On the anniversary of Russia’s imperialist invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian left faces a dual challenge — resisting Russian military attacks while also fighting against their own government’s imposition of neoliberalism and austerity. Meanwhile, the global left remains deeply divided in its approach to the war and its relation to Ukrainian leftists’ appeals for international solidarity. Source Source / Read More: A Ukrainian Socialist Lays Out the Aims and Struggles of Her Country’s Left
Neoliberalism
For Every $1 Gained by a Bottom 90 Percenter Since 2020, a Billionaire Got $1.7M
While the vast majority of people were struggling to stay alive and weather economic instability during the first two years of the pandemic, the world’s richest 1 percent were thriving as the proportion of new global wealth they were capturing soared to new heights, a report reveals. Over the past decade, the global top 1 percent has taken about half of all new wealth — an already extremely high… Source Source / Read More: For Every $1 Gained by a Bottom 90 Percenter Since 2020, a Billionaire Got $1.7M
Warren, Sanders Slam Federal Reserve’s “Disregard” for Working Families
A group of Democratic lawmakers led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) is pressuring the Federal Reserve to explain why it’s continuing to raise interest rates at such a rapid pace when economists across the political spectrum say that rate hikes will only hurt the working class with little upside for the economy at large. In a letter sent to Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Monday, 11 members of Congress lay out a wide swath of evidence from both Powell himself and from economists that American families will be in for “pain” in the coming months, as Powell has said, as…
Yemen: Huthis ‘suffocating’ women with requirement for male guardians
The Huthi de facto authorities must end their mahram (male guardian) requirement, which bans women from travelling without a male guardian or evidence of their written approval across governorates under Huthi control or to other areas of Yemen, Amnesty International said today. Increasingly since April, tightened Huthi restrictions have hindered Yemeni women from carrying […] The post Yemen: Huthis ‘suffocating’ women with requirement for male guardians appeared first on Amnesty International.
Chomsky: Overturn of “Roe” Shows How Extreme an Outlier the US Has Become
An NPR/Ipsos poll released in January revealed that the overwhelming majority of Americans believe that U.S. democracy is “in crisis and at risk of failing.” What the poll does not disclose, of course, is the anomalous situation of the United States in comparison to other democracies. For starters, the U.S. is a very conservative and militaristic country, with a two-party system and a political culture that overwhelmingly favors powerful private interests over the common good. Indeed, in many respects, it operates more like a reactionary plutocracy than a democracy. For instance, the U.S. is the only wealthy country without a…
Robin Kelley: White Indifference Is Normalizing Spectacular Acts of Violence
“I don’t believe universities are inherently sites of opposition, though spaces have been created in the past and present for oppositional work,” historian Robin D.G. Kelley remarked in our recent conversation about anti-Black racism and our role as Black intellectuals working within the university setting. “How do you avoid becoming a functionary, a cog in the neoliberal machine?” Kelley — the Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair of U.S. history at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) — went on to reflect on how “spectacular and mundane acts of everyday racism are normalized or simply not seen” due to white…
Inflation Crisis Is Being Resolved on Backs of Workers. It Doesn’t Have to Be.
On Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its latest report on inflation, and the news is not good for working people. According to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) — which measures the cost of consumer products — inflation for all goods, including food and energy, rose again in January, this time by 0.6 percent. This latest increase brings the yearly rate of inflation up to a whopping 7.5 percent, a figure not seen since the early 1980s when out-of-control inflation and a stagnant economy amounted to an all out economic war on U.S. workers. While wages for this…