In the place of government-led public health measures, and requirements that employers provide safe workplaces, we have a reversion to the idea that protecting oneself from COVID-19 is an individual responsibility. And for making this approach to the pandemic the conventional wisdom, business has the Democrats to thank.
United States
Taiwan and the push to war with China
Taiwan is not the only potential flashpoint. China is the world’s leading exporting nation, and 95 percent of Chinese trade is seaborne, which makes control over the South China Sea of vital strategic importance to both the US and China.
Hard days on the picket lines, but baristas pour into unions
When one looks at the American labor movement today, one immediately sees an important contradiction. There are very few strikes, yet a considerable number of young people, most prominently at Starbucks, are organizing into unions.
Will support for abortion rights help the Democrats in November?
Today, liberals are hoping that the shocks of overturning of Roe, the revelations from the January 6 commission, and the GOP’s nominations of some truly awful candidates might provide some margin for hope that the Democrats won’t suffer the expected drubbing.
Crossing the US-Mexico border is deadlier than ever for migrants – here’s why
The June 2022 deaths of 53 people, victims of heat stroke, in the back of a tractor-trailer in San Antonio, Texas, show the dangers of crossing the U.S. southern border without authorization.
Calling a recession and blaming it on interest rates
Real GDP contracted in the second quarter of this year by a 0.9% annualised rate (or by 0.2% quarter over quarter). That meant the US economy had contracted for two successive quarters, and so ‘technically’ (by that definition) was in a recession.
Texas abortion ban turned one woman’s pregnancy into a “dystopian nightmare”
“Anti-abortion zealots should be forced to read this…” asserted one journalist. “They are responsible for her suffering.”
‘Blatantly unconstitutional’ South Carolina bill would criminalize sharing abortion info online
Earlier this month, a coalition of reproductive rights groups filed a lawsuit in state court challenging the legislation, which Center for Reproductive Rights president and CEO Nancy Northup said is causing “mayhem at an unimaginable scale.”
Trump’s scandals: Watergate on steroids
Until Donald Trump became president in 2017, former president Richard Nixon—the only president in U.S. history to resign from office—was widely regarded as setting the high-water mark for abusing the power of the U.S. presidency.
Towards a new permanent global war? NATO’s “new strategic concept”
Washington has thwarted any hint of EU autonomy and has turned the vast majority of European countries into faithful servants of the project of recomposing its hegemony against its main strategic enemies.
A troubled summer in US politics
The purpose of this report is to look at the current economic situation, developments in bourgeois politics, the general social crisis, and finally the state of the working-class and social movements.
The Supreme Court and the façade of U.S. democracy
It’s not just that the decision goes against the will of, according to opinion polls, seven out of 10 or more Americans, or that it will devastate and worsen the lives of millions. It’s the result of a government system set up in the Eighteenth Century that is increasingly anachronistic in the Twenty First Century.
Abortion rights: turning back the clock—way, way back
There is no denying that we face a dismal situation, in which many millions of pregnant people have been stripped of their reproductive rights, while the right wing is chomping at the bit to attack a host of other civil rights.
Labor Notes conference: A force to be reckoned with
Four thousand trade unionists gathered in Rosemont, Illinois, this past weekend. The occasion was the conference of Labor Notes, a left labor magazine and current. The purpose of this article is to explain why this conference was such an important event.
Medicare for All could have prevented more than 338,000 US Covid deaths: Study
With Medicare for All, the U.S. also could have avoided $105.6 billion in healthcare expenses associated with Covid-19 hospitalizations over the course of the pandemic, the study says.