Opal Lee is a writer.
No one expected Joe Biden to rein in US empire. But after 100 days, he’s been terrible even on his own terms — failing to reenter the Iran nuclear deal, coddling authoritarian leaders like Mohammed bin Salman, and looking on as countries like India are pummeled by the COVID-19 crisis.
Under cover of the pandemic, Greece’s right-wing government has passed a slew of new measures to benefit the wealthy at the expense of workers, while massively expanding police powers. On the back of a decade of austerity, the latest laws are set to transform the country into a client state and playground for foreign tourists.
The horrifying scenes of COVID-wracked India show that when rich countries like the US back pharmaceutical profits over lives, vaccine inequality turns into global vaccine apartheid. Joe Biden has the power to immediately end this. Release the damn vaccines.
Raoul Peck’s HBO docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes isn’t easy to watch — but it’s important popular education on the 600-year development of the concept and system of white supremacy associated with colonialism, slavery, and genocide.
Embracing a tactical innovation originally pioneered by ISIS, the Republican Party is pushing bills that would empower motorists to run over protesters.
Bangladesh won its independence from Pakistan 50 years ago after a war that involved terrible atrocities against the civilian population. Selective nationalist mythologies still obscure the human stories of victims and perpetrators, and the lasting scars of the conflict.
Joe Biden has pledged to pour money into Central America to address the root causes of migration. There’s just one problem: the aid dollars would be used to shore up the militarized, free-market model that is making people flee in the first place.
Eric Hobsbawm’s work spanned everything from jazz to the history of banditry, in thousands of texts he wrote in several languages. A new project has brought together his writings in a searchable database — offering readers a goldmine of work by Britain’s greatest Marxist historian.
The Russian troop buildup on the Ukrainian border in recent weeks aimed to demonstrate the Kremlin’s muscle and force concessions over disputed regions. The threat of military force will never bring a viable peace — and for the Left, the first task is to de-escalate the rising nationalist tensions.
Joe Biden’s first 100 days proposal for a Civilian Climate Corps to put Americans to work revamping infrastructure and fighting climate change, is nowhere near as ambitious as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, and nowhere near large enough for the crises we face.
At the height of the Cold War, my father was a station chief for the Central Intelligence Agency. It was a front-row seat for the last gasp of the WASP spy.
After the upheavals of the 1960s, business leaders were losing control. They fought back through the Chamber of Commerce.
McKinsey consultants have packaged capitalism for decades, offering a glimpse into the moral compass of the ruling class.
East Coast boarding schools once prepared “ordinary” boys from the elite for national leadership — helping them forge friendships, networks, and marriages to rule the country.
As US capitalism boomed, attorneys from a handful of New York law firms became powerful viziers of America’s elite.
The TV series Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous inaugurated an era when the ruling class was there to be envied more than to be abolished.
From Boy George to Bryan Ferry, the New Romantics were working-class youths who created their own imaginary aristocracy through 1980s pop stardom. Did the mask end up eating the face?
Today’s ruling class treats all culture as either commodity or plaything. We should not accept either definition.
Under capitalism, New York Knicks owner James Dolan can make bad music. Under socialism, we can all make bad music.