Strategize!
The section provides articles on strategy to assist you in making your campaigns more effective. They include case studies of social movements and information about the current resistance environment. Visit the Resources Page for links to organizations that provide both online and in-person training on strategy and tools for designing and evaluating your campaigns and actions.
Could the world negotiate a wind-down of the fossil fuel industry — just as Cold War adversaries once agreed to limit their stockpiles of nuclear weapons?
In an interview for the Climate Consciousness Summit 2024, Tzeporah Berman, founder and chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative said a growing wave of support for the proposal — which has been endorsed by more than 3,000 scientists, 121 cities and sub-national governments, and 14 nations — could ultimately make new fossil fuel projects unacceptable, even in the United States, the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas.
Will International Solidarity Turn The Tables For Striking Gaming Workers?
November 20, 2024
Simon Rosenblum-Larson and Andrew Tillett-Saks, Labor Notes.
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Gaming Industry, Georgia, International Solidarity, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights
Four thousand workers at the online gaming company Evolution in Tbilisi, Georgia, walked off the job in July protesting low wages, dangerous working conditions, and harassment.
Four months in, their strike is one of the largest and longest that this Eastern European country has ever seen. In August, some strikers sewed their mouths shut with a needle and thread in a hunger strike that resulted in multiple hospitalizations.
A union victory would represent not only a sea change in the Georgian labor movement, but also a major breakthrough in beating back employers who scour the globe for cheap, non-union labor. Companies outsource expecting that workers won’t fight back.
Niger Hosts Historic Conference On The Fight Against Neocolonialism
November 19, 2024
Pavan Kulkarni, People's Dispatch.
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Alliance of Sahel States (AES), Coups, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), French colonialism, Niger, Pan Africanism, Sahel, Sahel region, West African Peoples' Organization (WAPO)
Delegates from the popular movements, labor unions, peasant organizations, and left parties in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the US have arrived in Niamey, the capital of Niger, to attend the “Conference in Solidarity with the Peoples of the Sahel” from November 19 to 21.
The Pan Africanism Today Secretariat (PAT) and the West Africa People’s Organization (WAPO) have organized this conference “For Anti-Imperialist Unity, Peace, and Friendship between Peoples”, at the time of a critical breakthrough against Francafrique in Sahelian West Africa.
Amid a wave of mass protests against the continued stranglehold of France over its former colonies, popularly supported military coups in Mali in 2020 and 2021, in Burkina Faso in 2022, and in Niger in 2023 swept away the regimes domestically perceived as subservient to France.
Expanding The Possible, From Below
November 19, 2024
Alexandria Shaner, Resilience.
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climate crisis, Green New Deal, Local Economy, Municipalism
Less than one week after a self-proclaimed dictator, climate change denier, and big oil-funded billionaire (among other equally impressive accolades) took the single most powerful political office in the world, it seems like a horrible time to release a book about the Green New Deal.
Thinking back to 2018, not so long ago in time but perhaps much longer in space, to when the Green New Deal was launched into public attention as a bold proposal for transformative national legislation, is frankly, beyond depressing. Loss, grief and rage compete with numbness and shock, easily overwhelming any effort to fathom where we were then, and where we find ourselves now.
Political And Climate Storms Rolling In
November 18, 2024
Patrick Mazza, Resilience.
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climate crisis, Communities, Political crisis, Transformation
Never has it been more important to build strong places capable of weathering the storms barreling down on us, both the physical storms of a disrupted climate and the political, social and economic storms of a nation and world tumbling into increasing conflict. Never has it been more crucial to strengthen and build the community networks and institutions that promote human solidarity. Donald Trump’s election to his second presidential term sends that message loud and clear.
Though things weren’t exactly going great before the election.
Resisting Youth In The Age Of Fascist Dream-Worlds
November 17, 2024
Henry Giroux, Counter Punch.
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Capitalism, Class Struggle, climate crisis, Liberals, Youth Activism
Hyper-capitalism is the death knell of democracy. It reduces everything to a commodity, monetizing and pathologizing every aspect of life. The blind faith in markets and unfettered individualism has dismantled the social state, ravaged the environment, and fueled staggering inequality. By divorcing economic activity from its social costs, liberals have obliterated civic culture, creating a vacuum filled by despair and alienation. Into that vacuum emerged a band of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, radical Christian nationalists, and a cruel band of misogynists and neoliberal fascists.
Challenging Land Use and Abuse In Allamakee County
November 14, 2024
Dave Rollo, Resilience.
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Big Ag, Factory Farming, Iowa, Land defenders, Land Rights, Mining
Allamakee County lies in the northeast corner of Iowa, bordering Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is part of a three-state region that, unlike most of the upper United States and Canada, escaped glaciation during past ice ages. This geological oddity is immediately obvious to visitors by the dramatic terrain of bluffs, hills, and valleys. Expansive plains characterize most of the rest of Iowa, where miles-thick glaciers moved over the land like a bulldozer, lowering elevated areas, filling in depressions, and depositing rich, deep till.
In contrast, the unglaciated northeast of Iowa, referred to as the Paleozoic Plateau for the geologic era of ancient sea bed limestones visible at the surface, contains thin soils and exposed bedrock.
Unprincipled, Unstrategic, And Unsustainable: E(U)Logy For The US Climate “Movement”
November 13, 2024
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, Black Agenda Report.
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climate crisis, Climate Justice, Climate Movement, Elections
In 1991, Strong Island trio, De La Soul dropped their second album on wax, “De La Soul is Dead.” Writer, Jeffery Harvey characterized the group’s sophomore offering as, “a kamikaze mission of salvation through sabotage,” noting that the group embarked on a high-wire act of destruction and deconstruction that included a sonic castigation of the corporate takeover of the hip hop brand that resulted in more funding and investment for hedonistic and misogynist manifestations that largely only exacerbated the “nihilism in the streets.”
The Right Believes It Has Supreme Court Votes To Overturn Labor Law
November 12, 2024
Shaun Richman, In These Times.
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Labor Laws, NLRB, Supreme Court, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs
The foundational 1935 labor law protecting workers is unconstitutional, according to major corporations and right-wing zealots who believe they have enough votes on the Supreme Court to overturn it. In the latest sign that anti-union forces will doggedly press the matter, a federal judge for the Northern District of Texas enjoined the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from processing any allegations of employer violations of workers’ rights. The National Review hailed the decision as “A Welcome Blow to the NLRB.”
This is after Elon Musk’s SpaceX won a similar injunction against the NLRB before the Western District of Texas in July.
Samir Amin On The Theory Of Multipolarity
November 11, 2024
Monthly Review Editors, Orinoco Tribune.
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BRICS, Globalization, Imperialism, Multipolar World, US Empire, Washington DC
It is almost universally recognized today that we are living in a multipolar world, symbolized by the continuing decline of U.S. hegemony; the economic stagnation of the imperial triad of the United States, Europe, and Japan; and the rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). But the historical and theoretical significance of this is in dispute. The foremost theorist of multipolarity was Samir Amin, through his concept of “delinking,” which he developed throughout his career. For Amin, the struggle against imperialism required a delinking from the law of value on the world level centered in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, and Tokyo, and its replacement by a more “polycentric” or “multipolar” world order, in which nations in the periphery of the system could reorient their economies toward their own nation-based value systems, thereby meeting their own internal developmental needs.
Trump 2.0 Poses An Even Bigger Threat To Migrants
November 11, 2024
Silky Shah, Truthout.
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2024 US Presidential elections, Donald Trump, Immigrant Rights, Immigration, Migrants
This election cycle was defined — yet again — by Donald Trump’s fearmongering over immigration. Like his previous two campaigns for president, Trump fueled a racist panic over “migrant crime” and capitalized on people’s fears over economic insecurity by scapegoating immigrants for all of the U.S.’s problems, including but not limited to the housing crisis, opioid crisis and inflation. But unlike those previous elections, rather than challenging Trump’s rhetoric, the Democrats capitulated to the Republicans and solidified the rightward lurch on the issue.
Labor Movement Must Unite Working Class
November 10, 2024
UE Officers, Portside.
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Class Struggle, Democrats, Independent Politics, Labor Movement, Worker Rights and Jobs
For over half of a century, working people in the U.S. have seen stagnating wages, worsening working conditions, the loss of good jobs, and constant increases in the cost of living. This is the result of corporations’ never-ending thirst to squeeze as many profits out of workers as possible. Throughout this time, both major parties have been complicit in this corporate assault. They have maintained their power, and a corrupt two-party system, by dividing the working class along lines of race, gender, and education. Frustration with the Democrats and their unwillingness to confront corporate power or offer real solutions to working people’s economic concerns led many working people to vote for Donald Trump on Tuesday, giving him the margin of victory.
Bolivia: Reinventing The Future Amid Rise Of Far-Right
November 9, 2024
Revista Minga, Orinoco Tribune.
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Bolivia, Extreme Right, History, Latin America, Progressivism, US Imperialism
On the afternoon of June 26, 2024, several militant vehicles and around 300 members of the Bolivian militia and military police, under the command of General Commander of the Armed Forces Gen. Rudy Rodríguez, burst into the Murillo Square in La Paz, surrounded the access to the square and tried to enter by force the Palacio Quemado, the former seat of the presidential office. Immediately, traditional media reported the events taking place in La Paz throughout the country. The information spread through social networks, expanding its reach with the complement of the immediate public opinion of the social sectors with access to the Internet.
The Palestinian Struggle’s Necessary Realignment
Over the last year, Palestine has been irrevocably changed in ways that, for many of us, were once inconceivable.
Since the beginning of the genocide, the Israeli regime has killed over 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza — an estimate provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Health that includes over 6,000 unidentified bodies in the ministry’s possession and an additional 10,000 assumed to be still buried under the rubble. Devastatingly, some will never be retrieved.
Meanwhile, a July article in The Lancet medical journal on the importance of accounting for Gaza’s fatalities argued that a conservative estimate of total deaths in conflict scenarios equated to “four indirect deaths per one direct death.”
Build The Movement Against Trump!
November 7, 2024
Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Fight Back! News.
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2024 US Presidential elections, Capitalism, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris
So, it happened. The racist, reactionary fool Donald Trump is returning to the White House, and Republicans will dominate Congress. The polarization of American political life is sharpening and deepening. Revolutionaries and progressives have some heavy lifting ahead of us.
There is going to be plenty of time to analyze what happened in the election, but on the morning after, some things are clear. The leadership and wealthy backers of the Democratic Party have only themselves to blame for the outcome. The Harris/Waltz campaign was tone-deaf to the needs and aspirations of working people.