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
An iconic 1978 image shows Bob Marley uniting left- and right-wing party leaders on stage, calling for a truce. Misread as apolitical, his gesture was actually meant to rescue a socialist political movement in danger.
Socialist candidates in recent years have tended to struggle with poor and working-class black voters. But new data from the New York City election shows that’s not inevitable: we can build a base that draws in the entire working class.
Democrats bankrolled by Big Pharma are suddenly targeting Nina Turner — right after she aired an ad touting Medicare for All.
In the 1970s, pioneering gay activists in the US and Britain saw the fight against homophobia as part of a much broader struggle — one that linked Pride to the cause of liberating the world’s oppressed peoples.
When Angela Davis was arrested after two months on the lam in 1971, Michael Myerson interviewed her and a codefendant in jail — turning him into a prosecution’s witness. He was now in a tough spot: Could he defy the prosecution without going to jail for perjury? Luckily, he figured out how.
After General Franco launched his military coup in July 1936, anti-fascists from around the world joined the International Brigades to defend the Spanish Republic. For the Irish volunteers, the fight against fascism in Spain was about upholding the internationalist spirit of Ireland’s own revolt against empire.
Joe Biden has reverted to type, pushing a laughably inadequate infrastructure deal that ignores the accelerating climate crisis. There are now enough progressives in Congress to block the bill and insist on something better. They should.
In New York City, the Municipal Labor Committee is not only helping to block statewide single-payer health care, it’s undermining retiree health care. It’s shortsighted and dangerous politics.
With her win last week, Buffalo’s India Walton will almost certainly become the first socialist mayor of a major US city in years. She’s reviving a robust American tradition: municipal socialism.
Australia’s General Mills strikers have showed us how to fight back — and win — during a “recovery” that’s benefiting the superrich far more than ordinary workers.
Bitcoin is an asset so useless that even if a financial transactions tax completely destroyed it, the world would be better off.
Soldiers’ and police unions’ calls for action to save France from chaos show how fascist ideas have spread within the state. For decades, neoliberal governments have increased these repressive bodies’ powers — and today, they’re preparing the ground for a Le Pen presidency.
Venice’s International Film Festival is awarding Roberto Benigni this year’s Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. Announcing the award, the festival called Benigni a model of transgressive filmmaking. In fact, for decades, the Life Is Beautiful star has symbolized how onetime radicals turn into purveyors of conformist schmaltz.
While Mike Gravel never earned the respect of the political establishment, he passed from this Earth with his conscience untormented by the ghosts of screaming civilians whose lives those in Washington regularly snuff out with their afternoon coffee.
The pandemic was and remains brutal for average people. But not for the rich: central bank policies created 5 million new millionaires during the pandemic. It’s the latest sign that our economy is rigged for the wealthy.
The Economic Development Corporation manages New York City land in the service of private profit. The city needs a new approach that doesn’t give away massive amounts of public money to the wealthy.
Henry Reynolds has demolished the apologetic arguments of conservative intellectuals, showing that the British colonization of Australia was a crime even by the standards of its time. Reynolds makes a powerful argument for recognizing Aboriginal sovereignty.
A flood of evictions is about to slam the United States. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The federal government can stave off the crisis and fix the underlying injustices causing it. Here’s how.
Amazon’s buyout of MGM is the latest example of the culture industry’s transformation into a Big Tech monopoly. Artists, workers, and the film-watching public suffer the consequences.
The pandemic has been brutal for graduate workers, but some have organized despite COVID. Case in point: graduate workers at Colorado State University, who, with help from the Emergency Workers Organizing Committee, demanded decent pay and treatment.