Lockout
How Republicans ratfucked the electoral map and won a decade of power.
Journalist David Daley explains how a 2010 GOP redistricting scheme captured legislative control of the United States, and ensured continued Republican success despite shrinking demographics and vote totals, setting the stage for a new era of politics determined less by political choice and more by consumer data, algorithms, and increased electoral fuckery.
David is author of the book Ratfucked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy from W.W. Norton.
Beyond bars: Struggle, solidarity and the start of a national #PrisonStrike.
Prison labor activist Azzurra Crispino outlines the details of a prison strike that began on Friday, Sept 9th, and examines the fight ahead for prisoners - to build solidarity and support with people on the outside, and to the dismantle the mass incarceration system that capitalizes on social failures to direct money and power into the hands of the one percent.
On Friday, prisoners around the country launched a Nationally Coordinated Prisoner Workstoppage.
Possibility and fear as Uzbekistan moves beyond Karimov's rule.
Writer Sarah Kendzior examines the state of politics in Uzbekistan after the death of its only president, Islam Karmimov - from the anxiety over the nation's future leadership and current economic problems, to the persistence of a Soviet-era system of violent repression against political dissent - and explains why she holds some hope that young Uzbeks can shape the nation's government, if they can survive it.
Sarah wrote the article Uzbekistan’s real problem is not terrorism, it’s politics for Politico Europe, and posted a collection of academic and press writing on the country at her website.
Understanding the role of US weapons and politics in Saudi Arabia's bombing of Yemen.
Journalist Andrew Cockburn follows Saudi bombs from the boardrooms of Washington to the ruins of Yemen - and explains how the Obama administration is arming and supporting Saudi Arabia's military campaign (and war crimes) and why US involvement in the conflict ultimately exposes the dominance of the military-industrial complex over concerns of foreign policy, regional stability and anti-terror measures.
Andrew wrote the Letter from Washington Acceptable Losses: Aiding and abetting the Saudi slaughter in Yemen for Harper's magazine.
Black Lives Matter poses a radical challenge to American politics.
Historian Martha Biondi explores the insistent radicalism of Black Lives Matter - from the ways the youth-lead movement challenges American assumptions about power and equality, to the post-civil rights resurgence of creative, organized protest - and places BLM in the global context of social movements exposing and confronting the failures of representative democracy and neoliberal economics.
Martha wrote the feature The Radicalism of Black Lives Matter for In These Times.
Feces, rectal mucus, gravel, benzoate of soda, and minced twine: A Trump thinkpiece.
[WARNING: This conversation contains mentions of anuses, vomit, secretions, bestial sodomy, penile cannibalism, eel larvae, albino aligators, Satan and curdled froth]
In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen considers Donald Trump's candidacy in the context of our social and political evolution.
