Between the Lines Is a Prescient Homage to Print Media
Released almost 50 years ago, Joan Micklin Silver’s touching film about the decline of print media, Between the Lines, is a love letter to news and the people who make it.
19195 Articles by: Opal Lee
Opal Lee is a writer.
On Trade Policy, Trump Is Listening to CEOs
Even as Americans have suffered under Donald Trump’s tariffs, it’s only the complaints of CEOs that have led him to change course — a perfect example of oligarchy at work in the United States.
The Insurer Making It Harder to Get Vital Asthma Medicine
Health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield just adopted a policy that will force many people with serious asthma and allergy conditions to self-inject vital medications at home. The move raises risks for patients while cutting costs for the insurance giant.
The Far-Right Origins of Donald Trump’s Self-Deportations
Donald Trump has aggressively pushed migrants to self-deport. It is a strategy the Republicans have learned from the global far right, which has sought to circumvent human rights by creating a hostile environment for immigrants.
The Unexpected Pope
Pope Francis, writes Marxist scholar Michael Löwy, demonstrated an uncharacteristic sympathy toward left-wing thought, even as his thinking owed far more to the non-Marxist “theology of the people” than liberation theology.
Tradwives Are the Harbinger of Systemic Breakdown
Nostalgia for a bygone gender regime is more than a weird social media trend. It reflects larger system pressures — on elites facing technological disruption that might generate social unrest, and on ordinary women buckling under the weight of modern work.
With His New Film, Alex Gibney Shines a Light on Dark Money
Jacobin sat down with the prolific muckraking filmmaker Alex Gibney to discuss his new documentary The Dark Money Game, on the terrifying ramifications of Citizens United and how it’s empowered the same oligarchy now unleashed by the Trump administration.
Learning From the 1970 Postal Workers’ Strike
In 1970, US postal workers won collective bargaining rights with an illegal strike. If lawsuits to stop Trump’s attacks on the federal workforce fail, that kind of militancy may be the only way for federal workers to retain their own union rights.
Trump’s Plan to Restore US Financial Dominance
Behind the seeming chaos of Trump’s tariff policy, there’s a coherent plan to reboot what Peter Gowan dubbed the “Dollar–Wall Street Regime.” The goal is to strengthen US power around high-tech digital oligarchs, and it might yet succeed on its own terms.
Donald Trump Is Weakening US Influence in Latin America
Thanks to its stances on issues ranging from deportations to trade policy, the Trump administration is undermining US influence across Latin America, increasing political polarization in the region, and strengthening the hand of progressive forces there.
Tariffs and the Shop Floor
A former garment worker reflects on rank-and-file agitation in the US garment industry just before the industry fled the country.
“Most Workers Don’t Want Their Money Going to Foreign Wars”
The United Auto Workers’ Brandon Mancilla explains why his union has continued to oppose the genocide in Gaza, why slaughter abroad is tied to workers’ decline in living standards at home, and the union’s pushback to Donald Trump’s war on higher education.
The Free Spirit of Germany’s Carnivals Is Under Attack
Carnivals in Germany have long satirized the powerful. Calls to keep politics out of the festivities are now being used to silence dissent.
Trump’s Tariffs Have Done What No US Adversary Could
Great powers often decline through self-inflicted blows. By starting a trade war he was unable to follow through on, Donald Trump may have just dealt a severe one to the United States.
Can Canada’s Left Survive Trump’s Second Term?
The NDP helped build Canada’s welfare state. Now, under pressure from Donald Trump’s tariffs and a shifting political terrain, the party risks electoral annihilation as voters split between technocratic centrism and right-wing populism.
Rich and Successful Enough to Be Moral
Rutger Bregman’s book Moral Ambition calls for successful people to use their talents to “make a difference.” But he’s suspicious of systemic change, making his call for personal morality into a shallow exercise in self-help.
Bet on Worker-to-Worker Organizing
There are no guarantees that any approaches, new or old, to reversing the labor movement’s decline will succeed. But Eric Blanc makes a case for why we should wager on worker-to-worker unionism.
An Italian Communist in the Ethiopian Resistance
On April 25, Italians celebrate liberation from Fascism. One leading partisan was Ilio Barontini, a Communist who helped lead Ethiopia’s resistance against Benito Mussolini’s colonial occupation.
How China Is Reacting to Donald Trump’s Trade War
Amid all the confusing signals, China is clearly the prime target for Trump’s trade agenda. China’s best response to tariffs would be to rely more on domestic consumption than exports, but executing that turn presents a huge challenge for its leaders.
Indonesia’s Communists Helped Forge Its National Identity
After the bloody repression of the Indonesian left in the 1960s, Suharto’s regime wrote it out of the history books. Indonesian communists played a crucial role in developing national consciousness among workers and peasants against Dutch colonial rule.