Peter Bach Journalist Profile

Articles

A North-South Divide in England’s Unions

1 month ago | counterpunch.org | Peter Bach |Jeffrey St. Clair

The idea of a North-South divide in Trade Union membership and activity here in the UK has long persisted, often rooted in outdated stereotypes of men in cloth caps, cigarettes dangling from mouths, waiting for shipyard work. But the reality is more complex than that. Yes, while historical factors have shaped Union membership across the […] To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.
In Handcuffs, Smiling

1 month ago | counterpunch.org | Susie Day |Peter Bach

You may have heard that, in New York State, there has been an unauthorized strike of prison guards in 40 of the state’s 42 prisons, and that a settlement has been proposed by the governor. Ostensibly, the guards have been protesting understaffing and unsafe conditions; but more importantly, they have used their strike to distract […] To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.
The Future of Organized Labor in the Time of Trump and Farage

Jan 19, 2025 | counterpunch.org | Peter Bach |Susie Day

It never used to be the case here in the UK that people ignored the unions. As the Grateful Dead sang back in the 1970s: ‘What a long, strange trip it’s been.’ It was following Tory prime minister Edward Heath’s fall in the 1970s that the late financier Jimmy Goldsmith backed something sinister called Truemid—the […] To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.
Letter From London: Bully for You

Jan 15, 2025 | counterpunch.org | Peter Bach

My first ever fight was with a bully of sorts. I was seven years old. His was a case of cruelty over animals rather than humans. The fight took place in woods close to my grandmother’s house in Scotland, where we lived in the winter, in a small lone fortress-like building, a dovecot or home for pigeons. It was after I mentioned the building to a boy at school who asked me to take him there that the two of us were suddenly using nest-boxes as footholds as we climbed inside to the top.
The Uses and Misuses of Ideology in Analyzing the Syrian Overthrow

Jan 12, 2025 | counterpunch.org | Pete Dolack |Peter Bach

People in Global South countries have agency. They can and do understand the realities of their material conditions. Apparently it is necessary to write the preceding two sentences. You, dear reader, may be wondering why I have written such obvious statements. Don’t people everywhere possess agency, the ability to understand and act upon the political, cultural and social conditions of their community, nation and country? Yes of course they do. So why write the obvious?
Letter From London: Moscow-upon-Thames

Jan 9, 2025 | counterpunch.org | Peter Bach

‘We are about to face Putin, the withdrawal of US military support, American tariffs, and a propaganda assault from the US right – all coming at us at once,’ wrote UK journalist Nick Cohen at the weekend. This was just as Ukrainian forces were launching fresh attacks from Cherkasskoe Porechnoe toward Berdin in the Kursk Oblast.
Letter Not from London: the English Countryside

Jan 1, 2025 | counterpunch.org | Peter Bach

It’s always dramatic when you leave London for a spell in the English countryside. In the English countryside, people still say hello. Trees are tall and knowing. The old as well as young work the shops. A pothole becomes a talking point. History, especially Druid or Roman, never seems far away. In the English countryside, people are less concerned about US politics. The skies are crammed with stars. Wood pigeons coo from working chimney tops. Graveyards are pocked with freshly placed flowers.
Poetry From Today’s Frontlines

Dec 29, 2024 | counterpunch.org | Peter Bach

Someone said recently that AI might know more about the history of the First World War than all human historians put together but that he knew more than AI because he had read the poetry of Wilfred Owen. Here therefore is a look at today’s main conflicts through the prism of these conflicts’ poetry. For […] To read this article, log in here or subscribe here.
Letter from London: You'd Better Watch Out, You'd Better Not Cry

Dec 18, 2024 | counterpunch.org | Peter Bach

An example of just how challenging Christmas can be, even when away from all the bloodshed in the world, is the latest update from Creed—‘CC’—O’Hanlon. I have mentioned CC and his gifted wife Given before. I hope they don’t mind me doing so again. They are talented people—with vast experience of the world. Important outliers and cultural disseminators of the world. Their perspective is unique.
Letter from London: Striking Home and Away

Dec 11, 2024 | counterpunch.org | Peter Bach

I don’t know if it was murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson or not, but I saw Taxi Driver again for the first time in years. Watching Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle, however, I was reminded more of ‘lame duck’ South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol and his declaration of martial law—an intensely straight line, in other words, suddenly veering off.