Independent Media Institute
What Can Safety Without Police Look Like? Some Successful Programs Already Exist
By April M. Short This is a moment of contention and restructuring in America. Mass public outcry is exposing the long-buried, problematic foundations of a nation built on human trafficking, commodification and enslavement of people from Africa, and on the genocide and attempted erasure of Indigenous societies. Protesters across the… »
Why Government Mostly Helps People Who Need It the Least—Even During a Crisis
By Richard D. Wolff In January 2020, the NASDAQ stock market’s index stood just under 10,000. In the March crash, it fell to 7,000. As of July 10, 2020, it hit 10,600. The U.S. government’s economic policies produced a “recovery” for the rich who own the vast bulk of stocks. »
Time Is Not on Our Side in Libya
By Vijay Prashad Ahmed, who lives in Tripoli, Libya, texts me that the city is quieter than before. The army of General Khalifa Haftar—who controls large parts of eastern Libya—has withdrawn from the southern part of the capital and is now holding fast in the city of Sirte and at… »
How to Turn Our Anger into a Better Future
What can make this moment’s passion positive? What can make this moment’s anger future-seeking? By Collective 20 COVID-19, and before Covid everything else, has raised a question that is now percolating, and even reverberating. And then came a white knee crushing a Black neck. A dream so long deferred suddenly… »
How to Keep Activist Movements From Burning Out
No matter how much support a cause has when gearing up, it has little hope of accomplishing long-term goals if its supporters are divided. By Collective 20 Since the 1960s, how many movements have excitedly exploded into existence, only to later morbidly melt away? In contrast, how many movements have… »
Laos Has Tackled COVID-19, But It Is Drowning in Debt to International Finance
By Vijay Prashad On June 11, Laos (Lao People’s Democratic Republic)—a country of 7 million in Southeast Asia—said it had temporarily prevailed over COVID-19. Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith said that his country had “gained an important victory in the first campaign against this vicious enemy.” The first… »
Instead of Focusing on Russian Bounties to the Taliban, Why Doesn’t the U.S. End the Afghan War?
Lawmakers are outraged over a recent story alleging that Vladimir Putin may be paying off Taliban soldiers to kill U.S. troops. But why are those troops still in Afghanistan? By Sonali Kolhatkar The New York Times in late June published an explosive revelation about the longest official U.S. war in… »
The Merits of Medicare for All Have Been Proven by This Pandemic
The horror of the coronavirus pandemic proves that progressives have been justified in demanding a single-payer health care system. By Sonali Kolhatkar A pandemic is not the time to be having discussions about how to design a national health care system. The fact that the United States, which… »
Americans With Jobs Are Sharing Their Stimulus Checks With People Out of Work
With unemployment nearing Great Depression levels and many still waiting on any government support, a new person-to-person relief economy is forming. By April M. Short The responses of governments around the world to the pandemic and its resulting economic impacts are revealing and varied. As officials enact measures to keep… »
Venezuela’s Borderlands Have Been Assaulted by COVID-19
By Vijay Prashad, Eduardo Viloria Daboín, Ana Maldonado, and Zoe PC Sixty percent of Venezuela’s COVID-19 cases are in its border states of Apure, Bolívar, Táchira, and Zulia. Roughly 70,000 Venezuelans who had moved to nearby countries of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru (largely in response to crippling U.S. »