Water Privatization Makes It Impossible to Fight Climate Change
Climate change makes droughts worse. And when water is privatized to enrich water companies, we can’t adequately fight those droughts.
19477 Articles by: Opal Lee
Opal Lee is a writer.
Austerity Is Causing America to Rot
If it seems like nothing works anymore in the US, you’re not imagining things. Record-low public investment and declining private investment have given us a failing, decrepit infrastructure.
In the 1930s, Poetry Was Essential in Fighting Fascism
A group of Communist Party–aligned Yiddish poets in the 1930s sought to bridge national and cultural divides through language. Their poetry remains a milestone of internationalism in the arts.
Blake Masters Is a Pseudo-Populist Fraud
Blake Masters, the GOP’s nominee for Senate in Arizona, claims to care about the working class. Don’t believe a word of it.
Socialism Makes Summer Better
In capitalist America, millions of workers never get a vacation. But for the past century, bringing sunshine and leisure to the masses has been among the socialist movement’s greatest achievements.
Trump Should Be Prosecuted. So Should Other Elites Who Have Flagrantly Broken the Law.
The raid and possible prosecution of Donald Trump is a welcome break from decades of elite impunity. But to mean something, it must be a turning point in holding those elites accountable, not an exception.
Australian Bookstore Workers Are Organizing
Bookstore workers in Australia are beginning to organize for better pay and conditions. They are already chalking up important wins in individual stores — but their aim is to transform conditions across the industry.
I’m a Local News Reporter. To Save Local News, We Must Publicly Fund It.
Local news infrastructure is collapsing. As I’ve seen firsthand as a local reporter, the only interventions are coming from wealthy investors, who are often angling to gin up positive coverage for themselves. To change that, we need publicly funded local news.
Salman Rushdie’s Stabbing Is an Attack on Free Speech
Salman Rushdie was seriously injured in a stabbing, decades after reactionaries called for his death. He deserves the unqualified support of everyone who values freedom of expression.
The Korean War Is All but Forgotten Today. It Shouldn’t Be.
Ever since the end of the Korean War, the US has tried its best to make Americans forget it. But for Koreans, the war never really ended. The new season of the podcast Blowback aims to excavate the realities of US brutality during and after the war.
The CHIPS Act Is a Massive Giveaway to Tech Companies
President Biden signed the bipartisan CHIPS Act earlier this week. It’s a massive giveaway to the semiconductor industry, which has spent the last decade padding the pockets of CEOs and stockholders with billions upon billions of dollars in stock buybacks.
Pakistan’s Army Is Just as Corrupt as the Politicians It Denounces
Despite his removal from office in April, the pseudo-populist Imran Khan is trying to mount a comeback in Pakistan. Khan’s ouster has generated a crisis for the politically powerful Pakistani army and the vast patronage networks it controls.
Postal Banking Can Destroy Predatory Lending
The payday loan industry is thriving in Canada, and borrowers are paying the cost through extraordinary interest rates and fees. There is a simple solution: postal banking.
Starbucks Is Accusing Me and My Coworkers of Kidnapping Our Boss
How bad has Starbucks’ union busting gotten? The company is accusing workers at a South Carolina store of kidnapping their boss. We spoke with one worker about the absurd charges and how they unanimously won their union vote in a notoriously anti-labor state.
The Trump-Voting Kansas Electorate Is a Better Protector of Abortion Rights Than the Supreme Court
The resounding defeat of a ballot initiative to strip abortion rights from the Kansas state constitution is a reminder that we don’t need to rely on benevolent philosopher-kings in black robes to protect our rights. We can mobilize popular majorities.
Wall Street Is Mostly to Blame for Rising Commodity Prices
The mainstream narrative is that Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine single-handedly caused an inflationary surge in commodity prices. But in fact, it was Wall Street speculators reacting to Putin’s war that forced up prices.
The Government Should Cancel the F-35 Program and Replace It With Nothing
The F-35 fighter plane project is a complete failure. But if it ends up on the congressional chopping block, Lockheed Martin will do everything in its power to line up another trillion-dollar weapons manufacturing contract in its stead.
How Liberals Gave Up on Progress
Liberals constantly urge citizens to accept difficult decisions to protect the capitalist economy. This wasn’t always the case.
Prey Brilliantly Revives the Predator Franchise
Hollywood loves to crank out boring action movies. But Hulu’s Prey is anything but. It plays off of and reverses long-standing Hollywood tropes about Native Americans to craft an alien thriller that actually delivers.
The Federal Government Has Long Made the Cost of Higher Ed Worse, Not Better
Everyone knows the cost of higher education in America is massive and unsustainable. The federal government has played a key role in inflating college costs — but any president, including Joe Biden, could easily change that while wiping out student debt.