Not Working
The case against work: Reclaiming purpose and productivity.
Sociologist David Frayne explores the revolutionary potential of work resistance - where people reject the pressures of constant consumption, and reclaim the free time capitalism seized from increased productivity and technology - working instead towards alternative systems of income distribution and personal identity, and a life filled with more art, more politics and more knowledge.
David is author of The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work from Zed Books.
Everyone I talked to was extremely disillusioned: A trip to Trumpsville
Writer Sarah Kendzior visits Metropolis, Illinois - a small town where decades of economic desperation and political isolation have longtime Democrats hoping for a Trump presidency - and then turns to Uzbekistan - where forced labor, religious oppression and a faltering economy could push the nation into political unrest.
Sarah and Umar Lee wrote Metropolis, the hometown of Superman, has a new hero: Donald Trump for The Guardian. We also dig into her report on freedoms in Uzbekistan for Freedom House's Nations in Transit series.
How the Panama Papers claimed their first victim - Iceland's Prime Minister.
Live from Stockholm, Irregular Correspondent Mikael Mikaelsson explains how the Panama Papers leak exposed Iceland PM Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson's offshore finances, tax avoidance and hidden conflicts of interest, and why both the scandal and the government's cynical response to it, will have far reaching effects for Icelandic politics, and society beyond.
On domination, extinction, and capitalism's long history of slaughter.
Author Ashley Dawson examines the ways capitalism has powered a wave of extinctions across the globe - by amplifying the brutality of our colonial past, to coopting future solutions to environmental crises - and explains why resisting further ecocide, and hopelessness, requires a globally connected fight against capitalism itself.
Ashley is author of Extinction: A Radical History from OR Books.
America's water safety issues run far beyond Flint.
Environmental health researcher Laura Orlando examines the state of America's drinking water and finds problems not just with aging pipes, but with an untreatable amount of pollution in the the nation's water sources, and a regulatory system incapable of putting the safety of citizens above the influence of industry profit and political expediency.
Laura wrote the In These Times piece Why Your Water Could Be Worse Than Flint’s.
E.O. Wilson: Wrong on ice cream, maybe right on conservation.
Jeff Dorchen forgives E.O. Wilson's controversial choices in ice cream to examine the biologist's suggestion to set aside half the Earth for life of the non-human variety, and finds a hopeful idea that maybe confuses the altruism and long-term planning abilities of ants with that of humans, but maybe doesn't.
