We live in one of the darkest moments in American history,” Cornel West begins his new introduction to the 25th-anniversary edition of Race Matters, published on December 5, 2017.
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
Making merry on bitcoin
Bitcoin has left the world of finance gasping. Although the total market value of all that cryptocurrency in circulation is only a fraction of the value of the world’s financial assets, the rapid rise in the value of the currency has made it the most wanted of those assets. On January 1, 2017, the currency […]
Somali deportees from U.S. exposed to “slave ship conditions”
92 Somali nationals who were deported from the United States earlier this month are suing the Trump administration over “slave ship conditions” on the plane back home. They were denied access to food, water and bathrooms for nearly two days while on the plane.
Two billion dollars in stolen wages were recovered for workers in 2015 and 2016—and that’s just a drop in the bucket
The last four decades have been marked by rising wage inequality, with the vast majority of American workers experiencing wage stagnation while those at the top rung of the economic ladder reap the benefits of growth in productivity. These dynamics mean that many workers struggle to make ends meet; in 2016 one in five families […]
“Social leaders are murdered because of fights over women”, said Colombia’s Defense Minister
Just a week ago, Colombian social leaders denouncing the murder of another one showed up to the press conference with masks covering their faces in order to avoid risking to lose their own lives—such is the danger of defending human rights in Colombia.
Taxes, inequality, and class power
No doubt about it, the recently passed tax bill is terrible for working people. But as Lance Taylor states in a blog post titled “Why Stopping Tax ‘Reform’ Won’t Stop Inequality”: “Inequality isn’t driven by taxes—its driven by the power of capital in relation to workers.” Said differently we need to concentrate our efforts on […]
From progressive neoliberalism to Trump and beyond
Whoever speaks of “crisis” today risks being dismissed as a bloviator, given the term’s banalization through endless loose talk. But there is a precise sense in which we do face a crisis today. If we characterize it precisely and identify its distinctive dynamics, we can better determine what is needed to resolve it.
Debt comes for us all
“DON’T LET YOUR CHILDREN GO INTO CRIPPLING DEBT LIKE I HAVE!” I shout, as I and a group of students with SENS-UAW make our way to a major intersection just off Union Square. We wave signs, hoist our banner and merge into the crowd. We are protesting the new GOP tax bill, which will affect […]
Net neutrality and the socialist moment
In recent months, one of the United States’ most important debates has revolved around the broad concept of Net Neutrality (NN). Without delving into the technicalities, the concept of NN is that internet service providers (ISPs) cannot privilege or restrict internet data. Basically, once you’ve purchased your internet package with the requisite bandwidth parameters, your […]
Division, distraction, and domination: Revisiting the miner’s canary
A magazine owned by billionaire Michael Bloomberg recently reported on workers’ declining share of national income. “Why don’t workers get the full benefit of rising productivity? No one has good answers,” it stated, to the merriment of left Twitter. A raft of memes reminded Bloomberg Businessweek of the lessons of Piketty, Marx, and political economy […]
‘Whether or not the Presidents change, the Generals remain connected’
CounterSpin interview with Suyapa Portillo on Honduras Electoral Chaos
Employers would pocket $5.8 billion of workers’ tips under Trump administration’s proposed ‘tip stealing’ rule
On December 5, the Trump administration took its first major step toward allowing employers to legally pocket the tips earned by the workers they employ. The Department of Labor (DOL) released a proposed rule that would allow restaurants to take the tips that servers earn and share them with untipped employees such as cooks and […]
Zachary Samalin reviews Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion by Gareth Stedman Jones
“The Marx constructed in the twentieth century bore only an incidental resemblance to the Marx who lived in the nineteenth,” Gareth Stedman Jones writes at the close of his exhaustively researched biography Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion (p. 595). This statement can be taken as the premise underlying Stedman Jones’s account of Karl Marx’s role […]
FreshEd #100: A Marxist critique of higher education
To celebrate the 100th episode of FreshEd, I’ve saved an interview with a very special guest.
The Anti-Empire Report #153
“He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election. He did not do what they are saying he did.” – President Trump re Vladimir Putin after their meeting in Vietnam.
Net neutrality repeal is only part of Trump’s surrender to corporate media
The FCC is under attack—and so too is the First Amendment. As the primary regulator of how media and information gets to our nation’s citizens, the Federal Communications Commission has a critical role to play in protecting the open Internet, free speech, and free press in our democracy.
The American savings crisis, explained
When you lay all that out, Americans’ terrible saving rate stops looking like such a mystery. In fact, it looks downright rational.
Limits on free speech
Judith Butler asks what happens when free speech clashes with other basic values.
16 days, at least 14 dead, hundreds detained and still no official election results
On November 26, the Honduran people went to the polls to elect their president for the next four years. Whilst in all the other elections in Honduras where the results were released the same day or the next morning, it has been 16 days and the Supreme Electoral Tribunal has yet to release the official […]
Trump’s thug-power, or does anybody still like Woody Allen?
Let’s go back to when we were all a little younger and less terrified. Obama is president. I am talking to a slightly older, white, heterosexual male, highly esteemed by the academic world and by me. I, a lesbian, admire and trust this guy. We’re catching up, talking about life, books, friends. I tell him […]
