Joe Biden’s Student Debt Plan Didn’t Have to Be Such a Disaster
If the Supreme Court strikes down Joe Biden’s proposed student debt cancellation plan tomorrow, the president has other, smarter options to relieve student debtors.
19770 Articles by: Opal Lee
Opal Lee is a writer.
In Delaware, Corporations Are Dangerously Close to Acquiring the Right to Vote
In an effort to expand the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which gave corporations personhood and free speech rights, Delaware’s Democratic-controlled legislature is considering a Republican bill that would give corporations the right to vote.
Martin Luther King Understood Solidarity
Jonathan Eig’s new Martin Luther King biography stirs exhilaration and visceral pain at the unexpected triumphs and vicious violence that King and the freedom movement endured. But it largely leaves out a key piece of King’s legacy: his commitment to labor.
Student Activists Are Turning Their Attention to the Labor Movement
Last year, the Young Democratic Socialists of America’s Red Hot Summer program trained hundreds of young people to organize their workplaces and helped launch union drives representing thousands. This year’s program hopes to be even bigger, writes YDSA’s cochair.
Dozens of Socialist Elected Officials Gathered in DC This Weekend
Jacobin helped host a gathering of 80 democratic socialist public officials over the weekend. It gave me a measure of hope about our movement’s future.
The Migrant Shipwreck Near Greece Is a Horrible Tragedy. But It Wasn’t an Accident.
Hundreds are missing, presumed drowned after a shipwreck off Greece, which European officials have called the “worst ever tragedy” in the Mediterranean. Far from a chance event, it’s the latest result of an EU border regime built on thousands of deaths at sea.
Keir Starmer’s Labour Party Wants to Continue Destroying the NHS
If it wins the next general election in the UK, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party could try to fix the damage inflicted on the National Health Service by years of Tory austerity. But Labour seems set on further privatizing the NHS.
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.
For the Love of God, Stop Saying Trump Was an Antiwar President
The only way you can argue that President Donald Trump bucked the hawkish Washington consensus is if you ignore Trump’s entire foreign policy record.
Health Insurers Are Boosting CEO Pay to Astronomical Heights While Their Customers Suffer
Health insurance companies are spending more and more money on stock buybacks — boosting their CEOs’ pay to obscene levels even while insurers’ out-of-pocket requirements are burying 100 million Americans under a mountain of medical debt.
Jacobin-Cosponsored Conference Convenes 80 Elected Officials and Staff in Washington, DC
Jacobin, DSA Fund, and The Nation magazine joined forces to host the highly anticipated “How We Win: The Democratic Socialist Policy Agenda in Office” conference in Washington, DC, last weekend.
Understanding North Korea, Beyond Its Palace Intrigue
Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, looks destined for power in North Korea. But political dynamics in the country are far more complex than Western observers often appreciate.
Canada’s Political Elites Are Climate Criminals in the Pocket of Big Oil
The promises of environmental stewardship from Canada’s political establishment clash with its support for fossil fuel interests. With each mile of country that burns in wildfire, this unwavering support for the oil industry is looking more and more deranged.
The Housing Crisis Is Class War
A new book on the housing crisis in Canada poses the idea that the housing crisis is simply a result of the housing market working in exactly the way it was designed. To break this paradigm, the tenant class must organize and build political power.
Jean Baudrillard Grasped the Symbolic Life of Capital but Lost Track of the Material World
French thinker Jean Baudrillard developed a pioneering analysis of symbolism and consumption in modern capitalism with some valuable insights. But he lost sight of the material structures on which capital’s power depends and drifted into a political dead end.
Meet Andreas Babler, the Socialist Now Leading Austria’s Social Democrats
Against centrist elites, hard-right insurgents, and a rigged party bureaucracy, Andreas Babler’s leadership campaign has won against the odds to secure a socialist direction for Austria’s Social Democrats.
True Democracy Is Incompatible With Capitalism
In the past two decades, a succession of crises has led to the rise of authoritarian states, acutely showing how capitalism and democracy were never compatible to begin with.
A Canadian Lesson in How Not to Politick in a Right-Wing Stronghold
Alberta, Canada’s most conservative province, recently went to the polls. The purportedly left-wing New Democratic Party, in its attempt to court conservative voters, provided the Left with an abject lesson in acquiescence — a road map of exactly what not to do.
What Mayor Brandon Johnson Can Learn From Mayor Bernie Sanders
When he became Burlington’s mayor in 1981, Bernie Sanders was a socialist outsider who had to face down a hostile political establishment. His successful mayoralty may contain lessons for Chicago’s new progressive mayor, Brandon Johnson.
The Italian Communist Composer Who Wrote Revolutionary Music for the Working Class
Amid a historic upsurge of worker militancy in 1960s Italy, communist composer Luigi Nono turned his efforts to dramatizing the plight of exploited factory employees. The result was musically groundbreaking, and beloved by the workers who inspired it.