Bad Chicago Cops Spread Their Misconduct like a Disease

Because Chicago's police complaints can list multiple officers at once, it’s possible to build a giant social network of police interactions.

Georgia Election Board Plots Assault on Black Voting

Election board proposes shutting down seven of the nine polling locations in an overwhelmingly black rural county not long after Democrats nominated Stacey Abrams, an African American woman, as their gubernatorial candidate.

Are American Workers Really Allergic to Socialism?

One of the most remarkable demonstrations of the deep-seated radicalism of “ordinary people” has been all but forgotten, even by historians: namely, the Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill.

Alfred Russel Wallace’s Footsteps to Evolution Theory

In the midst of this gorgeous but very harsh environment, Wallace was able to keep a clear head, think deeply about what it all meant, put it down on paper and send it to the most prominent biologist of the time, Charles Darwin.

If We Don’t Understand Class Struggle . . .

Filmmaker Ken Loach on populism, the gig economy, and the importance of transnational solidarity in his movies and beyond.

How Did Socialists Respond to the Advent of Fascism?

The following talk was given on 21 July 2018 to a two-day seminar at York University entitled “Historical perspectives on united fronts against fascism and the far right.”

Worst-Case Scenario for House GOP is 70-Seat Wipeout

If that pattern holds in November, the worst-case scenario for the GOP is a truly historic wipeout of as many as 72 House seats.

Trump Criticizes Boston Globe

Because the Globe organized newspapers to publish editorials supporting the free press.

Are Bosses Dictators?

A book posits that widespread oppression at work is a failure of America’s political system.

Trump’s Space Force and the Plan to Militarize Space

The TrumpVader poster.
Donald Trump’s Space Force would spur an “arms race in space” and violate the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, signed by the US, Russia, China, and 120 other nations, that designates space as a global commons to be used solely for peaceful purposes.
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Culture

theater

Lillian Hellman’s Days to Come

Jane LaTour ZNet
The great mystery to me, is why the play was a failure. Originally it ran for only 3 days, and then closed. Hellman was responding to an all-too-common ethical dilemma that persists down to today. Her own sympathies lay with the striking workers.

poetry

Gone . . .

Lee Rossi
California poet Lee Rossi explores the impact of toppling old heroes, their myths, their monuments, their wrongs.

books

Simone Weil, Meditations on a Corpse: Sketch for an Article

Simone Weil New Left Review
A pungent and exhaustive evaluation of the short-lived, pre-war popular front government of France, written on the heels of its demise by the brilliant French writer Simone Weil, with an introduction by the NLR editors.

Labor

labor

Review: Labor and the Class Idea in the U.S. and Canada

Steve Downs Labor Notes
The difference between these two systems of labor relations shows up in the different weight given to individual rights, such as freedom of speech, and collective rights, such as freedom of association.

labor

Medicaid Officials Target Home Health Aides' Union Dues

Shefali Luthra NPR
A rule proposed recently by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, under the Trump administration, would prohibit home health aides who are paid directly by Medicaid from having their union dues automatically deducted.

Friday nite video

video

Astroturfing

Organizations can hire fake advocates who create the illusion of real support for their message. It’s a shady practice called astroturfing that can warp the public perception of anything...even astroturfing.

video

A Ride Through Oakland With Boots Riley

Boots Riley, frontman of the politically-charged hip-hop group 'The Coup' and director of movie Sorry to Bother You, reflects on his music, his future, and his relentless revolt against capitalism during a tour of the streets of Oakland.

video

Movie | Fahrenheit 11/9

Palme d’Or–winning documentarian Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11) turns his attention to another significant date, examining the legacy of Trump’s ascension to the US presidency on November 9, 2016. In theaters everywhere September 21. 

video

Thank You, Koch Brothers!

Bernie Sanders thanks the Koch brothers for sponsoring a study that shows that Medicare for all would save the American people $2 trillion dollars over a ten year period. Probably not what they intended to do, but that is what a study of the Mercatus Center - significantly funded by the Kochs - shows.

video

Prophets of Rage | Who Owns Who

From the debut album of Prophets of Rage (Tim Commerford, Tom Morello and Brad Wilk from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, DJ Lord and Chuck D from Public Enemy, and B-Real of Cypress Hill).