Archive | Commentary

  • Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

    Big shots in Hamburg

    Years ago the 35th US president made a speech in Germany, four words of which, in American-accented German, remain famous: “Ich bin ein Berliner!”—“I am a Berliner!” That was John F. Kennedy. Will the 45th president, soon to visit Germany’s second city, emulate him and tweet “I am a Hamburger! Wow!”

  • New Yorkers protest Trump

    Are liberals having second thoughts about immigration?

    On June 20 The Atlantic posted an article by Peter Beinart claiming that the Democrats had “lost their way on immigration.” While the article has been lauded by Rightwingers, it is mostly a compendium of familiar sound bites on immigration, presented without much understanding of the issues.

  • The MQ-9 Reaper, a combat drone, in flight

    Killer drones and the militarization of U.S. foreign policy

    In the eyes of many around the world, diplomacy has taken a back seat to military operations in U.S. foreign policy. The drone program is a prime example.

  • Flag Map

    Capitalism is national and imperialist, not transnational

    Capitalism is characterized by both centripetal and centrifugal tendencies. There is not and cannot be a transnational capitalist state and for that reason there cannot be a transnational capitalist class.

  • French Election Posters

    The 2017 French Elections: A Grim Farce

    The experience of the last three decades has clearly demonstrated that social struggles in and of themselves are not sufficient to stop the drift to the right and re-establish a dynamic of social advances. That requires going beyond defensive strategies and creating a positive alternative project that is authentically social and democratic.

  • A union march in Detroit

    Improving our quality of life will require rebuilding union strength

    Unions provide workers with voice and the means to use their collective strength to gain job security and say over key aspects of their conditions of employment, including scheduling and safety. These gains are significant in our “employment at will” economy.

  • Juneteenth

    Juneteenth: Time for liberation now

    Juneteenth is not just a day in the park. It memorializes the most significant event in African-American history, what W.E.B. Du Bois in the magnificent “Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880” calls “the coming of the Lord,” the destruction of slavery.

  • José Carlos Mariátegui

    José Carlos Mariátegui: 87 years later

    Mariátegui’s funeral was one of the largest processions of workers ever seen in the streets of Lima, Peru, but in the U.S. his death was hardly noticed.

  • Southern Front

    Rebuilding the American labor movement—the Southern front

    The major contradiction for working people in the USA in the 21st century is now abundantly clear: while working for a living is a necessity for the majority of Americans and the wealth of the nation continues to grow, real wages and the number of decent jobs are in steady decline.

  • Capitalism or Socialism

    What is to constitute the new “yes” is the problem

    For Klein, developing a meaningful anti-shock politics involves some combination of what Sanders represented and what Clinton symbolized: Sanders with respect to class and economics, Clinton as far as race and gender, and everything else. Imperialism and war scarcely enter the argument.

  • Globalization chart

    Globalization and executive compensation

    Growing inequality has been one of the most salient features of the US economy over the last 40 years. A variety of explanations for this rapid growth in top incomes have been proposed, including growing firm size new technology, the market for superstars, poor governance, and changes in top tax rates.

  • ‘What we see this week is a shallow farce, beginning with a plan to move air traffic control to a private, non-profit corporation run by the airlines.’

    The thing about Trump’s infrastructure plan is: it doesn’t really exist

    The Republican leaders of Congress killed off Trump’s much touted infrastructure plan months before he even reached the Oval Office. What we are left with is a farce.

  • Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, prepares to give a speech on his party’s foreign and defence policy at the Chatham House think-tank, during the 2017 UK general election campaign

    Jeremy Corbyn’s “Dark Past”

    This expert has some shocking revelations about @jeremycorbyn‘s past…

  • Akala

    Akala—English artist, writer and historian—comes out in support of Corbyn

    “For the first time in my adult life and perhaps for the first time in British history someone I would consider to be a fundamentally decent human being…has a chance of being elected.”

  • 'What Was Done': Jeremy Corbyn

    ‘What Was Done’

    This short satirical film from Bella Caledonia (by Edinburgh filmmaker Bonnie Prince Bob) was originally banned by YouTube when it was released three weeks ago (it has since returned). As far as we are concerned it is a brilliant piece of propaganda that should go viral once again.

  • Protesting Miners in Iran

    Silicon Valley’s toys contribute to Iran’s 2017 presidential election

    With a few days to go to Iran’s upcoming presidential elections on 19 May, six candidates could survive the vetting process of the Guardian Councils.… The role of the media, both in Iran and throughout the diaspora, to shape public opinion is significant. Iranian state media, radio and television are supposed to give the “hopefuls” an opportunity to continue campaigning for office, as they speak about their future plans and defend past performances, but they often fall short.

  • The Graveyard of Progressive Social Movements

    When first encountering the “Impeach Bush” movement in 2007 I responded, almost flippantly, “why not impeach the system that gave us Bush?” Otherwise, I said, “we risk having someone in the White House who’ll make us long for Bush.” If prescient, my response was admittedly formulaic and evidentially deficient.

  • Trump press conference

    Slandering Populism

    Populism properly understood is about popular and democratic opposition to the rule of the money power—to the reign of concentrated wealth. It emerged from radical farmers’ fight for social and economic justice and democracy against the plutocracy of the nation’s Robber Baron capitalists during the late 19th century. It was a movement of the left.

  • Prison Labor

    The Return of Commercial Prison Labor

    In the decades following, the number of prisoners decreased to a historic minimum. But with cutbacks in the welfare state, the prison population exploded from about 200,000 in 1975 to 2,300,000 in 2013 (Scherrer and Shah, 2017: 37) and prison labor for commercial purposes became legal again. Today, about 15% of the inmates in federal and state prisons perform work for companies such as Boeing, Starbucks and Victoria’s Secret. Migrants detained for violating immigration laws are one of the fastest growing segments of prison labor. Under the Trump administration, their numbers are most likely to increase.

  • Martin Schultz

    Miracles Can Happen

    To follow German politics these days you have to like arithmetic. At first only up to six, for that many parties are now vying to get good grades, lots of votes, and more power in the September elections to the Bundestag, which will lead to a government ruling until 2021.