The following remarks were delivered at Dissent’s sixtieth anniversary celebration on October 24, 2013. In the summer of 1956, I had just graduated from Brandeis University; Judy and I were living in a tiny apartment on top of a noisy …
According to a recent article in the New York Times, more than 2 million Syrians have fled or been forced out of the country, and more than twice that number have been displaced from their homes inside the country. This …
Privatization of public infrastructure through “public-private partnerships,” or “P3s,” is the rage in states these days. In Maryland, transportation officials now propose to use this method to build a new light rail line—called the Purple Line—through the suburbs of Washington, …
American politics is a famously contentious theater, especially today. But the vast majority of liberals, conservatives, and Washington journalists all seem to agree that “extremism” is appalling and should be eradicated. Yet the meaning of the term is as prey …
This week on Belabored, Sarah and guest co-host Peter Frase discuss international solidarity campaigns with American workers and give an update on the situation in Detroit. Then, independent journalist Susie Cagle joins them to talk about labor unrest in the Bay Area, where solidarity can be hard to come by.
Lost in the political theatrics of the shutdown and its resolution lies a simple and uncomfortable truth: if congressional Republicans failed miserably in their gambit to defund the Affordable Care Act or put Social Security on the chopping block, they …
Monday, October 21, 7:00 PM Book Culture (536 W. 112th St, New York, NY) Join award-winning critic George Scialabba for a discussion of his latest book, For the Republic, at Book Culture on. Scialabba will be in conversation with Dissent‘s online …
Asked to write about Israeli matters for Dissent, I thought I would open with a measured evaluation of the peace process and why its current lackluster phase may prove more meaningful than most people believe. Instead, I find myself writing …
This week, Sarah Jaffe and guest host Michelle Chen discuss retail organizing, the fallout of government shutdown, standardized test insanity, and solidarity in higher education.
This week Sarah Jaffe is joined by Laura Clawson of Daily Kos to discuss the continuing government shutdown, the debt ceiling, and the larger Republican attack on the legacy of the New Deal. They also find some things to be optimistic about.
In late September Mexico was caught between two destructive tropical storms.The metaphor should not be taken too far, but Mexican public life is also under the influence of multiple and contradictory forces—in this case, ideological rather than meteorological. Various actors …
This week, Sarah Jaffe and guest host Bryce Covert round up the week’s labor news and chat about work-family policy on the federal, state, and local level. They also discuss the government shutdown with Mariya Strauss, a labor journalist whose partner is a federal employee.
Is a new, young left really on the rise? A few weeks ago, Peter Beinart wrote a long online essay which argued strongly in the affirmative. It drew a lot of attention—20,000 “likes” and almost 5,000 tweets, at last count. …
This week on Belabored: a message from departing co-host Josh Eidelson and a roundup of labor news from New York to Bangladesh. Then, Sarah Jaffe interviews longtime organizer and union strategist Stephen Lerner about fighting Wall Street, organizing around debt, and the recent fast food strikes.
Last Thursday, the Census Bureau released the American Community Survey (ACS) estimates of poverty and income. Based on a much larger survey sample than the older Current Population Survey (the CPS numbers were released at the beginning of last week), …
