Opal Lee is a writer.
Joe Biden hopes to eke out a reelection win by raising alarms about the threat Donald Trump poses to democracy. Yet on immigration, Biden has pointlessly moved closer than ever to Trump’s cruel border policy.
Finance’s dominance over the economy isn’t a deviant evolution of a “good” industrial capitalism. Finance and industry are interdependent — meaning solving problems like inequality and climate change will require a far-reaching democratization of the economy.
Fixing Britain’s housing crisis requires rebuilding the country’s publicly owned housing system — the opposite of the private developer–centered approach recently announced by Keir Starmer.
Germany’s political establishment strongly supports Israel’s war in Gaza, sending messages of “solidarity” as well as weapons. Nicole Gohlke, an MP for left-wing party Die Linke, writes for Jacobin on why Germany should instead be calling for a cease-fire.
With an activist background and a left-wing perspective, Sacramento mayoral candidate Flo Cofer bears the markers of an outsider candidate. But backed by big unions, sitting councilmembers, and the city paper, she’s giving the Sac elite a run for their money.
Modern European history is sometimes told as a story of growing secularization. But the Catholic Church played a central role in 20th-century Europe as one of the main purveyors of anti-communism and a frequent ally of far-right reaction.
Itamar Moses’s new play The Ally, about free speech and Israel, boldly broaches the topic of Palestine activism on US college campuses. But the play ultimately stays on the safe side, endorsing agnosticism and inaction in a time of massacres.
Rossana Rossanda represented the very best of the generation drawn to Italian communism in the 1940s. Rossanda insisted on the need for militant working-class politics throughout her life while much of the Italian left lost its political bearings.
Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele will extend the state of exception that has earned the country the world’s highest incarceration rate. Gang violence has been traded for arbitrary arrest and detention — with working-class people bearing the brunt.
Joe Biden has launched yet another US war in the Middle East with his air strikes on Yemen. The bombing campaign won’t stop attacks on Red Sea shipping — but an end to Israel’s war on Gaza will.
Both the Left and the Right used to articulate radically different visions of the future. Today the entire political spectrum looks backward, aiming to restore the past.
Self-help guru Brené Brown is calling for using the tools of “radical vulnerability” for dialogue in Israel-Palestine. The result is a vapid plea for empathy for both sides that shies from confronting the massacre actually underway in Gaza.
Chiara Ferragni is Italy’s top influencer, a brand the center-left Democrats have long tried to associate themselves with. But now the fashion blogger and businesswoman is enveloped in scandal, showing the pitfalls of making influencers progressive icons.
Narendra Modi was head of Gujarat state when Hindu militants committed one of the worst anti-Muslim massacres in modern Indian history. Now he’s Indian prime minister — and his US allies are busily ensuring the Hindutva leader’s impunity.
Critics of new anti-scab legislation in Canada are worried about the ability to “get things done.” But halting production is the very purpose of strikes — to create disruptions that force bosses to negotiate.
The idea that the labor and climate movements must unite for a Green New Deal is more popular than ever. To get it done, we’ll need to take the threat of job loss seriously, finding and uplifting commonalities between climate goals and worker self-interest.
The story of Bob Marley’s reggae music and his politically infused Rastafarian beliefs is fascinating. Not that you’ll learn anything about them from watching the new feel-good biopic Bob Marley: One Love.
Continuing the relentless assault on civilians in Gaza, Israeli troops killed more than 100 starving Palestinians waiting for flour from aid trucks yesterday. Emboldened by US complicity, Israel persists in acting with impunity in Gaza.
France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, suggested on Monday that sending Western troops to Ukraine can “no longer be ruled out.” The idea is dangerous and impractical.
The entire labor movement should wake up and pay attention to the lessons from Starbucks workers’ victory this week.