Memorials Against Violence in Mexico

A conversation on memory activism for truth and justice

Since 2006, Mexico has seen more than 300,000 murders and more than 110,000 people disappeared. Faced with a constant increase in violence, activists have turned to a new strategy: collective actions and demands centered around the work of memory. In their new book Las Luchas por la Memoria Contra las ...
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Memorials Against Violence in Mexico

If Eviction Is Personal for Us, It Should Be Personal for Our Landlords Too

A conversation on Abolish Rent

How do we remake our cities for the people who actually live in them? Tracy Rosenthal and Leonardo Vilchis, two cofounders of the largest tenants' union in the country, propose an answer in their new book, Abolish Rent: How Tenants Can End the Housing Crisis (Haymarket, 2024). In November 2024, the authors and ...
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If Eviction Is Personal for Us, It Should Be Personal for Our Landlords Too

Rent Is the Crisis

Framing it as a “housing crisis” ignores that from the perspective of its winners, the system works just fine

Every first of the month, we hand over a share of our wages to meet our human need for housing. Our rents rise faster than our incomes, and inequality grows. Every first of the month, more tenants go without food, medication, and basic necessities to pay this tribute. More people ...
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Rent Is the Crisis

How Venezuelans Reclaimed Their Communes

Chris Gilbert’s Commune or Nothing! places Venezuela’s communal movement as a key moment of working-class self-emancipation

In the central western region of Venezuela, a vast scenery of fertile land blends with the llanero (herdsman) culture of the people of Simón Planas township. Adults make use of children's bicycles (received as Christmas gifts from the government) to meet the exigencies of day-to-day life, evoking “a forgotten episode ...
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How Venezuelans Reclaimed Their Communes

Misanthropy Is Having a Moment

A self-help guide for pessimists

If you or someone you know is experiencing symptoms of a negative outlook on humanity, then David E. Cooper’s Pessimism, Quietism, and Nature as Refuge (Agenda Publishing, 2024) might be just the book for you.  Cooper’s “negative judgement on the moral and spiritual failings of humankind” focuses readers’ attention on our ...
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Misanthropy Is Having a Moment

Building Black Political Power in Jackson, Mississippi

Cooperation Jackson is using the strategies of just transition to foster coalitions and shape local politics

Jackson is the capital city of the state of Mississippi and was named after the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson (who was responsible for the Trail of Tears—one of many forced relocation marches for people who were Indigenous to the land—and a slave owner). Mississippi is also ...
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Building Black Political Power in Jackson, Mississippi

The “Prose of Counterinsurgency” 

Policing, migration, militarization, and the liberal-democratic provocation of the fascist turn in the Republican Party

What Ranajit Guha has called the “prose of counterinsurgency” surely comes closest to characterizing the current state of abolitionist struggles within the context of the US presidential election campaign. With this concept, the postcolonial historian describes the strategies by which uprisings against imperial forms of domination have been degraded as ...
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The “Prose of Counterinsurgency” 

Voting While Uncommitted

Sustained collective action is not incompatible with the singular act of voting

I have never subscribed to the idea that citizens who refuse to vote for a Democratic candidate in a tight race are somehow morally responsible for the election of a Republican, however bad that Republican might be. If we are serious about liberal democracy, then we must recognize that every citizen ...
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Voting While Uncommitted

What Democrats Lose in Ignoring the Uncommitted Movement

The party has learned the wrong lessons from 1968

In anticipation of the Uncommitted National Movement’s arrival at this summer’s Democratic National Convention, press and political commentators made frequent reference to the anti-war protests turned police riots of the 1968 convention. It had been more than 50 years since internal discord among Democrats had been organized into an electoral ...
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What Democrats Lose in Ignoring the Uncommitted Movement

Economists Should Take a Page From Student Activism

Metrics help us explain the world—and ignore our own accountability

I have always loved spring in Chicago. The Loop buzzes with music and awe-struck architecture fans, while the lake fills up with swimmers braving the sun-soaked but icy water. In the evening, the air is just crisp enough for a jacket. But spring nights in 2024 were special. There was ...
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Economists Should Take a Page From Student Activism

The New Urgency of LGBTQ+ Pride in Paris

A celebration or a rebellion?

"We are transfeminists, radicals, and afroqueers,” marchers shouted. “Get used to it!" Their call echoed through a crowd of 28,000, gathered in the heart of Paris to advocate for the rights of gender and sexual minorities. Summer is Pride season around the world, and Paris is no exception. The main event ...
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The New Urgency of LGBTQ+ Pride in Paris