USC Student Asna Tabassum, Class of 2024 Valedictorian

This should have been a time of celebration for my family, friends, professors, and classmates, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian voices have subjected me to a campaign of racist hatred because of my uncompromising belief in human rights for all.

To Accomplish What?

After reading of actions at UC Berkeley to prevent a speaker from addressing a meeting, and disrupting a dean’s backyard party, as a veteran of the Free Speech Movement, the first thing that comes to my mind is "What was the goal of the protest?"

Supreme Court Abolishes Mass Protest in Three States

It is no longer safe to organize a protest in Louisiana, Mississippi, or Texas. The Court’s decision to leaves the Fifth Circuit’s attack on the First Amendment in place. The Fifth Circuit’s Mckesson decision remains good law in those three states.

Haiti Today, America Tomorrow?

Don’t make the mistake of associating gangs like Haiti’s with a “primitive” stage of political development or only with countries on the geopolitical margins. What’s happening there today could prefigure the future of the United States, too.

Apr. 18, 2024 -Reader Comments, Announcements, Shorts

Reader Comments: Trump on Trial; Bombing Embassies You Are Not At War With; Ending Property Taxes; Alabama Communists in the Jim Crow South; Israeli Pavilion Remains Shut at Venice Biennale; Earth Week; John Brown Day; Nakba Days of Action; more;

Israeli Settlers/Soldiers Destroy West Bank Communities

"While the attention of the world is focused on Gaza, abuses in the West Bank, fueled by decades of impunity and complacency among Israel's allies, are soaring."

US Vastly Expanding Its Surveillance Laws

A little-known amendment to the reauthorized version of Fisa would enlarge the government’s surveillance powers to a drastic, draconian degree

Handing Taxpayers the Climate Cleanup Bill

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democratic legislative leaders nix a landmark proposal that would have made Hochul’s fossil fuel donors pay for their pollution.

It’s Time To End the Quiet Cruelty of Property Taxes

Property taxes, the lifeblood of local governments and school districts, are among the most powerful and stealthy engines of racism and wealth inequality our nation has ever produced.

Global Left Midweek – April 17, 2024

Internationalism and democracy
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Culture

food

New York City’s New Gilded Age

Linette Lopez Business Insider
Beneath the city's victory over the pandemic and dining's glorious return is great divide between the haves and the have-nots. This new economy reveals the dramatic difference between those who can handle an inflationary shock and those who cannot.

poetry

The One Who’s Left Water

Jed Myers First published in Tinderbox
Washington state poet Jed Myers pays homage to the “one who’s left water” for the migrants crossing Arizona deserts facing “liberty or a cage.”

Labor

labor

America’s Newest Doctors Fuel Efforts To Unionize

Tina Reed Axios
A new generation of doctors struggling with ever-increasing workloads and crushing student debt is helping drive unionization efforts in a profession that historically hasn't organized.

labor

Why Is It So Hard To Unionize a Bar? It’s Complicated.

Gabe Del Valle Punch
Death & Co.’s recent union drive could have made history. But the failed effort underscores the challenges that come with unionizing bar staff, even as restaurants, cafés and hotels see an uptick in labor organizing.

labor

Chile on Strike: Worker Anger Spills Over

Ursula Fuentes Rivera speaks to Eric Campos Morning Star
We aim to break the deadlock that we see between a right wing that obstructs change and a government that gives in to it. So, rather than being against the government, we want it to return to the original content of its reforms.

Friday nite video

Civil War | Movie

It's more than a thinly veiled Trump story. In theaters April 12.