What If We Really Are Alone in the Universe?
The recent “cosmic realist” trend in hard sci-fi — expressed most severely in James Gray’s Ad Astra — comes at an existentially staggering moment for our relationship to both the planet and the cosmos.
Blog
Why Haitians Are Protesting En Masse
Mass protests in Haiti have reached a fever pitch. Their target: the country's venal political class and its self-serving, US-backed president.
How Bernie Sanders Should Talk About Venezuela and US Intervention in Latin America
Bernie Sanders is repeatedly asked absurd questions by mainstream reporters about Venezuela. He should use such questions as an opportunity to talk about the long, bloody history of US intervention there and throughout Latin America.
It’s Still Netanyahu’s Israel
Over the past decade, Benjamin Netanyahu has remade Israeli politics in his own image. Though his career now hangs by a thread, his legacy of far-right pandering and cold-blooded “management” of Palestinian oppression will live on.
Five Years Later, Do Black Lives Matter?
Five years since its inception, a look at what the Black Lives Matter movement accomplished and the important work it left unfinished.
We Can Dance, and It Will Be Our Revolution
Founder of the oldest professional dance school in the United States, Martha Graham refused to perform at the Nazi Olympics and created a lasting stage for political dissent. Modern dance has deep links to radical politics — and the protests of those who stepped out of the chorus line.
How France Insoumise Was Reduced to a Protest Vote
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s breakthrough in the 2017 presidential election brought France Insoumise to the heart of French public life. Yet today, as its base shrinks to a traditional far-left electorate, the movement’s very survival is in doubt.
Kamala Harris’s Signature Achievement Was a Complete Failure
Kamala Harris trumpets a criminal justice program she instituted as district attorney as proof she's a "progressive prosecutor." The only problem? The program utterly failed to reduce mass incarceration in California.
The Spanish Left at War
Spain's Socialist premier Pedro Sánchez has refused to grant top cabinet jobs to the radical left party Podemos. And as Spain faces another general election, Podemos faces a tough battle against division and marginalization.
The Elitism of the “Anti-Populists”
Pundits analyzing the “populist threat” often assume an audience that wants to defend the status quo. Presenting all political “outsiders” as merely dangerous, anti-populist literature tells us more about the role of public intellectuals than the movements it is meant to describe.
Medicines for the Many
In the UK and across the world Big Pharma is ripping off public health systems and denying patients vital medicines. This week, Labour showed there is an alternative.
When Socialist Hungary Went Neoliberal
The events of 1989 are usually remembered as an unprecedented extension of the “free market” to formerly socialist countries. But as the history of 1970s Hungary shows, neoliberal restructuring had never been limited to the West — and spread East long before the fall of the Berlin Wall.