Weathering the Ups and Downs of Social Movements
How do we know when movements have died—and when are they primed to revive?
Spring 2025
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In Memoriam: Michael B. Katz
We at Dissent are deeply saddened by the loss of our longtime contributor and friend Michael Katz, who passed away on Saturday. Katz’s contributions to Dissent in recent years included “Why Aren’t U.S. Cities Burning?” (2007), “The Death of ‘Shorty’” …
Belabored Podcast #59: Labor Rights as Civil Rights, with Moshe Marvit
Is the right to form a union also a civil right? Belabored asks Moshe Marvit, who recently helped turn the idea into legislation now pending in Congress. Plus: “crowd work,” Ferguson, unionizing Elmos, and why we need a four-hour workday.
Where the Promise of Preschool Ends
This August, as I look over names of my incoming prekindergarten and kindergarten students, my attention is divided. I’m also focused on Ferguson. At an assembly on August 14 in Washington, D.C.’s Malcolm X Park, I joined the hundreds gathered …
Presidential ADD
Why has Barack Obama—one of the most eloquent and thoughtful of recent presidents—become such a terrible politician? Midway through his sixth year in office, his ineptitude is pretty clear. He frustrated and demobilized the huge base he built during his …
Fighting Gentrification, But To What End?
Blocking new development does not stop renovation and displacement.
The Not-So-Secret Serum
“I guess if Washington Times prints it, it’s not totally baseless?” a colleague tweeted. For the second time in as many weeks, those of us closely following the Ebola outbreak in West Africa had to process the news that another …
The Making of Ferguson
Over the course of St. Louis’s history, local segregation was enforced by a tangle of public and private policies.
Is Spain Ready to Abandon the Monarchy?
The first president to take office after Spain’s return to democracy passed away this spring. The death of Adolfo Suárez was met with a significant outpouring of public sympathy, and Madrid’s international airport was promptly renamed in his honor. The …
Why the UN?
One of the more unsettling developments in the Gaza conflict thus far has been the shelling of UNRWA sites by the Israel Defense Forces. On July 30, at least nineteen people died and many more were wounded when a UN school-turned-shelter in …
Beyond Protest: War and the Israeli Left
Many Israelis who define themselves as “on the left” (about 20 percent of the population on a good day) support Operation Protective Edge. It’s a small and lonely subset that is both left wing and opposes the war. Over the …
Dear Nick Kristof: Your Palestinian Gandhis are Already Here
Writing on July 19 in a column intended to “correct a few common misconceptions” about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Nicholas Kristof perpetuated one of his own. Offering unsolicited advice to Palestinian political leaders, Mr. Kristof wrote: “If Palestinians turned to huge …
Facebook for Space? Airbnb’s Weird Corporate Nationhood
Airbnb’s announcement of its new #branding struck the tech community on a lot of levels, not least of which were the many genitalia-related ways in which the logo can be interpreted. What I find most interesting in the new branding, …
Belabored Podcast #57: Organizing the South, with Ben Speight
This week, Belabored talks to Ben Speight, a veteran organizer with Teamsters 728 in Georgia, about building the labor movement in the South. Plus: transgender discrimination at Hobby Lobby, teachers supporting postal workers, and why workers should have a say in who runs the company.
More Horror Than Hope: The Comic Art of World War 3 Illustrated
Since the late 1970s, World War 3 Illustrated has channeled comic artists’ outrage at a world of endless war, ecological exploitation, and the brutalization of social relations.
