The sickening murder of a British soldier in the London district of Woolwich last week has unleashed a surge of Islamophobia across the pond that makes U.S. reactions to the Boston bombings look tame. Most conspicuous were militant demonstrations by …
Last Thursday, in a major policy speech at the National Defense University, President Obama unveiled the legal scaffold his Department of Justice has been erecting, one piece at a time, around the “targeted killing” program that has become the signature …
Before taking to the streets this May Day, Dissent celebrated by surveying a year’s worth of highlights for organized labor. Picking up where we left off, let’s take a look at how May Day shaped up around the world this …
As the death toll of Wednesday’s garment factory collapse in Savar, Bangladesh surpasses 320, the incident has become the most lethal disaster in garment industry history, one of the worst manufacturing disasters ever. The New York Times reports that more …
It’s been a grim week. Whether it was the bombing at the Boston marathon or the explosion of a fertilizer plant in small-town Texas, the week’s events have instilled, for many in the U.S., a renewed sense of vulnerability to …
In last week’s Partial Readings, I suggested that conservatives and other corporate allies in Washington are most successful when they advance regressive laws and dismember progressive ones behind the scenes, rather than seeking public approval—or even majority approval in Congress—for …
If there’s one thing that brings out the top ten–list impulse in progressive journalists, it’s the rantings of conservatives. By standing up for, say, rape and slavery in spite of the damage they risk to their public image, today’s Tea …
Last Saturday, two undercover police officers in an unmarked car approached a teenager walking down the street in his Brooklyn neighborhood of East Flatbush after he broke off from a group of friends. According to police reports, Kimani Gray, sixteen, …
The decision to let this pipeline come through America is the most fateful decision you will ever make, Mr. President. It would be like jabbing a dirty needle into this country from Canada. It would be like lighting a fuse …
With Chuck Hagel confirmed as Secretary of Defense after a 58-41 vote on Tuesday—the tightest confirmation vote ever for a Pentagon chief, split almost exactly along partisan lines—the hubbub over Obama’s second-term cabinet appointments is beginning to subside. It’s been …
As any follower of Marxist geographer David Harvey will eagerly tell you, boom-and-bust cycles are the cornerstone of “free” markets. Harvey’s writings since the financial crisis of 2008, including The Enigma of Capital and the essays republished in Rebel Cities, …
A series of recent articles have brought emotional labor into the spotlight as a fundamental component of today’s service economy, one rigorously enforced by employers and taxing on already strained service workers.
Protein Guilt In recent years, the Andean “miracle grain” quinoa has ascended to superfood stardom at a rate rivaled only by kale. Its rich protein and amino acid contents helped turn it from a Peruvian peasant staple—or an exotic alternative …
An Unlikely Martyr I’m not going to waste my life fighting over a little issue like copyright. Health care, financial reform—those are the issues that I work on. Not something obscure like copyright law. This was Aaron Swartz’s initial reaction, …
