Skip to main content

The Left Deserves Better Than Jill Stein

Kate Aronoff In These Times
Stein's Green Party run doesn't offer a plan to win, or to build power. The Left is capable of so much more. If politics were a battle for the moral high ground, both Bernie Sanders and the Green Party might be in full control of the three branches of government. Sadly, it's not and they're not.

Radical Internationalism: What Europe & the Left Need

Yanis Varoufakis The New Statesman
The left has been in disarray since 1991 - it never fully recovered from the collapse of the Soviet Union, despite widespread opposition to Stalinism and -authoritarianism. In the past two decades, we have witnessed a major spasm of global capitalism that has triggered a long deflationary period across the United States and Europe. Just as the Great Depression did in the 1930s, this has created a breeding ground for xenophobia, racism and scapegoating.

The Secret Struggle Against Apartheid

Peter Cole Jacobin
They undertook secret missions against South Africa's apartheid regime. Sensational story hidden for over 40 years. In the 1960s, a group of leftists risked everything to revive the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. These international activists who embraced a working-class radicalism that was internationalist, cosmopolitan, anti-imperialist, and anticapitalist - and most important, steadfastly opposed to legalized racial oppression in South Africa.

Dakota Access Pipeline and the Future of American Labor

Jeremy Brecher Labor Network for Sustainability
Supporting Native Americans and their tribes, environmental, climate protection, human rights, and many other groups joined the campaign against the pipeline. The Obama administration intervened to temporarily halt the pipeline. The Dakota Access Pipeline has become an issue of contention within organized labor. Why has this become a divisive issue within labor, and can it have a silver lining for a troubled labor movement?

Defeat Trump: Developing Latino Voter Outreach Campaigns

Dolores Delgado Campbell and Duane Campbell Democratic Socialists of America
Of Latino voters, Mexican and Mexican American voters are particularly strident in opposition to Trump because this campaign has targeted them and members of their families and has fostered the growth of right-wing and militia groups, particularly in border states. This kind of populist right-wing white nationalism is what passed California Proposition 187 in 1994, Arizona bill 1070 in 2010, and similar anti-immigrant legislation around the nation.

What’s the Matter with Cancer Alley?

Sean McCann Los Angeles Review of Books
Arlie Russell Hochschild has taken readers deep into the lives and minds of contemporary conservative voters and Donald Trump supporters. As reviewer Sean McCann shows, Hochschild's new study offers welcome insight into the forces that are driving our divisive politics.

Protest Started by Colin Kaepernick Spreads to High School Students

Julie Turkewitzoct The New York Times
In the weeks since Colin Kaepernick, a San Francisco 49ers quarterback, took a knee during the national anthem — the protest against racial injustice he launched has pushed that conversation onto a quintessential American stage: the high school football field.

USCIS Reverses Decision to Punish Civil Disobedience

#Not1More #Not1More
“There is no doubt in my mind that we need to continue speaking up, organizing and participating in civil disobedience. And when there is a backlash against our work, our tactics, our community members, we have come together to defend them. It’s part of our responsibility to our community and to future generations” – Nadia Sol Ireri Unzueta

Harvard Dining Services Picket in Historic Strike

Brandon J. Dixon and Hannah Natanson The Harvard Crimson
The workers’ strike marks the first time they have walked off the job during the academic year, according to Brian Lang, president of UNITE HERE Local 26, the Boston-based labor union that represents HUDS. The strike is the first walk out Harvard has seen since 1983.

Voices from Solitary: Welcome to the Round House

Mathew Davis Solitary Watch
I’m currently housed in F-house at the Stateville CC. F-house is the last functioning “round” house in America. The round house is just that, a circular building with 4 levels of cells around the outer ring with a central tower, allowing, by the use of backlighting, a single observer to watch over an entire cell house. This is a great source of pride for Stateville officials, not so much for those of us housed within.