Back to No Future
What use is playing the long game when the arc of the universe feels so frighteningly short?
Issue No. 10 | Spring 2013
Assembly Required
The Strike That Didn’t Change New York
The Chicago teachers’ strike was a victory for workers around the country. But how do we move from homegrown resistance to a national movement that could ignite a shift in public policy?
Imported From Detroit
Behind American auto’s latest PR campaign lies a bleak economic reality.
Fellow Travelers
It’s impossible to deny that institutionally the socialist left is in disarray.
The Rise of the Machines
Automation isn’t freeing us from work — it’s keeping us under capitalist control.
Honduran Labyrinth
In a leftward-moving region, the iron fist of Honduras’ Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo makes him Obama’s sort of “democrat.”
Life and Death Squads in the World’s Homicide Capital
In a society ravaged by crime, radical “law-and-order” forces end up being at the root of the problem.
When the Union’s the Boss
While some level of personal sacrifice on the part of union organizers is inevitable, that can’t justify rendering them powerless over their own workplace conditions.
The Industrial Classroom
In resisting standardized testing, today’s teachers are part of a rich tradition of struggle against dehumanization in the workplace.
Curriculum for a New American Century
What would a national core curriculum to prepare students for work in the Age of Service look like?
A Day Without Care
What does it mean to strike when “production” isn’t the production of widgets, but care for children, the ill, disabled, or elderly?
They Shoot Oscars, Don’t They?
The Oscar ceremony has finally acquired an ideal twenty-first century host in the smirking, tap-dancing, bland-faced Seth MacFarlane.
Palestine and the Left
The Left has a checkered history when it comes to Palestine.
Whores’ Glory
The reaction to a new film about sex workers tells us more about liberal reviewers than the workers themselves.
The Last Lost Cause
Was the mid-century dominance of southern Democrats essential to the defeat of Hitler and the triumph of American democracy?
Against the Law
By organizing based on international law, the struggle for Palestinian liberation has been transformed into a question of rights.
The Oslo Illusion
The Oslo Accords weren’t a failure for Israel — they served as a fig leaf to consolidate and deepen its control over Palestinian life.
How Does the Subaltern Speak?
Postcolonial theory discounts the enduring value of Enlightenment universalism at its own peril.
The Problem of Sex
Without radical change, disquiet finds other outlets. Dystopic visions have replaced Shulamith Firestone and Adrienne Rich’s utopian ones.
Truth Told Through Lies
Zero Dark Thirty is a film that didn’t need to be made — it strives for realism, but ends up rehashing Bush-era tropes about the ‘war on terror.’