The scene is the Zenith de Paris theatre, December 2008. French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala is on stage, describing to his audience the genesis of the sketch they are about to watch. It is a response, he explains, to a …
This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Harris v. Quinn, a case that could break public-sector unions around the country. Sarah and Michelle talk to Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein, the authors of Caring for America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State, about the case, the formation of home care workers’ unions, and the potential ramifications for all public sector workers.
Self-defense groups have emerged throughout Mexico in recent years. In the last week, they acquired a prominent role in the south of the state of Michoacán, where they have fought drug-trafficking gunmen out of towns in which they used to …
Unlike their counterparts in other industrialized countries, abortion providers in the United States don’t simply perform abortions. Because of all the ramifications of the abortion wars in this country—the restrictions on the use of public funds, the scarcity of facilities …
Few are aware that Martin Luther King, Jr. once applied for a permit to carry a concealed handgun. In his 2011 book Gunfight, UCLA law professor Adam Winkler notes that, after King’s house was bombed in 1956, the clergyman applied in Alabama for …
Sarah and Michelle talk with Max Fraser about new tactics in labor militancy, which he explores in his new article in Dissent. Plus: standoff over unemployment benefits in Congress, changes in the ranks of the Chicago teachers’ union, expanded pre-Kindergarten in New York, and worker uprisings in Cambodia.
Rooted in the gospel tradition, the song “We Shall Overcome” became an anthem of the African‑American civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s and then an assertion of struggle and solidarity worldwide. Solidarity is at the heart of both …
Though much of the establishment press has been lashing out against whistleblower Edward Snowden since his disclosures began last June, until recently a seemingly cogent, moderate condemnation of the NSA leaker’s behavior (as opposed to his person) was hard to …
For the last few years the blogosphere, though only in its more obscure places, has been full of comparisons of the Spanish and Syrian civil wars. The Workers International to Rebuild the Fourth International called for a new International Brigade …
In 1920 the New Republic ran “A Test of the News,” a special supplement to the magazine (published soon after as the book Liberty and the News) by Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz showing that in the three and a …
This week, a special discussion of Sarah’s investigation into temping in manufacturing. Plus, SeaTac’s fight for $15 an hour, Portland teachers’ fight for a fair contract, and Congress’s fight over whether the unemployed should get their benefits, and a labor uprising in South Korea.
2013 was a big year for Dissent. To celebrate, we’re highlighting a few of the year’s biggest hits.
Sarah and Michelle look back over the year in labor: the good news and the grim, the under-the-radar stories and the big wins. They also look forward to next year and make some (hopeful) predictions. Sarah and Michelle also bring you up to date on the latest labor news, including unexpected unions gaining a toehold in fast food.
Former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet’s return to power with 62 percent of the vote on Sunday was the chronicle of a victory foretold. She had left office in 2010 (Chile’s constitution bars consecutive re-election) with 80 percent approval ratings. Her …
These are heady days at the UN. The International Panel on Climate Change is initiating a new series of reports promising to make global warming harder to ignore, while national delegations in New York are replacing the Millennium Development Goals, …
