Ryan Switzer is a PhD candidate in sociology at Stockholm University. He researches right-wing politics in welfare states.
Last night’s elections brought us some very good news, with Cori Bush securing an historic upset in Missouri and Rashida Tlaib easily cruising to reelection in a race the mainstream media predicted would be close. Leftists are still a small minority in the halls of power — but we’re gaining steam.
The GOP’s proposed coronavirus relief legislation is grotesque — an insult to the working class and a threat to the lives and livelihoods of millions. The fact that Senate Republicans felt at liberty to propose it is a telltale sign of political rot.
The Chicago Teachers Union threatened a strike in response to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s refusal to move city schools to remote learning for the fall. Hours later, the mayor caved. Strikes work — and during a pandemic, they can save lives.
The AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center has a long history of working hand in glove with the US government in undermining democracy and left labor movements throughout the world. The center emphasizes it has shifted away from these Cold War tactics in recent years. But newly obtained documents show that the Solidarity Center has worked closely with the US to undermine the Venezuelan government in the recent past.
A historic leader of moderate nationalism, John Hume is widely eulogized for helping end the war in Northern Ireland. But praise for his rejection of violence shouldn’t be combined with amnesia about the deep injustices that fueled the conflict in the Six Counties.
Democratic socialist Justin Farmer is running for state senate in Connecticut on a platform to reform the criminal justice system and reinvest in communities. We talked to him about it.
Carceral solutions to sexual violence won’t deliver justice. We need investments in public services that will actually reduce sexual violence.
Brazil’s Lava Jato investigation in corruption jailed former president Lula da Silva and was lauded by anticorruption campaigners in the West. But its legacy is the most corrupt president in the country’s history: Jair Bolsonaro.
Australia’s response to the COVID-19 crisis should be turning its economy away from resource extraction. Instead, it’s doubling down.
At a time of pandemic-related crises all throughout our society, the crisis in childcare is particularly brutal. There’s only one solution: free public early childhood education for all.
The destruction of California’s once vast and magnificent redwood forests is entwined with American expansion westward, violent dispossession, and the ravenous commodification of nature. The remaining redwoods demand our protection.
Nine months after the right-wing coup that ousted Bolivian president Evo Morales, elections still have not been held and popular discontent with the coup regime is boiling over. Democracy must be restored, no matter what the golpistas and their allies in Washington want.
On Sunday night, Spain’s former king Juan Carlos fled the country in order to evade prosecution over mass-scale money laundering. Once hailed as a leader of the transition away from dictatorship, the monarch’s corrupt dealings show how Spain’s powerful business interests continue to stand above democratic scrutiny.
Open container laws criminalize working-class people and make public life less fun. We need to legalize public drinking.
Like American Apparel before it, Everlane began as a clothing company for Millennials built on a supposedly ethical business model. But by now the lesson should be clear: when push comes to shove, businesses will always subordinate ethics to profit.
In 1973, Arab-American workers in Detroit auto plants walked off the job in protest of the UAW’s investment in bonds from the state of Israel. The incident is little-remembered today, but it shows how workers can organize against racism and colonialism — including against the labor movement’s investment in the Israeli occupation of Palestine today.
Canada isn’t the beacon of social democracy that many progressive Americans imagine. But when faced with the coronavirus crisis, the US’s inept political class and for-profit health system couldn’t even match a country with a moderate welfare state and functional government.
While many liberals agitate furiously against any boycott of Israeli universities, few pay attention to the ways in which academic freedom is already severely curtailed in Palestine.
The latest economic numbers are dismal: GDP is projected to be down 33 percent from the first to second quarter of 2020. Even if we see some recovery soon, the long-term damage — people unemployed, businesses shuttered, confidence hammered — will be massive and lingering.
The COVID-19 crisis has hit South Africa’s poor and working-class majority hard, with the government favoring the rich over the unemployed. Our friends at Africa Is a Country spoke with three South African organizers of the unemployed, who are fighting for decent public services — and a basic income.