I have had what I have been privately referring to as a poetry block for several years: I can barely read it, I certainly can’t write it, and it’s difficult to properly read anything about it. I used to live for poetry, and I still make a living by, occasionally,...
Jacobin
Equating the Soviet Union With Nazi Germany Is Terrible History
Across Eastern Europe, the war in Ukraine has reinvigorated narratives that present life under Soviet rule as akin to Nazi genocide. It’s bad history — and it indulges the nationalist groups who collaborated with Adolf Hitler. The Memorial of Red Army Soldiers is...
“Affordable Housing” Schemes Fail Because They Don’t Advocate for Public Housing
We all know that the rents are too damn high and that our cities’ efforts at providing affordable housing have been failures. The reason they fail is because the “affordable housing” playbook does not consider housing as a public good. A public housing building south...
How One Left-Led Union Fought the Barbaric Lynching of Emmett Till
The United Packinghouse Workers of America was a beacon of “civil rights unionism.” And in the aftermath of Emmett Till’s grotesque lynching in 1955, the union spearheaded a mass campaign on Till’s behalf in the North and South. Four women from the United Packinghouse...
Irish Unity Is Now a Realistic Goal, but There’s Still a Long Road to Travel
Sinn Féin has become the largest party on both sides of the Irish border. But the party’s effort to eliminate that border for good will have to overcome some powerful obstacles that stand in the way of a united Ireland. The Sinn Féin leadership of Mary Lou McDonald...
The Terrorism Charges Against Cop City Protesters Are Ominous
Protesters against a massive police militarization complex in Atlanta have been slapped with domestic terrorism charges for throwing bottles and breaking windows. That should be deeply worrisome for anyone who values the right to dissent. Police arrest a protester...
Amazon Just Saw Its First Strike in Britain
Yesterday, staff at Amazon’s Coventry warehouse did something no British workers at the company had previously done: they walked off the job. Amazon workers on strike outside the Coventry Amazon fulfillment center on January 25, 2023. (Christopher Furlong / Getty...
Russell Banks Was a Working-Class Writer for Our Global Age
Russell Banks, the acclaimed novelist who died of cancer earlier this month at the age of eighty-two, did not so far as I know identify as a socialist. But he did describe himself as a person of the Left, and in 1985 he wrote a profile for the Atlantic of the...
South Korea’s Conservative Government Is Cracking Down on the Country’s Militant Labor Unions
Last week, South Korea’s intelligence agency raided the country’s largest group of independent unions. It’s a blatant attack on workers’ rights that has raised fears the conservative government is resurrecting dictatorship-era methods of bludgeoning labor. President...
How British Workers Toppled the Anti-Union Industrial Relations Act
Britain saw a massive wave of collective action in the 1970s as trade unionists opposed a law that limited the right to strike. Revisiting this history provides a blueprint for fighting back against the Tories' anti-union legislation today. Workers protesting against...
Why George Santos Won’t Resign
In a world where norms and codes of conduct mattered, George Santos’s would be an open and shut case. But as long as he remains useful to the narrow Republican House majority, the chronically dishonest congressman likely isn’t going anywhere. Representative George...
Joe Biden’s Rooseveltian Ambitions Are Officially Dead
Austerity-minded Jeff Zients’s appointment as White House chief of staff signals Joe Biden’s return to the fiscal hawkishness that has always been his sweet spot. US president Joe Biden makes an announcement on additional military support for Ukraine in the Roosevelt...