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
The last time Canada’s center-left New Democratic Party was this important in Parliament, Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre, was prime minister. In the 1970s, the social democrats were able to win important concessions. Today, the outlook is far bleaker. We need to demand real action.
The USPS is under assault at the very moment we need a functioning postal service to hold a free and fair election. We can defend electoral democracy by defending the post office.
The American economy’s reopening has meant a surge in COVID-19 infections and deaths. But the ruling class did little by way of mandatory safety measures like mask-wearing in response — until workers and consumers began taking action and threatening corporate profits.
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have been friends to Latin America or to Latinos living in the US. Yet the Democrats seem to take the Latino vote for granted, as Joe Biden’s platform promises to extend the criminalization of immigrants.
Workers throughout the United States have had to organize to demand basic workplace health and safety protections during the pandemic. That’s also true of workers in higher education — including Kenyon College, where undergraduate workers are organizing a union.
The Conservative Party of Canada has announced a new leader: Erin O’Toole. A seemingly spiritless, staid candidate, his leadership may nevertheless prove a strategic win for Conservatives.
Conservatives are sounding the alarm bell about a Marxist takeover, with at least one philosopher urging liberals to join forces with the Right to destroy the socialist bogeyman. But the values of liberalism have much more in common with socialism than the Right — and liberals sincerely committed to advancing freedom and equality should unite with leftists.
Contrary to the rosy predictions of liberal pundits, Joe Biden has not embraced the Left or its priorities. The only viable left strategy under a Biden administration will be one of confrontation.
In recent years, the air of optimism surrounding the European Union has been replaced by continual crisis management. Yet the pandemic, the financial crisis, and Brexit have all spurred even further integration — and the Left lacks a coherent response.
University of Michigan graduate workers are on strike right now — not only for better protections against coronavirus, but also to defund the police.
Bloodred skies. Entire towns torched. The West Coast wildfires are the latest proof that we have no alternative to a Green New Deal — and that the urgency, in the face of increasingly apocalyptic conditions, is mounting rapidly.
After last October’s popular revolt, Chileans are due to vote on a new constitution to replace the current Pinochet-era document. But far-right forces are mobilizing to prevent any change — threatening deadly violence against social movements and indigenous people.
La posibilidad de que los Cordones Industriales reaccionen a las maniobras militares y se lancen al combate en defensa de la revolución representó uno de los mayores temores para los golpistas chilenos. Pero tal respuesta nunca llegó.
Organizer, lawyer, professor, priest — Pauli Murray held many titles throughout her life. But as a black lesbian with a burning hatred of oppression, her goal was always the same: to challenge discrimination and topple the brutal hierarchies of US society.
Women revolutionaries are routinely obscured by the history books. But a new biography of Beatriz Allende — daughter and close confidante of Salvador Allende, and internationalist militant — helps shine a light on what it meant to be a woman revolutionary in the age of Che Guevara.
A new Netflix series puts the evils of Donald Trump’s ICE on full display. The solution to such blatant cruelty isn’t to return to Barack Obama’s deportation-happy approach, but to finally construct a humane immigration system that isn’t tied to the carceral state.
Las protestas de los últimos meses en Chile apuntaron rápidamente contra los 30 años de neoliberalismo que oprimen al país. Pero existió también otro blanco del descontento popular: los 500 años de dominación colonial sobre los pueblos indígenas. A cincuenta años del triunfo de la Unidad Popular, el «momento Allende» guarda enseñanzas valiosas para pensar también esa cuestión.
Los casi mil días de gobierno de la Unidad Popular en Chile son recordados como una «fiesta» por quienes los vivieron. Recuperar esa memoria, nos dice Tomás Moulian, sociólogo y testigo de primera mano de aquellos años, «es fundamental para cumplir la profecía de Salvador Allende y abrir, por fin, las grandes alamedas».
An appeals court recently ruled a mass surveillance program exposed by Edward Snowden was illegal. It’s only the latest example of Washington admitting Snowden had, despite being continuously denounced by pundits and politicians, done the right thing by leaking information about the government’s massive surveillance operations.
The United Federation of Teachers, New York City’s teachers union, is a massive local that could wield enormous power through striking. But the union hasn’t struck in nearly half a century — even in the face of a deadly pandemic and unsafe schools reopening. Why does the UFT refuse to use its most powerful tactic?