Camp at Its Centennial
Camp Kinderland is a socialist summer camp in Massachusetts that has been going strong for 100 years. As a new documentary shows, it’s an impressive survivor of a once-vibrant tradition of socialist summer camps in the US that we should look to revive.
Americans Want More Time to Spend With Their Loved Ones. Capitalism Doesn’t Let Them.
Americans are so overworked that Thanksgiving is one of the rare occasions we have to gather with our friends and family. We need an economic system that actually provides us the free time to spend precious days and hours with our loved ones.
Rich People in the US Have Been Allowed to Get Way Too Rich
The next time you’re struggling to pay your rent or afford child care, think about this: the uberrich in the US are now paying top dollar to cut in line to get health care and hiring rotating casts of nannies so one is always at their beck and call.
NYC Socialist City Councillors Were Targeted for Their Israel Stance. They Still Won Big.
In Tuesday’s election, socialist city councillors in New York City easily fended off right-wing and centrist attempts to use their pro-Palestine stance against them. They won each of their races handily.
Democratic Socialists of America Is a Key Player in the Fight Against Israel’s Assault on Gaza
Across the country, DSA has faced attacks and slander for opposing Israel’s human rights atrocities in Gaza. It’s a testament to how effective socialist antiwar organizing, in coalition with other progressive groups, has been.
Working-Class Artists Thrived in the New Deal Era
During the New Deal, mass left movements and government funding spawned a boomlet in working-class art. For once, art wasn’t just the province of the rich.
The “Nudge” of the Obama Era Was Always Neoliberal Nonsense
Remember the policy “nudges” of the Barack Obama years, which purported to fix all manner of social ills by pushing people to behave differently? Surprise, surprise: its intellectual edifice, behavioral science, has been exposed as a fraud.
Dianne Feinstein Helped Lead the Democratic Party’s Neoliberal Turn
Dianne Feinstein deserves to be remembered as a representative of the country’s monied interests — and her centrist legacy should be rejected.
Is It Just Us, or Is Girl-Boss Feminism Waning?
“Lean In” feminism doesn’t seem to have the purchase it did a few years ago. Maybe that’s because it is so obviously irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of women, who need a union and decent pay, not a female boss.
Enough About Harvard. Let’s Talk About CUNY.
The elite media loves to obsess about the Ivy Leagues. But great public colleges like the City University of New York, once dubbed the Harvard of the proletariat, are far more relevant to most people — and infinitely better at serving the working class.
Let the Primary Against Eric Adams Begin
New York City has seen increasing chaos and immiseration under Mayor Eric Adams. It’s time for the city’s leftists and progressives to unite behind a challenger who can win.
Leftist Elected Officials Should Always Vote No on the Military Budget
It should be a matter of course that self-identified leftist and progressive members of Congress should vote down the annual bloated, dangerous, war-profiteer bonanza that is the military budget.
The OG Fake News
Long before disinformation became a moral panic, respectable media outlets like the New York Times trafficked in false information that led to decades of war in Iraq.
Artist Dora García Considers Alexandra Kollontai and Mexican Feminism
The newest of artist Dora Garcia’s films on feminist revolution, Amor Rojo’s simultaneous exploration of Soviet feminist Alexandra Kollontai and today’s Mexican feminism is the most compelling yet, but it misses the politics of the contemporary moment.
Why Did Democrats Embrace the Far-Right Narendra Modi?
During an official state visit, the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has been feted and praised despite his Hindu nationalism and right-wing policies — even by Democrats.
McCarthyite Laws Targeting Leftists Are Still on the Books Across the Country
Communists were excluded from an Oklahoma Pride festival recently based on an old McCarthyite state law. The incident is a reminder of how easily the Red Scare’s mechanisms for state repression can be revived in 21st-century America.