Issue 59: Misery Index
Crunching the numbers on the class war.
Blog
Nativism vs. the Bottom Line
While the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policies may hurt businesses reliant on undocumented labor, the fractured capitalist class won’t stand up to the president.
Civic Nationalism Is Worth Defending
J. D. Vance has attacked birthright citizenship and equality before the law by claiming that “America is not an idea.” But the realization of the idea of civic nationalism has been our greatest achievement.
How Can We Organize Immigrant Workers?
Bosses will always try to divide native-born and immigrant workers. Our response has to be unconditional solidarity.
The Red Scare Blueprint
A 1917 effort to deport political radicals from Seattle became the model for all 20th-century deportation crusades.
Walter Benjamin’s Graveyard
On the run from the Gestapo, Walter Benjamin committed suicide on the French-Spanish border in 1940. The place where he spent his last days now overlooks the most brutally policed border of the EU.
Building Civilization at Shenzhen Speed
Once the poorer neighbor of Hong Kong, Shenzhen has been transformed into a showcase for the speed, power, and dynamism of Chinese development — and a study in extreme inequality.
Issue 59: Letters + The Internet Speaks
No border can contain our subscribers’ enthusiasm.
Partisans on Ponies
One German’s idiosyncratic obsession with the American frontier led to an unlikely West German–Yugoslav cinematic partnership that fed the European appetite for cowboys and Indians.
Orson Welles, South of the Border
After his post–Citizen Kane slump, Orson Welles teamed up with Universal for a big Hollywood comeback about corrupt police on the US-Mexico border. The executives balked at his vision — but today Touch of Evil is regarded as Welles’s final masterpiece.