Be Ready to Fight President Joe Biden on Israel-Palestine
A Joe Biden presidency will attempt to return to the hawkish Democratic status quo on Israel. Leftist activists and elected officials have to be prepared to stop him.
19639 Articles by: Opal Lee
Opal Lee is a writer.
Biden Is Already Loading His Pentagon Transition Team With Pro-War Think Tank Staffers
It hasn’t taken long for Joe Biden to get down to the business of preparing to assume the presidency — by drawing staff from hawkish think tanks financed by arms companies.
Hold Establishment Democrats Responsible for Down-Ballot Disasters
Democrats needed to recapture as many state legislative chambers as possible in order to blunt Republican redistricting efforts. They failed miserably, empowering conservatives for years to come.
The Extreme Center Is Waging War on the Left
In both Britain and the United States, a resurgent political center has declared war on the Left. But establishment politics and pro-corporate measures will only deepen the present crisis.
For Video Game Companies, “Crunch” Working Conditions Are Increasingly the Norm
Video games like CD Projekt Red’s forthcoming Cyberpunk 2077 are increasingly made under grueling working conditions — a particular irony for a game adopting the cyberpunk genre which, at its best, critiques the dystopian power abuses that so starkly characterize our world.
The Good, Bad, and Extremely Ugly of the 2020 Election
Looking beyond Joe Biden’s unexpectedly modest victory, the 2020 election was a historic failure for the Democratic Party. On the other hand, despite some painful hitches coming out of this campaign season, the Left has reason to be hopeful.
Biden and the Dems Should Have Buried Trumpism. But They Provided No Alternative.
In last week’s election, the Democrats performed terribly, despite running during a period of unprecedented crisis against a uniquely unpopular president. Donald Trump’s four years of demagoguery and corporate giveaways should have been easy to run against — but the Democratic Party is unwilling and unable to pose an alternative.
How the Left Beat Trump in Michigan
According to centrists, the “blue wave” didn’t materialize because of the Left. That’s nonsense — and in at least one crucial swing state, Joe Biden rode to victory because of the organizing of progressives and leftists.
Rebecca Long-Bailey: Why the UK Needs a Green New Deal
Labour Party MP Rebecca Long-Bailey argues that while the COVID-19 pandemic, a deep recession, and a worsening climate crisis are troubling clouds on the horizon, a Green New Deal for the United Kingdom offers a future worth fighting for.
What We Should Remember on Armistice Day
World War I wasn’t a war for democracy — it was a catastrophic, barbaric conflict that left tens of millions of people dead and set the stage for anti-democratic rollbacks for years to come. Anti-war socialists were right to oppose it.
Chuck Schumer Is a Man Out of Time
Chuck Schumer knows how to hold a press conference and he knows how to raise money from Wall Street. Those skills got him reelected to Senate leadership today. But when it comes to the take-no-prisoners, polarized politics of the twenty-first century, he’s completely out of his depth.
The US Cannot Whitewash Away Its Role in the Mexican “War on Drugs”
Mexico’s former secretary of national defense was arrested last month for alleged drug trafficking and money laundering. His trial will be important, but justice for the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the war on drugs means not only prosecuting involved Mexican officials, but also American officials who were complicit all along.
Túpac Amaru’s Rebellion Lives On
In November 1780, Túpac Amaru led an indigenous uprising against Spanish control of Peru. Centuries on, he and his wife and co-organizer Micaela Bastidas are still potent symbols of liberation in the Andes.
In Cyprus, the Golden Passports Scheme Shows Us How Capitalism and Corruption Go Hand in Hand
Al Jazeera’s Cyprus Papers have exposed a corrupt trade that sells citizenship on the Mediterranean island. But Cyprus is no rogue state: its “golden passport” scheme is firmly rooted in the logic of global capitalism, which makes everything — including citizenship — a commodity.
With Joel Fitzgibbon Gone, the Australian Labor Party Must Stop Appeasing the Fossil Fuel Lobby
After waging war on behalf of coal billionaires, Labor Right MP Joel Fitzgibbon has resigned from the party front bench. If the Labor Left wants to undo the damage he did, they need to start fighting for jobs and the environment as tenaciously as Fitzgibbon did for the coal lobby.
Without Another Massive Federal Stimulus, State and Local Governments Will Face Brutal Austerity
Even with Trump’s defeat, state and local government are facing brutal cuts to vital public services like education and health care. We can’t let the Biden years be four more years of austerity.
We Need a Shark Tank Without the Sharks
The entrepreneurial reality show Shark Tank is saturated with the absurdity of twenty-first-century capitalism. But watching it, you can’t help but think about how its basic premise — helping ordinary people with extraordinary ideas implement them on a wide scale — could be carried out under socialism.
How Real Estate Agents Keep Cities Segregated
Under capitalism, housing is a commodity, which means it principally exists to make rich people richer rather than meet human needs. That gap between making money and making profit distorts a whole range of life outcomes for average people — and real estate agents play a critical role in that process.
Learning to Strike and Win
If we’re going to reverse the ravages of neoliberalism, we’ll need to rebuild a global labor movement that knows how to strike and win. A recent international “Strike School,” led by labor organizer Jane McAlevey, brought 3,000 trade unionists and activists from seventy countries to try to do just that.
From Your House to Our House
America’s experiment with public housing was far less successful than Europe’s — but this hasn’t made it any less influential.