Opinion

No Parks for the Poor

In the face of budget cuts, some land management agencies are ramping up user fees — and betraying the egalitarian promise of public lands.

Joseph Bullington

All the Options for Schooling Are Bad—But We Have to Choose Safety

On parents' impossible decision.

Chandra Thomas Whitfield

What Does a “Safe Return” to School Look Like? Ask Teacher Unions.

Powerful elites are willing to sacrifice the lives and futures of millions to feed their own profits. Teachers are fighting back.

Lois Weiner and Jackson Potter

The Confederacy Won't Die Until Florida Does

Election year in the epicenter of lost causes.

Hamilton Nolan

How to Negotiate With People Who Don’t Care If You Die

To win another stimulus bill, the Democrats need to embrace chaos.

Hamilton Nolan

Healthy Food Comes from Healthy Land, Not from Laboratories

Manufactured meat substitutes do nothing to restore the ecosystems and rural communities ravaged by industrial agriculture.

Will Harris

Trump Is Inciting Racist Violence in Kenosha—And Democrats Are Complicit

Democrats are failing to articulate a clear moral vision that is opposed to Trump’s ultra-racist, law-and-order politics.

Alice Herman and Emilio Leanza

The Reconstruction-Era Legal Theory Preventing Cities and Towns from Responding to the Covid-19 Crisis

Radical times demand a radical re-conception of local politics.

Simon Davis-Cohen

The Republican Party's Puzzling Obsession with Socialism

With a pandemic ravaging the country, a historically unpopular president and no platform to run on, the GOP has set its sights on attacking socialism. It doesn’t seem to be working.

Miles Kampf-Lassin

Want to Abolish the Police? The First Step Is Putting Them Under Democratic Control.

Abolition is part of a broader struggle for democracy.

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

Community Control Won’t Fix What’s Wrong with Cops

There's no reforming an inherently violent, white supremacist system. We must abolish the police.

Carl Williams and Christian Williams

To Transform Policing, We Need Community Control

An elected civilian council could crack down on police abuses, and pave the way for longer-term transformations.

Jazmine Salas

Stop Blaming Individuals for the Spread of Covid and Start Blaming the Government Response

By presenting collective, structural crises as separate, individual problems with separate, individualized solutions, the government abdicates its responsibility to meaningfully intervene.

Joel Bleifuss

15 Years After Hurricane Katrina, Another Perfect Storm Is Upon Us

When Katrina hit, the mainstream media and Congress both reacted shamefully. Their response to the pandemic is no different.

Joel Bleifuss

It’s Not Just Trump: The Neoliberal Roots of the Postal Service Crisis

We should defend the Post Office, both from Trump and the ideology of austerity that treats the agency “like a business.”

Max B. Sawicky

To Win in 2020 and Beyond, the Democrats Need a Bolder Moral Vision

The urgent case for setting our sights higher.

Rev. William Barber and Rev. Liz Theoharis

This Terrifying Economic Crisis Will Make Cities Better

Amid the pandemic, the rich are fleeing American cities. That’s a good thing.

Hamilton Nolan

U.S. Sanctions Are Strangling a Lebanon in Crisis

As Lebanon faces multiple, overlapping catastrophes, U.S. policies are making them worse.

Bilal El-Amine