USA/Canada

On Thursday 1 June the US Senate approved a budget deal negotiated between President Biden and Republican leaders in order to approve an increase in the USA’s federal debt ceiling. Bernie Sanders voted against, saying: At a time when climate change is, by far, the most existential threat facing our country and the entire world I cannot, in good conscience, vote for a bill that makes it easier for fossil fuel companies to pollute and destroy the planet by fast-tracking the disastrous Mountain Valley Pipeline. When the future of the world is literally at stake we must have the courage to stand...

The Writers’ Guild of America, which represents writers for film and TV studios, struck for a new contract from 2 May after 98% of members voted in favour. The WGA strike is the first time unions have raised the issue of generative artificial intelligence (AI), new programs such as Chat-GPT that writers fear could be used to de-skill or downgrade their work by generating plot outlines or possibly even scripts. While discussion still swirls about how exactly they will or should be used, possibly for strike-breaking, the union is insisting that its use should be subject to negotiation with them...

In America the Republicans are trying to turn the political clock backwards on Black people and white society, on women’s rights over their own bodies, and many other things. The Republican party is no longer the more conservative of the two main political parties. It is whatever Donald Trump says it is. Trump is a fascist, and the other leading Republicans are at best people willing to accommodate to fascists. The political drama now and since about 2015 and Donald Trump running for President, will, if events go the Republicans’ way, affect world politics, including British politics, for...

Orson Welles said he was discouraged from standing for senator because he was divorced. The great American public would deem that marital status as signifying immoral character. Welles chose not to stand and voters in Wisconsin ended up sending one Joseph McCarthy to Washington. The appearance of moral probity was thought a necessary attribute for a successful political career and hypocritical transgressions were thus kept firmly behind closed doors. The saintly J F Kennedy, a serial womaniser, had fixers who prevented details of his sexual-harassing behaviour leaking to the media. It was...

Following a near-five year effort to build a campaign, recruit organisers, seek national union affiliation, and build sufficient levels of initial support, the Harvard Academic Workers union ( HAW ) launched on 6 February 2023. HAW is affiliated to the UAW (United Autoworkers Union), which now has nearly a quarter of its 400,000 members in higher education, despite its historic roots in the automotive industry. UAW is currently going through major internal upheaval, forced by grassroots activists involved in the UAWD (Unite all Workers for Democracy) campaign who have just won significant...

On 3 February, a freight train derailed near the town of East Palestine, Ohio. The crash upended and set ablaze 50 of the train’s 150+ cars. Despite the Norfolk Southern freight train trailing a mass of over 18,000 tonnes and having a total length of 1.8 miles, miraculously no one was killed in the crash itself. Instead, the damage has been paid by locals’ health and the surrounding environment: eleven of those cars were loaded with hazardous, carcinogenic chemicals. Firefighters were unable to tackle the fire in the immediate aftermath given the outpouring of toxic gas. Days later, local...

Before the commencement of the 2023 US state legislative session, state senators across the US submitted 299 separate anti-LGBTQ bills to their state houses. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), across different states these share many common themes: banning “adult cabaret performances” in public spaces, restricting classroom discussion of sex and gender, and attacking the rights of transgender children, ranging from their rights to play sport, through to banning their access to necessary gender-affirming healthcare. If passed as law, some of these bills would see physicians...

Seven thousand nurses in two major New York City hospitals struck in January for three days, and won significant improvements to their contracts. For many strikers the key issues related to unsafe workloads and low pay. The promised deal will provide nursing staff a 19% pay rise (spread over three years), and — in a bid to tackle chronic under-staffing of hospitals — the introduction of 170 new nursing jobs across the two sites and guaranteed patient staffing ratios. Their short, sharp action won the day, and is inspiring others. Earlier this month, 800 nurses nearby on Long Island voted 99%...

Eugene Debs (1855-1926) was the main public figure of the US Socialist Party in the era when it won over 900,000 votes in the presidential elections of 1912 and 1920. Later socialists, learning from the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution as well as rising black struggles, were critical of Debs's limitations, and of course the language he used was the language of his time; but Debs spoke out eloquently against racism. The Birth of a Nation (1915) has been called "the most influential film in history". The merits of the spectacular drama The Birth of a Nation excite bitter comment whenever it...

On 4 February 250 people protested in Bristol following a High Court ruling to allow Bristol Airport to expand, dismissing campaigners’ appeal. This ruling is a blow both to local democracy and to the climate. The local councils have repeatedly rejected the expansion, but have been overruled by central government. The government’s own advisors, the Climate Change Committee, have advised against net airport expansion. No- or low-emission flying is not viable on any scale in the near future — despite green-washing claims — so any serious attempt to curb climate change must seek to restrict, not...