We Need to Change the Way We Think about Healthcare…and Fast

Healthcare has proven to be the ultimate enigma for American policymakers. This year has brought wave after wave of political controversy, but nothing else has so comprehensively perplexed Republicans and Democrats alike. Hell-bent on dismantling the infrastructure left behind by Obama, President Trump regularly issues statements promoting the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care […]

Bias Ease

This article is the first installment of a column that will analyze the American news industry, examining the role of the press and of the public with respect to journalism. It will delve into individual and organizational bias, ratings concerns, the impact of the Internet and new technologies, responsible reporting, and news consumption. At the […]

Why Healthcare and Taxes Matter

There are no systems more fundamental to American society than the healthcare industry and the U.S. tax code. But they’re also among its most burdensome. In addition to the inherent physical and emotional hardship, health care is a major economic burden, as rising costs put enormous pressure on users. While the insured face ever-rising premiums, […]

Beyond “Point-of-Production” Organizing: Participatory Budgeting, Worker Cooperatives, and Left Praxis

An overview of PB and workers cooperatives: Participatory budgeting and workers cooperatives are some of the best institutions being used to build egalitarian, democratic political structures that can transcend national rightwing forces. Participatory budgeting (PB) humbly started in Porto Alegre and has since inspired Leftist political movements across the globe, unleashed political agency, and revolutionized […]

Immigration Policy: How Protectionism Becomes Racism

The human predisposition is to fear what we do not know, which helps us to identify potential threats and protect ourselves from them. It is precisely this psychological impulse that both leads a child not to eat a strange new food and has led to President Donald Trump’s protectionist immigration policies, particularly the travel ban […]

Protest and Productivity

From the inception of our country, protest, defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary as “a solemn declaration of opinion and usually of dissent,” has played a role in how citizens can voice concerns and draw a government’s attention to particular issues. In times of discontent, people have turned to protests to voice their opposition toward […]

The Case for Conditional Optimism

I missed only one day of class during my entire first semester of college: November 9th, the day after the presidential election. I could not imagine functioning on a campus that seemed to be in mourning, let alone in a small, intimate classroom. In the months following, I’ve frequently felt restricted by anger, fear, despair, […]

The Looming Danger for Democrats in Selective Enforcement of Rule XIX

Originally published March 2017 As the confirmation hearings for President Trump’s cabinet nominees continue, so does Democratic opposition to his candidates. During the debate on whether to confirm Jeff Sessions as Attorney General on Tuesday, February 7th, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren attempted to read a letter written in 1986 by Coretta Scott King, wife of […]

Silencing of Dissent Continues During SGA Election

Martha Durkee-Neuman is the Outreach Coordinator for SARC. Jace Ritchey is the SGA Representative for SARC and a former campaign worker for the Suchira+Paulina: Believe In More Campaign. Over the past week, the ReNUal 2017 Campaign and the Student Government Association (SGA) Elections Committee have become complicit in Northeastern University administrators’ penchant for silencing survivors […]

The Incompetence of Our Student Government

Last year, I wrote that our student government had failed us. Under President Eric Tyler and Executive Vice President (EVP) Morgan Helfman’s administration – and many of their predecessors – Northeastern Student Government Association (SGA) was unaccountable, non-transparent, and unrepresentative of the student body. The referenda vetting process in place was borderline autocratic, and student […]