William G. Martin teaches at SUNY-Binghamton and is co-author of After Prisons? Freedom, Decarceration, and Justice Disinvestment (2016) and a founding member of Justice and Unity for the Southern Tier; he covers local justice matters at www.justtalk.blog
Pandemic measures like the stimulus temporarily helped and empowered working-class and vulnerable people. And that’s quickly becoming a problem for an economy based on their hyper-exploitation.
Recent socialist electoral campaigns have been essential to the rebirth of the US left. Now the Left needs to commit to rebuilding the labor movement from the bottom up. If we don’t, major reforms — not to mention socialism — will remain off the agenda.
The Australian far right has joined forces with New Age spiritualists, snake-oil salesmen, and wellness gurus to take advantage of social alienation caused by the pandemic. Despite the new branding, their anti-union, anti-working-class politics remain the same.
The rank-and-file reform slate Teamsters United has secured victory in the union’s internal election. Its agenda is modest: bargain hard against UPS, organize Amazon, push the PRO Act, and revitalize the labor movement.
Medicare is set to push through a historic premium hike — just in time for the midterms. And it’s all because of the corrupt FDA approval of an exorbitantly priced drug that might not even work.
As AMLO’s transformative social programs gather steam in Mexico, the country’s conservative opposition parties are making overtures to the far right.
Supernatural ideas were widespread at the turn of the 20th century, especially in Germany. But in the social crisis following World War I, esoteric and border-science ideas became a powerful tool of Nazi mobilization, directed at demonizing Jews and the Left.
Noam Chomsky talks about US hypocrisy in stoking needless conflict with China, the unnecessarily bloody and grinding war in Afghanistan, and why the United States could easily solve climate change.
No democratic parliament should include hereditary peers or lifetime appointees. It’s time for Britain to abolish the House of Lords.
Until recently, denying refugees the right of asylum, sending migrants to be killed in Mexico, and keeping kids in cages were policies considered so evil that for liberal America there was no higher priority than ending them. Then Joe Biden became president.
Some of the lowest-paid workers at UPMC, Pennsylvania’s largest private-sector employer, are on a one-day strike. Their demands — a living wage, safe staffing — are shocking only in how incredibly reasonable they are.
Billionaires now hold so much of the world’s wealth, their apologists argue, there’s no choice but to rely on them for philanthropy. But we can’t take our eyes off the ball: We need to tax the ultrarich out of existence.
The nation’s original failure to “build back better” was Reconstruction, the attempt to radically remake society in the wake of the Civil War. Then as now, the most powerful people in the country went out of their way to maintain the status quo.
Cities have long been the sites of major advancement for progressive and socialist politics. But for over a century, city leaders have tried to halt those advancements with a potent tool: redistricting.
Western governments have tried to blame China and India for the COP26 flop. But it was the rich capitalist states of Europe and North America that refused to accept the just demands of the world’s poorest nations, leaving us still on course for disaster.
Pregnant and facing decades in prison, the mother of Tupac Shakur fought for her life — and triumphed — in the trial of the Panther 21.
In Australia, a growing protest movement is challenging public health measures intended to counter COVID-19. Although its organizers claim to be defenders of freedom, it’s clear that far-right and fascist groups are at the heart of this movement.
Corporate Democrats like Senator Kyrsten Sinema saved Big Pharma $450 billion by watering down the party’s drug pricing plan.
Financial vultures are pushing a new round of bankruptcy and austerity in Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans themselves, meanwhile, continue to fight for pensions, basic services, and a democratic say in their lives that has been denied them so long.
At COP26, the US and its rich allies refused to consider how to pay for the damage their emissions are wreaking on developing nations.