Wouter van de Klippe is a freelance journalist and writer based in Europe. He is particularly interested in organized labor, social and environmental justice, and social welfare states.
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.
For decades, Europe 1 has been one of France’s most respected radio networks — but under pressure from its new billionaire owners, it’s being merged into the Fox-style CNEWS. Last week, journalists took strike action, trying to stop a French broadcasting icon from becoming yet another far-right echo chamber.
In 1907, Eugene Debs waxed poetic about the red flag, calling it “a sign of terror to every tyrant” and “the flag of Universal Freedom.” We reprint his article here in full.
Australian conservatives claim that “woke” students and left-wing lecturers pose a threat to free speech on university campuses. But the real “cancel culture” is coming from the Right.
Canadian thinker C. B. Macpherson insisted that capitalism’s “possessive individualism” constrained human flourishing. In its place, he wanted a democratic socialist society where people could build meaningful relationships and express the kaleidoscope of human individuality.
The United States is deeply hostile to renters, especially in states like Indiana that are staring down an enormous flood of evictions. We need action immediately to avoid a humanitarian disaster of millions being kicked out of their homes this summer.