A Democratic Virus
As the coronavirus sweeps the entire globe, democracy is becoming just another casualty.
19579 Articles by: Zola Carr
Zola Carr is a doctoral candidate at Columbia University, working on a dissertation on the development of experimental brain implants for psychiatric disorder.
Building Picket Lines When We Can’t Stand Together
The wave of strikes demanding better workplace protections shows labor’s impressive resilience faced with the COVID-19 crisis. Social distancing and the rise of homeworking are blocking off many traditional forms of collective action — but also bringing about new ways of pressuring employers.
We’re in a Plague — Yet Andrew Cuomo Just Passed an Absolutely Brutal Austerity Budget
The media is fawning over Andrew Cuomo’s performance on the national stage in response to the coronavirus pandemic. They’re ignoring the devastating austerity budget that he just rammed down the state of New York’s throat.
Socialists, Stay in the Labour Party
Recent developments in the Labour Party have many socialists wondering if they should give up on the party for good. That would be a disaster. Leftists should stay in the party and focus on building power at the local level.
Bernie Sanders’s Campaign Was Trying to Save American Democracy
Bernie Sanders’s campaign was caricatured as irrationally angry, even Trumpian. In reality, it gave voice to the voiceless, raised people’s sense of what’s possible through collective action, and refused to accept that exploitation and the fear of economic devastation should be the lot of millions.
Weekends With Ana Kasparian and Michael Brooks
This Saturday at 1 PM Eastern, we’re debuting a live YouTube show, “Weekends,” hosted by Ana Kasparian and Michael Brooks. Liberals are hypocrites, conservatives are cruel, but we have an alternative.
Socialize Big Pharma Today. Save Your Life Tomorrow.
Deaths from antibiotic resistance will hit 10 million a year by 2050. But despite recent breakthroughs using artificial intelligence to discover antibiotics, the private sector doesn’t find it profitable enough to make new and better antibiotics. We’re all going to suffer unless the pharmaceutical sector is socialized.
Voters Won’t Risk Their Lives for Joe Biden
In 2020, faced with a raging pandemic on one hand and the hopeless politics of a Democratic Party that kneecapped Bernie Sanders and propped up Joe Biden on the other, voters will probably, like they did in 2016, choose to stay at home.
Bernie Lost. But His Legacy Will Only Grow
By standing against the forces that debase and devalue human life in modern America, Bernie Sanders has given millions something priceless, something that is certain to endure: hope.
Bernie Asked Us Which Side We’re On
Once you’ve realized society doesn’t have to be this way, that the exploitation you’ve experienced or witnessed isn’t inevitable, you can’t go back to thinking otherwise — the genie is out of the bottle. After Bernie Sanders’s campaigns, millions of Americans won’t go back.
Bernie Supporters, Don’t Give Up
The big story of the Bernie Sanders campaign is not that he lost the race, but that he came so close to winning — and that we fundamentally transformed US politics in the process.
We Lost the Battle, but We’ll Win the War
The Bernie Sanders campaign fell short. But it assembled a coalition that, if expanded only slightly, can reshape American politics for generations to come.
Thank You, Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders took socialism out of the margins and into the American mainstream for the first time in generations. His contributions to the struggle for a better world cannot be overstated.
Bernie Sanders: “We Have Won the Ideological Battle”
In a speech announcing the end of his candidacy, Bernie Sanders was defiant, saying that “together, we have transformed American consciousness as to what kind of country we can become.” We reprint the address here in full.
Viktor Orbán is Using the Coronavirus Emergency to Crush Minorities
Just in the last week, the Hungarian government has banned gender reassignment, legislated jail terms for fake news, and put government stooges in control of theaters. Viktor Orbán’s administration has done all this in the name of the response to coronavirus — exploiting its emergency powers to silence dissent and demonize minorities.
Yanis Varoufakis: “The European Union Is Determined to Continue Making the Same Errors It Made After 2008”
The lack of EU help for the states hardest hit by COVID-19 is the latest sign of the hollowness of “European solidarity.” As Yanis Varoufakis tells Jacobin, the European Union’s institutions are hardwired to ignore the needs of the social majority — preferring to allow mass suffering than to change their own rules.
The Life and Death of Lovett Fort-Whiteman, the Communist Party’s First African American Member
The first African American to join the Communist Party was born in Texas, and died as a prisoner in a Soviet gulag. This is the forgotten story of Lovett Fort-Whiteman.
How You Can Support Amazon Workers During COVID-19
Amazon workers are in an unprecedented fight with the retail giant over the company’s unsafe working conditions. Here’s how you can support the struggle — even if you can’t leave your house.
Why Joseph Schumpeter Hated Democracy
Joseph Schumpeter saw firsthand the transformative power of democracy in Red Vienna Austria and New Deal America. But as a conservative, he recoiled at workers’ challenges to traditional hierarchies — reminding us that the Right has always loathed democracy.
Pandemics Can Mean Strike Waves
In discussions about the last global pandemic, the “Spanish flu,” we never hear about the strike wave that kicked off at the exact same time. But in 1919, one-fifth of American workers walked off the job. We shouldn’t be surprised that labor militancy is spreading during today’s coronavirus pandemic.