We Need a Green New Deal for Public Transit
Expanded, free public transit, funded by taxes on the rich, can be at the heart of a just transition to a green economy.
19650 Articles by: Opal Lee
Opal Lee is a writer.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art Fought Them — These Workers Organized Anyway
Earlier this month, workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one of the largest art museums in the world, voted overwhelmingly to unionize. We spoke with two workers about how they fended off the museum’s fierce anti-union campaign — and why all white-collar workers should organize.
The Neoliberal University Is Failing on Coronavirus
With days before the fall semester, Marquette University is sending its workers and students into harm’s way. And without a faculty union, administrators and trustees are accountable to no one for the damage they’re doing.
It’s Fine to Feel Like Shit About Joe Biden and the DNC
We are all told to be enthusiastic about the Democrats’ political fraudulence and terrible policy platform so we can defeat Trump. But anyone who is paying attention and can remember our recent political past isn’t happy — we’re completely demoralized. And that’s okay.
The Democratic Convention Put the Party’s Contradictions Front and Center
Even as John Kasich reassured conservatives Joe Biden wasn’t moving left, Michelle Obama lectured progressives to muster Obama 2008–style enthusiasm for him regardless. It’s an incoherent message that could cost the party come November.
Don’t Listen To the Democrats Kowtowing To For-Profit Health Companies. It’s Still Medicare for All or Bust.
The recent news that the Democratic Party may abandon the public option after November’s election vindicates the Bernie Sanders strategy for pushing no half-measures on health care reform and demonstrates yet again why nothing short of unwavering support for M4A is enough.
Organizing Online Customer Service Workers in the Midst of a Pandemic
When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit and workers at the online clothing company Everlane faced layoffs, they decided to organize. One laid-off Everlane worker describes the difficulties of remote service work in the 21st century, building solidarity among coworkers who never meet in person, and why other online service workers should get organized.
After the Pandemic, Disaster Capitalism Will Reign — Unless We Fight Back
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, a fleeting sense of radical possibility quickly gave way to a wave of cuts and privatization. After COVID-19, get ready for a repeat, as leaders around the world push for austerity again.
Erich Fromm and the Revolution of Hope
The German socialist thinker Erich Fromm developed a powerful critique of authoritarian culture in response to the rise of Nazism. Today’s Left has much to learn from that critique, and from his defiant political optimism in the face of dark times.
Movie Theaters Were Made for a World That No Longer Exists
Movie theaters are set to reopen soon, but neither the safety of viewers, nor support for the film industry itself, can be guaranteed.
Black Lives Matter Is Part of a Global Struggle Against Oppression
The Black Lives Matter protests have had an electrifying impact. To build on that momentum, we need to forge strategic unity between different struggles against oppression, in the US and the wider world.
How Trump Got His Right-Wing New Deal Victory
Trump just scored a victory for workers at the Tennessee Valley Authority — but on the Right’s reactionary, anti-immigrant terms. All while the socialist left was AWOL.
Maine’s Striking Shipbuilders Appear to Be On Their Way to a Big Victory
For the past three months, shipbuilders at Bath Iron Works in Maine have been waging the US’s biggest private sector strike of the year. With a tentative agreement now in place, it’s looking like they’re in for a big win.
The Democrats’ DNC Plans Show They Aren’t Even Pretending Anymore
The DNC is the four-yearly apotheosis of the Democratic Party’s love of progressive symbolism and empty rhetoric in place of real political vision. This year, it’s not even committing to that.
Where Do Sex Panics Come From?
Sex panics keep happening because they tap into Americans’ deepest fears about the need to protect innocents from the threat of evil — fears that are endemic among the Left as well as the Right. Meanwhile, lives are destroyed in the process.
Democrats Seem All Too Willing to Surrender on Health Care Reform
For-profit health companies are launching a new national ad campaign to persuade Democrats to abandon their plans to create a public health insurance plan — something many elected Democrats are very happy to be convinced of.
Medicare for All Is Better Than Union Health Care
A new report shows that union health plans, while better than employer-sponsored health care, pale in comparison to Medicare for All. The labor movement should take notice: union members would be better off with M4A than the health plans they have to fight so hard to protect.
In Belarus, the Left Is Fighting to Put Social Demands at the Heart of the Protests
The protests in Belarus have widely been painted as a pro-Western “color revolution” or “Minsk Maidan,” ignoring the deeper reasons for popular discontent with president Alexander Lukashenko. Jacobin spoke to left-wingers in Belarus about the forces behind the protests and the prospects of organized labor asserting its own agenda.
I Have a Vaccine Injury — And I’m Ready for Another
To develop the desperately needed vaccine for COVID-19, we need to test that vaccine on human subjects. Socialists have to fight to make sure for-profit medical companies don’t abuse those subjects.
Kamala Harris Is Joe Biden’s VP Pick, Despite Everything
Joe Biden’s choice of running mate Kamala Harris reveals a bleak truth: nothing the Left has done, from two Bernie Sanders campaigns to the biggest uprising in US history against police brutality, influenced his thinking at all. Big-money donors, on the other hand, did.