Culture industries are dominated by a few big corporations that prefer to keep flogging old stories instead of taking a risk on something new. Creative workers can still produce fresh ideas, but they’re snuffed out before they get a chance to breathe.
The disintegration of working-class institutions and the rise of professionalized advocacy have severed the connections between progressive civil society and working-class communities.
Now in hiding, César Montes led rebel forces, including the Guerrilla Army of the Poor, against US-backed dictatorships across Central America. Jacobin visited him in the Guatemalan prison where he was serving a 175-year sentence prior to his October escape.
UnitedHealthcare, the health insurer whose CEO was murdered earlier this month, has spent decades fighting and winning political battles to maintain the for-profit health system status quo and kill any attempts to reform it.
After Cyclone Chido hit the Indian Ocean islands of Mayotte, Emmanuel Macron told locals that they would be “10,000 times more in the shit” if they weren’t French-ruled. The mass casualties show how little France has actually done to protect the islanders.
Amazon workers at seven warehouses walked off the job starting yesterday, in a major escalation of the Teamsters’ efforts to organize the company. In New York, the strikers faced repression from the police.
A scion of the Mexican right, Nicolás Medina Mora promises a window into the country’s elite in his autofiction debut, América del Norte. Had it actually offered that, the book could have been fascinating. Instead it gets mired in musings on whiteness.
Despite the efforts of Donald Trump and the Right to bend the state in a more repressive, less free direction, society seems more and more resistant to these efforts.
The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime has prompted a fresh power struggle in Syria. Îlham Ehmed, a foreign relations representative for the Kurdish-led autonomous region, spoke to Jacobin about Turkey’s bid to expand its control.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, just used his political influence to shut down a bipartisan deal to keep the government open. It’s obscene — but it’s just one example of the ways billionaires dominate American democracy.
Canada, like the US and other countries, is grappling with acute political dealignment. Plummeting working-class support for center-left parties highlights the failure of liberal policies and the appeal of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s populism.
With the Amazon on the edge of collapse, climate pledges remain heavy on words and light on action. With progress stalling out on key issues like climate finance at COP29, delegates to COP30 in Brazil next fall have their work cut out for them.