JACOBIN

MARCH 20. 2025

Mahmoud Khalil’s Letter From an ICE Detention Center

Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained and targeted for deportation by the Trump administration for speaking out about the atrocities in Gaza, dictated a letter to the public from his detention cell in Louisiana. Jacobin publishes the letter here in full.

Serbia’s Student Movement Offers Hope in Dark Times

Student protests in Serbia have challenged an authoritarian government and its sell-off of public assets to multinationals. Far from just a liberal or pro-European movement, it is challenging the ties between Serbian and international capital.

Trump’s Deportations Are a Throwback to Red Scare Politics

The detention and threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil stands in a long tradition of the US government using border policy as a tool for political control, stretching back to First and Second Red Scare efforts to crack down on left-wing dissent.

MARCH 19. 2025

Michael Burawoy’s Marxism for Realists

What distinguished Michael Burawoy from other socialists was that he did not sidestep or ignore conservative criticisms of Marxism. Rather, he took them head-on and developed a sociology that could make sense of actually existing capitalism and socialism.

Berkshire Hathaway Wants to Stiff Makeup Poisoning Victims

Warren Buffett’s conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, profited off sale of a makeup ingredient that has been linked to cancer. The company is using fancy legal footwork to try to get out of paying remuneration to its victims.

The Global Reach of Colombia’s Private Security Firms

In response to violent drug gangs, Colombians have taken to employing private security who are trained to kill and outnumber the police and the army. But their close ties to the far right and the cartels means they often only make Colombians more unsafe.

Trump Helps Credit Card Companies Fight Interest Rate Caps

Although on the campaign trail Donald Trump proposed capping credit card interest rates, his administration is withdrawing support for a Colorado state law that would impose such caps.

How Many Americans Really Live Paycheck to Paycheck?

Centrist pundits take issue with Bernie Sanders’s frequent claim that 60% of Americans are living “paycheck to paycheck. ” His critics’ attempts to debunk this statistic aren’t convincing.

Black Bag: Not Much to See Here

Black Bag is being hailed by critics as highly sophisticated cinematic fare — rather than an unambitious rush job by a director eager to move on to his next, similarly unsatisfying project.

MARCH 18. 2025

An Autonomy Worth Having

Promoting meaningful freedom to people suffering from mental illness or substance abuse requires going beyond simple questions of individual choice.

In North Macedonia, State Neglect Kills 59

On Sunday, 59 people died in a nightclub fire in Kočani, North Macedonia. Years of inaction on health and safety standards led to a tragedy of unimaginable proportions.

Ukraine’s Forbidden Frescoes

Ukrainian painter Mykhailo Boichuk and his circle of socialist artists perished in Stalin’s 1930s repression, destroying much of the movement’s beautiful public murals in the process. Today what remains of their work is a symbol of hope in dark times.

Severance Is an Indictment of Workplace Hell

Apple’s dystopian workplace thriller Severance entered its second season as a genuine cultural phenomenon. With its brutal satire of the American corporate structure, it’s easy to see why.

MARCH 17. 2025

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz and the Marxist Theory of Nationalism

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz was a remarkably creative Polish Marxist thinker who developed a theory of nationalism that was far ahead of its time.