Twenty years ago, Republicans took over Texas’ governorship, house, and senate and then deregulated and neglected the state’s energy systems, leading to this catastrophe.
Category: Social Policy
Movement Alders Flip to Pass Austerity Budget
In the most contentious Chicago budget vote in a generation, four “progressive” alderpeople buckled to Lightfoot’s pressure and allowed an antiworker austerity city budget to pass for 2021.
School Reopening Fights Reveal Bitter Truths of Economic System
C.R. Mills argues that the current ‘teachers vs. parents’ framing surrounding school reopenings, must be reframed.
Trump Lost the Election, But What is the Future of Trump and Trumpism?
Having lost the election, what is Trump’s future? At the top of his agenda is arranging a pardon for himself, for crimes of which he has not been convicted. He might try to use the presidential pardon to pardon himself, which would almost surely end up in the Supreme Court.
Mexico’s AMLO Is No Leftist, as His Handling of Covid Demonstrates
Not only is AMLO’s government not socialist, it is not democratic, it is not competent, and it is not socially responsible. AMLO is a populist with a leftist image and rightist policies.
Lysenko Comes to the CDC: Exploring the Relationship Between Science and Politics
The specter of Lysenko is haunting the CDC and the entire Trump administration, revealing that the perversion of science is as likely in a capitalist democracy as it is in a Stalinist state, and always with dire consequences.
Commercial Surrogacy and Socialism from Below
Sara Lee continues a debate with Alexandra Holmstrom-Smith on commercial surrogacy started in our Summer 2020 issue, sparked by Holmstrom-Smith’s review of Sophie Lewis’ recent book Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family (Verso, 2019).
Why We Campaign to ‘Save the Middle Class’ and Shouldn’t
The centering of “saving the middle class” in presidential politics not only left open the possibility of direction of anger and misunderstanding towards the racialized poor, but encouraged it.
Surrogacy, Exploitation, and Commodification
An exchange between Sara Lee and Alexandra Holmstrom-Smith
Sara Lee and Alexandra Holmstrom-Smith debate the position that the left should take on surrogacy, arrangements where a woman agrees to bear a child for others.
Puerto Rico Faces Crises: COVID, Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Drought
The United States has suffered 135,000 deaths from COVID-19 and has tens of millions of unemployed and both crises continue now into the fifth month, but nowhere has the economic crisis been greater than in the U.S. colony of Puerto Rico.
Protests Against Racism; LBGTQ Pride; Continuing Crisis; Trump’s Decline
Throughout June hundreds of thousands of Americans in hundreds of cities and towns protested the killing of George Floyd who had been murdered by police in Minneapolis. But there were also LGBTQ Pride Marches in support of the protests against racism.
What Would Abolition Look Like?
Policing and the wider criminal justice system have a long history as an integral part of capitalism and colonialism. That history informs their continued function of ‘managing’ marginalized communities who might resist the expansion of capital.
Protests over George Floyd’s Murder Open National Debates on Racism
Polls show that 80 percent of Americans support the protests that took place in 700 cities in all 50 states and which have fostered in virtually every institution, from public agencies to private businesses, a national discussion about racism.
From Detroit to Minneapolis: Police Brutality is Key to Containing Revolutionary Possibilities
An exclusive excerpt from A People's History of Detroit.
Class Struggle and Social Protest in the Coronavirus Pandemic
The pandemic and the shutdown have taken a toll, but they now provide an opportunity to rebuild the American labor movement from the bottom up. While the challenges will be great, working class resistance is growing and socialists with a rank-and-file strategy and class struggle perspective are involved in the fight.
Trump Will Sacrifice Tens of Thousands to Reopen Economy, Win Reelection
President Donald Trump is driving the United States toward complete loss of control of the coronavirus pandemic, a development that will lead to tens or even hundreds of thousands of deaths and further devastation of the economy.
May Day in Olympia!
For May Day, 2020, three car caravans converged at Washington’s State Capitol, yesterday, Friday, in our car caravan for Excluded and Essential workers. Our demands included full benefits, health care, unemployment benefits and the $1200 stimulus payment for all, no . . .
People’s Kitchens of Puerto Rico: Feed the People, Not the Debt!
As of May 4, Puerto Rico is reporting 1,806 confirmed coronavirus infections and 97 Covid-19 deaths. Compounding the public health crisis, recent natural disasters (hurricanes and earthquakes) and long-term neoliberal austerity have pushed the island’s people to the brink. But social . . .
Trump Puts Business before Health as Country Reopens
President Donald Trump has now announced a three-phase plan for reopening the country, though many medical experts have expressed doubts and 81 percent of Americans believe we should not reopen until it is safe to do so. Putting profits ahead of people, Trump puts the entire country at risk.
A New Period for Immigrant Rights Organizing
Demonstrations across the country have focused on the threats of Covid-19 outbreaks in jails holding detained immigrant workers, and the harsh measures taken by authorities to suppress calls for safer conditions.
An Evil King Rules an Afflicted Land: Coronavirus and the Depression in America
This article was written for L’Anticapitaliste, la revue, the monthly journal of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) of France.
We in America live in what resembles some medieval fairy tale. An evil and maniacal king rules the plague stricken land. The . . .
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