Please contribute to help us to chart a path forward!

Can democracy in the United States survive naked dictatorial ambition and Christian nationalism in 2024? The biggest danger today: a vengeful would-be dictator and a cultist Christian nationalist movement that are reaching for absolute power in our country. Please help us to inform, to mobilize and to inspire the forces of multi-racial, radical, inclusive democracy to defeat this threat in 2024.

This Week in People’s History, Dec 5–11

Union pickets outside Republic Windows and Doors Factory
Si, Se Puede! (in 2008), Exposing FBI Crimes (1973), Bartenders Win Half a Loaf (1948), Great Art at Greater Prices (1933), Don't Forget the Genocide Convention (1948), Don't Forget Human Rights, Either (1948), $1 Million Is Chump Change

COP28: Challenge the Power of Fossil Fuel Capitalism

The environmental destruction caused by wars, occupations and the military-industrial complex are compounding the climate crisis.

The Middle East’s Real History

Zionism emerged in response to 19th-century European antisemitism — but its aims in Palestine drew upon Western colonial ideologies. To present the current conflict as a timeless feud denies both European responsibility and Palestine’s multiethnic hi

The Challenge of Fusion Power

Scientists have been chasing the dream of harnessing the reactions that power the Sun since the dawn of the atomic era. Interest, and investment, in the carbon-free energy source is heating up.

Polio Is on the Brink of Eradication: New Challenge

The campaign to eradicate polio could succeed in the next few years. But that’s just the beginning of a new challenge — keeping it away.

‘Plain Historical Falsehoods’: Supreme Court

A POLITICO review indicates most conservative briefs in high-profile cases have links to a small cadre of activists aligned with Leonard Leo.

Why Drugs Are Disappearing From Your Insurance Coverage

Powerful companies are removing hundreds of medicines from insurance plans — and they’re spending millions to stop attempts at reform.

A Young Communist Won and Lost Power in Postwar Japan

Today marks a decade since the death of Japanese communist Toshiko Karasawa. Her courageous life is a testament to the revolutionary potential of anti-imperialism, but also the difficult choices faced by the Left in US client states.

Why Don’t Americans Believe in Science?

When medicine doesn’t focus on prevention, anti-vaccination rhetoric flourishes. It’s time to address the system.

Israel, Palestine and Definitions

According to pro-Israel groups it is unacceptable to refer to what Israel is doing in Gaza as “genocide” or “terrorism,” as if there were better terms to use to describe: the indiscriminate bombing of heavily populated areas.
Read more

Culture

food

Why Turkey for Christmas and Thanksgiving?

Troy Bickham, The Conversation Modern Farmer
Turkey is practical for serving to a large crowd. In England, King Henry VIII regularly enjoyed turkey on Christmas day a century before the Pilgrims’ feast.

tv

Rustin the Liberal Biopic Versus Rustin the Labor Activist

DUSTIN GUASTELLA Jacobin
Netflix’s new feel-good Bayard Rustin biopic, Rustin, claims the civil rights hero has been forgotten because of his sexuality. But it was his fiery and provocative class politics that makes him both controversial and prophetic today.

poetry

Taking Sides

Irwin Keller
California Rabbi Irwin Keller chooses no sides in the wars but pleads for unconditional peace.

books

The World That Municipal Socialists Built

Justin H. Vassallo Dissent
Urban socialists blazed a path toward social democracy. Leftists who want to reclaim this tradition face a whole new set of obstacles.

Labor

labor

Harry Bridges and the ILWU – Then and Now

Peter Olney Stansbury Forum
Time to follow the containers, march inland and organize! Time to build a multi-union organizing project. Time to strategize and organize!" Read Robert Cherny’s “Harry Bridges Labor Radical, Labor Legend”, University of Illinois Press 2023.

labor

Laney Graduate Students Vote To Unionize

Ilah Ross Emory Wheel
Laney Graduate School students have voted to unionize after years of advocacy, making Emory University the first private university to have a graduate-worker union in Georgia and the second in the South.

labor

Workers at Tacoma Art Museum Vote Unanimously To Unionize

Lauren Gallup Northwest Public Broadcasting
To unionize, Tacoma Art Museum Workers United [TAMWU] needed the majority of its 26 workers to vote yes. After two days of voting in an election overseen by the Washington State Public Employment Relations Commission, the unanimous results came in Th

Friday nite video