Left Politics

Mind The Stop-Gap

May 29, 2018 Eleanor Goldfield, Artkillingapathy.com Strategize! Capitalism, Class Struggle, Left Politics

The Left loves to argue. Infighting and petty tiffs abound – purity tests and religious-style righteousness hang like smog over so-called safe spaces, suffocating collaborations. One wonders sometimes whether or not the goal for many leftist individuals and organizations is not to fight for progress but rather to fight about it. And this is not to say that there isn’t vital work that is being done. There are so many powerful initiatives to both fight and build; ones that side step the privileged place of theoretical mind space and get shit done. The problem is that because many people lack a feeling of urgency. Add to this the simple truth that doing the work is a lot harder than talking about it and you find that people often just talk – and read.

How Filipino Migrants Gave The Grape Strike Its Radical Politics

May 17, 2018 David Bacon, Dollarsandsense.org Strategize! Farmworkers, Food and Agriculture, Left Politics, Strikes, The Philippines

The great Delano grape strike started on September 8, 1965, when Filipino pickers stayed in their labor camps, and refused to go into the fields. Mexican workers joined them two weeks later. The strike went on for five years, until all California table grape growers were forced to sign contracts in 1970. The conflict was a watershed struggle for civil and labor rights, supported by millions of people across the country. It breathed new life into the labor movement and opened doors for immigrants and people of color. California’s politics have changed profoundly in the 52 years since then, in large part because of that strike. Delano’s mayor today is a Filipino. That would have been unthinkable in 1965, when growers treated the town as a plantation. Children of farm worker families have become members of the state legislature.

The Case For An Independent Left Party

May 12, 2018 By Howie Hawkins, Isreview.org Strategize! Electoral Politics, Left Politics, third parties

If the 13.2 million votes received by self-styled “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries accomplished nothing else positive, it put the questions of socialism and independent working-class politics up for public discussion. I have been critical of Sanders’s socialism because his policy platform was New Deal liberalism, not socialism. More importantly, by entering the Democratic Party, Sanders broke with the socialist principle of independent working-class political action.1 He became the “sheepdog” herding progressives, who had the option of voting for the Green ticket of Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka in the general election, back into a party run by the billionaire class he professes to oppose.

The Cult Of Violence Always Kills The Left

April 18, 2018 By Chris Hedges, Truthdig.com Strategize! History, Left Politics, Violence

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—The Weather Underground, a clandestine revolutionary organization that advocated violence, was seen by my father and other clergy members who were involved in Vietnam anti-war protests as one of the most self-destructive forces on the left. These members of the clergy, many of whom, including my father, were World War II veterans, had often became ministers because of their experiences in the war. They understood the poison of violence. One of the most prominent leaders of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (CALCAV), to which my father belonged, was the Catholic priest Philip Berrigan, who as an Army second lieutenant fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

Gun Debate A Narrow Opportunity For Democrats, A Wide One For The Left

March 30, 2018 Bruce A. Dixon, Blackagendareport.com Educate! Democratic Party, Electoral Politics, Guns, Left Politics

Last weekend the March For Our Lives mobilized half a million on the DC mall and a few hundred thousand more combined in dozens of cities across the US. Lyft donated a million free rides to marchers, and a long list of celebrity endorsers wrote checks and cut spots. Broadcast and cable media gave free plugs letting people know where local actions were, and how to donate online. Former president Obama, who scorned the young people in the streets after the police murder of Freddie Gray warmly praised the young protesters against gun violence in Florida as ‘leading the way for all of us.” It’s not hard to see the hand of the Democratic party behind the tens of millions in corporate contributions and free media accorded the March For Our Lives mobilization. 2018 is a midterm election year, and November is only seven months away.

In The Ruins Of The Present

March 26, 2018 Vijay Prashad, Thetricontinental.org Create! Globalization, Left Politics, Neoliberalism

In the Ruins of the Present traces the challenges posed by globalization and what these challenges produce for our society. The first attempt to address the problems of globalization was neo-liberalism. It failed. Next came cruel populism, which expresses itself in narrow, hateful terms. It will also fail. The Left is weak – decomposed by globalization. The need of the hour is for the Left to recompose itself, to become a vital force for a fragile humanity.

Getting From Profits For A Few To Health Care For All

March 21, 2018 Scott Tucker, Truthdig.com Educate! Health Care, Left Politics, Liberals

Democracy is a more radical idea than socialism. That has been noted by a fair number of democratic socialists, including one of the steady campaigners on the left wing of the British Labor Party, Tony Benn, who died in 2014. By stressing democracy first and foremost, he plainly did not abandon the full range of his socialist commitments. On the contrary, the extension of democracy into the workplace and the advance of workers into public life has been the real ground of social democracy. Without democracy in basic goods and services such as health care, housing and education, the ability of people to participate in public life and politics is deeply undermined. We, the people, did not gain ground in civil and human rights simply through the Constitution.

The Strategic Challenge For The Latin American Left

February 26, 2018 By Rafael Correa, Telesurtv.net Strategize! Latin America, Left Politics, Mass Media

Mass-Media has become the main opposition to the progressive governments of the region. After the long and sad neoliberal night of the 1990s - which broke entire nations like Ecuador - and since Hugo Chávez won the Presidency of the Republic of Venezuela at the end of 1998, the rightist governments of the continent began to be overthrown like houses of cards, bringing Popular governments and aligned with ‘Socialism of Good Living’ across our America. In its heyday in 2009, out of ten Latin American countries in South America, eight had leftist governments. In addition, in Central America and the Caribbean, there was the Farabundo Martí Front in El Salvador, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Álvaro Colom in Guatemala, Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, and Leonel Fernández in the Dominican Republic.

The Bankruptcy Of The American Left

February 7, 2018 Chris Hedges, Truthdig.com Educate! Identity Politics, Left Politics, United States

There will be no economic or political justice for the poor, people of color, women or workers within the framework of global, corporate capitalism. Corporate capitalism, which uses identity politics, multiculturalism and racial justice to masquerade as politics, will never halt the rising social inequality, unchecked militarism, evisceration of civil liberties and omnipotence of the organs of security and surveillance. Corporate capitalism cannot be reformed, despite its continually rebranding itself. The longer the self-identified left and liberal class seek to work within a system that the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls “inverted totalitarianism,” the more the noose will be tightened around our necks. If we do not rise up to bring government and financial systems under public control—which includes nationalizing banks, the fossil fuel industry and the arms industry—we will continue to be victims.

Thinking Freedom: Achieving The Impossible Collectively

January 27, 2018 Michael Neocosmos, Roarmag.org Resist! Class Struggle, Ideology, Left Politics

I don’t think we should make power the starting point for thinking emancipation, particularly a binary notion of power. Whether you are talking about power or counter-power, you are starting from an idea of people’s interests and identities rather than from an idea of universal emancipation. And you end up talking about states and how we relate to them rather than defining human universality in our own terms. Of course, power is always involved in the arenas and sites where politics takes place. I am concerned, however, that once we use categories of power, even if it is to think about a different way of addressing power, we end up using words and thinking through categories that are not helpful because they are categories through which the state itself thinks.

Will USian PseudoLeft Evolve True Revolutionary Consciousness?

December 29, 2017 Loren Bliss, Dispatchesfromdystopia.net Educate! Ideology, Left Politics, Political Education, United States

Exemplifying how Capitalism's momentum invariably thrusts it toward fascism, Mainstream Media was headed in that direction even under the independent ownership that characterized most USian newspapers and broadcast outlets during the years of my later teens and earlier manhood, 1956 through about 1980 or thereabouts. While the only meaningful difference between local Capitalists and their global counterparts has never been more than the geographical limits of their greed, the socioeconomic interactions characteristic of local ownership exercised enough moral restraint on publishers that in most instances, mass media did not metastasize into its present-day malignancy until the news monopolies took over.

Chile’s Political System Shaken By Rise Of New Anti-Neoliberal Left

December 6, 2017 Staff, socialistproject.ca Create! Chile, Electoral Politics, Left Politics

By Staff of The Bullet - First, it’s clear that the result, for any observer, was a complete surprise. Although looking at it now we can see that there were many signs pointing to the possibility of a high vote for the FA, the truth is that no one believed it was possible to go into double digits. Polls showed it with about 8% support, and the history of the left in the past three decades in Chile is one in which it has never surpassed this limit. Moreover, the FA went to the elections without the backing of the biggest left force in the country – in terms of history, number of activists and organising capacity: the Communist Party. In this context, the first point is the surprise factor. The second is the political chaos that has been generated in Chile. If the FA is seeking to alter the balance of forces that has dominated Chile for almost three decades since the final years of the dictatorship, it has still not achieved this. But [the election] was a big step forward in this direction: it created electoral uncertainty, not only in terms of the second round, but for years to come in Chile. In this way, the FA went from being ignored by the traditional political forces, to being the third political force in a system accustomed to only two players. And it is not just any third force, but one whose program is based on the big anti-neoliberal social struggles of the past decades.

House Intel Committee To Subpoena Leftist Comedian & Activist

November 29, 2017 Max Blumenthal, alternet.org Resist! Activists, Investigation, Left Politics, Repression, Russia

By Max Blumenthal for AlterNet - The House Intelligence Committee’s Russia investigation has taken an unexpected turn, with investigators homing in on a New York City-based comedian, radio host and renowned civil rights activist named Randy Credico. Credico received a letter this month from the Committee ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, and Rep. Michael Conaway, the Republican leading the investigation. The lawmakers requested that Credico “participate in a voluntary, transcribed interview at the Committee’s offices” during the first half of December. Credico informed the House committee through his legal counsel that he would not submit to the voluntary interview. Soon after, his lawyer told him that the committee planned to issue a subpoena. Credico is among the unlikeliest characters to have surfaced as a player in the ongoing Russiagate drama. For over two decades, he split time as a comedy professional while waging a tireless crusade against the war on drugs. The former host of a radio show on the Pacifica affiliate WBAI, Credico came into the company of high profile dissidents. Today his friends include the transparency activist targeted for arrest and prosecution by the US government: Julian Assange. The Wikileaks founder was recently accused by CIA Director Mike Pompeo of overseeing a “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.” Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has suggested without evidence that Wikileaks collaborated with the Russian government to subvert the 2016 presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor. This year, the Trump administration expanded the federal grand jury seeking the arrest of Assange to cover the Wikileaks release of thousands of documents on CIA hacking tools.

“Towards A Second Forum For Left, Green And Progressive Forces”

November 27, 2017 Staff, transform-network.net Create! Europe, European Union (EU), Left Politics

By Staff of Transform! Europe - The aim was to focus on the progressive alternatives to the authoritarian, patriarchal, and anti-social policies of many European governments and European Union, and workers’ diminishing rights. We stand for social and sustainable policies so as to prevent the absolute destruction of the environment and to defend a Europe of Peace. Based on our discussions, and the strong consensus that has emerged therefrom, it is clear that the time has come to help build a space enabling leftist, green and progressive forces from all over Europe to jointly face the challenge of crafting a strategic proposal for developing an alternative model of European integration; one that is horizontal, egalitarian, socially advanced, in solidarity with peoples from other parts of the world, one that fosters a new, fairer international order, and one that is capable of countering current attempts to build an ultra-liberal, authoritarian Europe, displaying a complete lack of solidarity and even xenophobia. What is needed is a powerful consensus that can stave off the advance of the reactionary and fascist forces. To build concrete alternatives, we need to talk, to engage in dialogue, to pool ideas and projects so that we can reach out to the workers that the extreme right is trying to attract, and show them that there is hope, that there are forces, diverse and plural in nature, but which nonetheless all share progressive, feminist, ecologist and leftist values.

The Anti-Capitalist Politics Of Antifa

September 7, 2017 Stephanie Basile, www.counterpunch.org Create! AntiCapitalist, AntiFa, Left Politics, New Economy

By Stephanie Basile for Counter Punch - As antifa has burst into the mainstream in recent weeks, suddenly the efficacy of confronting Nazis in the streets is being debated on the national stage. Antifa is not one particular group, but a term used to describe anti-fascists committed to stamping out fascism before it can rise to power. The debate around antifa tends to stay narrowly focused on the use of physical self-defense in public spaces. What’s received less attention is the anti-capitalist politics of antifa, and how some anti-fascists and are putting these politics into practice through workplace organizing. When workers at the New York City feminist sex toy shop Babeland participated in a workplace action this past spring, it was the first time that every single NYC Babeland worker unanimously agreed on something: the company needed more diversity in its hiring practices. The Babeland workers, who in 2016 unionized with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), had negotiated language into their contract requiring their employer to seek diverse candidates when filling positions. When it became clear the company was violating this, the workers at Babeland all signed onto a letter called on the company to hire more workers of color and more trans workers.

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