By Irami Osei-Frimpong (April 10, 2018) We’ve let employers dictate the terms of the labor debate. Forget the skills mismatch. There is a wage mismatch, and when wages aren’t pegged to cost of living increases, it’s a bit ridiculous. I first noticed it when I heard some older cat harangue a kid for not working their way through college like…
Read more
By Mark Naison (April 3, 2018) For the last twenty years, beating on teachers has been the national pastime, as popular among Democrats as Republicans, among liberals as conservatives. Teachers have been the nation’s most convenient scapegoat for rapidly rising levels of inequality and have been the target of an immense array of accountability measures which funnel profits to test…
Read more
By Arun Gupta (February 10, 2018) If you care about what’s happening in the financial markets, now is the time to panic. But then again, if you care, you are probably in the top 10% in terms of wealth in America as they own 84% of the stock. On Monday, I shrugged at the 4% drop in the markets in…
Read more
By Mark Naison (February 8, 2018) The people I grew up among in Crown Heights Brooklyn, second generation Italian Americans and Jews, were just getting a little breathing space in 1950’s America after being beaten down most of their lives by poverty and discrimination. Many were convinced that the country would never really accept or respect people like them, but…
Read more
By Alex Riccio (January 22, 2018) A pending Supreme Court case, Janus v. AFSCME, is all but guaranteed to pass in favor of the plaintiff. This decision will make Right to Work (aka Right to Greed) laws a national standard. For many who are involved in organized labor, this prospect is viewed as a threat to the very survival…
Read more
By Arun Gupta (November 20, 2017) The reason the American Right is so powerful is because it is fundamentally defined by whiteness, capitalism, and patriarchy, and these concepts are reproduced through three mutually reinforcing institutions: Property, Policing, and Protestantism. I am leaving aside many nuances because I am interested in why the right has such extraordinary ideological cohesion and…
Read more
By Chris Crass (November 14, 2017) If you are a man and hear “men are garbage” from women and people of other genders experiencing the daily reality of patriarchy and misogyny, I understand if the first reaction is to be defensive, to want to say “not me” or “that’s not fair” or anything to debate or cast doubt. But I…
Read more
By Teka Lark (September 4, 2017) The freemarket is a hell of a drug. More rain is coming. Heaven and hell is right here. Satan is the freemarket! Satan is Citizens United! These pompous ignorant rich fucks built and built and built.
By Ana Castillo (August 4, 2017) XICANISMA 2017 Sadly, I know of whence she speaks. It is a reality in this country that defies the belief that education is a sure way for all to climb up the economic ladder. Instead, college grads are in debt, taking on jobs not related to their fields in order to make ends meet,…
Read more
By Joe Lowndes (August 3, 2017) Over the last week the White House appeared to be in a kind of free fall, marked by palace intrigue, organizational chaos, and of course, the rise and fall of the Mooch. In contrast this commedia dell-arte however, we now get two proposals that advance a clear domestic agenda: the proposed immigration “merit system”…
Read more
By S. (June 14, 2017) Thought experiment for my white friends: In The Handmaid’s Tale a cabal of elite, white Christians seize control of the government, send all of the black people away (to reservations or death camps, it’s not clear), and then turn every white woman into a slave. What feelings arise when you imagine the same scenario, except…
Read more