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
In Mexico, the “war on drugs” was never about drugs at all, but about repressing social movements, smashing unions, and creating a shock-doctrine atmosphere for conservative governments to privatize pensions, health services, and the oil sector. The AMLO administration must dismantle the narco-state.
As if locking up mass numbers of people in cages weren’t depraved enough, jails and prisons around the country are now charging prisoners exorbitant fees to read, listen to music, and speak to their family and friends. It’s a gross violation and exploitation of prisoners’ basic rights to enjoy culture and connect with other humans.
According to Hillary Clinton, “nobody likes” Bernie Sanders. But it raises the question: Just who exactly likes her?
Mass incarceration is commonly thought of as a big-city problem. But as small-town economies have declined, county jails have expanded — and rural incarceration rates have jumped dramatically.
Libertarians once claimed they had the answer to the environmental crisis. But the reality of climate change has simply exposed the futility of their creed.
Hillary Clinton says Bernie Sanders has achieved “nothing” in Congress. My community health clinic shows she’s wrong.
The movement for Aboriginal self-determination has a rich history, steeped in the internationalism of anti-colonial struggles and black liberation movements throughout the world. We shouldn’t ignore it.
The Venezuelan opposition has repeatedly failed to depose Nicolás Maduro. So now they’re launching a last-ditch effort to get Donald Trump to intervene — by tying Maduro to Iran and Hezbollah.
Pundits love to narrate progressive politics as a story of “dreamers” like Bernie Sanders versus “realists” who understand the political constraints they face. They may be right about those roles — but they’ve got the casting backward. Sanders is the realist in this election.
Adam Schiff, the liberal hero of impeachment, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the military-industrial complex and a fervent exponent of permanent war.
When Bernie Sanders compared wage labor to slavery in the 1970s, he wasn’t equating the two. He was drawing on an emancipatory tradition, encompassing everyone from Frederick Douglass to Eugene Debs, that sees wage labor as shot through with subjugation — and insists on the need to democratize the workplace.
Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro stokes his base’s fears by warning of the “communist threat” posed by “cultural Marxism.” But if you don’t make a living off exploiting workers, there’s no reason to be afraid of Karl Marx and his friends.
For Indigenous Australians, Australia Day commemorates nothing but the invasion of their territories. While the Change the Date campaign gathers momentum, only a Treaty can begin to address the trauma and bloodshed of British settlement.
He wasn’t a household name, or even well-known outside Chicago labor and community organizing circles. But James Thindwa, who died this week after a long bout with cancer, was as dedicated, hard-working, and joyful of an organizer as was humanly possible — whose impact will continue to ripple across Chicago and beyond long after his death.
Unions are more popular than ever, but union membership just hit a new low. We need to elect Bernie Sanders, make his “Workplace Democracy Plan” a reality, and encourage a new wave of workplace militancy to stop the decline and end the devastation of working-class communities.
The American au pair program is closer to indentured servitude than cultural exchange.
Lots of myths and half-truths circulate about Nordic countries like Finland. But make no mistake: socialists and militant workers built the Finnish welfare state — not an enlightened or pro-business elite.
Jess Phillips’s brief but disastrous bid for the Labour Party leadership is a cautionary tale for substanceless centrists in politics: just because pundits and TV hosts love you doesn’t mean anybody else will.
Anti-abortion advocates have gained ground in recent decades by separating abortion from health care overall. We have to see abortion rights as an integral part of the fight for Medicare for All.
Joe Biden has a history of shady dealings, from protecting the interests of corporate donors to the business in Ukraine. Running him against our corrupt president would be a catastrophe.