Left Politics

Why Can’t The Left Get Venezuela Right?

July 15, 2017 Shamus Cooke, www.links.org.au Strategize! Left Politics, Regime Change, US Imperialism, Venezuela

By Shamus Cooke for LINKS - July 14, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Venezuela Analysis — As Venezuela's fascist-minded oligarchy conspires with U.S. imperialism to overthrow the democratically elected government of Nicolas Maduro, few in the U.S. seem to care. Instead of denouncing rightwing violence that aims at regime change, many on the U.S. left have stayed silent, or opted to give an evenhanded analysis that supports neither the Maduro government nor the oligarchy trying to violently overthrow it. Rather, the left prioritizes its energy on lecturing on Maduro’s “authoritarianism” and the failures of “Chavismo.” This approach allows leftists a cool emotional detachment to the fate of the poor in Venezuela, and clean hands that would otherwise be soiled by engaging with the messy, real life class struggle that is the Venezuelan revolution. A “pox on both houses” analysis omits the U.S. government’s role in collaborating with Venezuela’s oligarchs. The decades-long crimes of imperialism against Venezuela is aided and abetted by the silence of the left, or by its murky analysis that minimizes the perpetrator’s actions, focusing negative attention on the victim precisely at the moment of attack.

The Last Liberal

July 12, 2017 Zoltan Zigedy, www.zzs-blg.blogspot.com Educate! Ideology, Left Politics, Liberals

By Zoltan Zigedy for ZZ's Blog - The year 1989 marked the death of the independent journalist, Isidor Feinstein (I.F.) Stone, the last twentieth century US liberal. Liberalism in the last century combined the liberties of the original Bill of Rights with Roosevelt’s proposed Second Bill of Rights. By mid-century, US liberalism reached its greatest heights, supplementing the historic bourgeois rights that dismantled feudalism and enshrined the right to property with the promise of an entirely new set of economic rights-- rights to employment, housing, medical care, social security, education, among others. The economic rights sought to codify the social democratic gains made in the New Deal era. By the time of I.F. Stone’s death in 1989, liberalism had nearly shed all of its commitment to the Rooseveltian social justice rights. The bearer of the liberal legacy, the Democratic Party, swiftly retreated from New Deal values in the face of the Reagan attack on social welfare programs. Consequently, the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton, the “third way,” market-obsessed Democrats, eschewed the term “liberal” and appropriated the once-meaningful term “progressive” in its place. Stone would have been appalled.

G20 Violence Prompts Calls For New Curbs On Anti-Capitalist Militants

July 11, 2017 Kate Connolly, www.theguardian.com Resist! Europe, G20, Left Politics, Repression

By Kate Connolly for The Guardian - Allies of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, have called for new curbs on leftwing extremists, including a Europe-wide register, after her decision to hold the G20 world leaders’ summit in Hamburg ended in violent clashes and injuries to nearly 500 police officers. The cost of the damage has not yet been established but is expected to run into millions of euros. Merkel, who faces a parliamentary election on 24 September, has said that Hamburg residents who suffered damage will be properly compensated. Olaf Scholz, the mayor of Hamburg, meanwhile faced calls for his resignation over accusations he had mismanaged the summit. Hundreds of anti-capitalist militants descended on the city torching cars, looting shops and throwing molotov cocktails. The violence dominated German media coverage of the event, which also featured the first meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The German justice minister, Heiko Maas, of Merkel’s SPD coalition partners, said the federal government would put more money into preventing leftwing extremism as he pledged that no German city would ever have to host a world leaders’ summit again. He told the tabloid Bild that the G20 had shown the reality of experts’ assessments that “Germany has reached a historic high point in terms of politically-motivated violence”.

Reading “Politics In A Time Of Crisis” – A View From The Left

June 23, 2017 Duane Campbell, www.dsausa.org Strategize! Crisis, Left Politics

By Duane Campbell for DSA - Spanish political leader Pablo Iglesias Turrión has written Politics in a Time of Crisis: Podemos and the Future of European Democracy, published in an English translation by Verso Books. Iglesias provides a critical summary of the crisis that began in the U.S. and spread to much of the world, causing political upheavals and leaving misery, starvation, and massive migration in its wake. As we know, the economic crisis of 2008-2012 disrupted the U.S. economy. The crisis was much worse in some of the peripheral countries of Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Italy among others), and even more destructive in under-developed regions of African and Asia. We can learn much from reading Iglesias about this crisis in Spain and other countries and economies, including how the crisis led several social democratic political parties in Spain, Greece, Italy, and elsewhere in Europe to collaborate with right-wing movements to impose austerity on the people. This collaboration led to the collapse of many social democratic political parties, the rise of authoritarian right-wing parties, and now the rise of a new left. A similar process led to the collapse of social democratic parties in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

S Korean Activists Discuss Left Priorities In The Moon Jae-in Era, Part 3

May 22, 2017 Staff, www.zoominkorea.org Educate! Activists, Left Politics, South Korea

By Staff of Zoom In Korea - In response to his election, KCTU said in its statement, “While we will support the administration when it moves in the right direction, we will not hesitate to criticize it and make it the target of our struggle should it fail to do so.” Moon promised that he would build a country where the dignity and rights of workers are respected. It is our assessment that while his labor policy is focused on creating new jobs in the public sector, it is weak in the area of promoting fundamental labor rights. The key question is how much will Moon be able to control the chaebols, which dominate the country’s economy, and change the existing laws and labor relation practices to ensure the guarantee of fundamental rights for all workers. The Korean economy is deeply enmeshed in the global recession and relies too heavily on the chaebols. Many of the economic problems the country faces—from low growth to inequality and youth unemployment—can be solved under a system where the working class plays a leading role. In this sense, strengthen unity and solidarity among workers is more important than ever.

What The Resistance To Trump Can Learn From Latin America

May 11, 2017 Jeff Abbott, www.wagingnonviolence.org Strategize! Donald Trump, Latin America, Left Politics

By Jeff Abbott for Waging Nonviolence - It is hard to deny the authoritarian tendencies that Donald Trump has shown in his first 100 days as president of the United States. These tendencies have drawn comparisons to the classic image of a Latin American dictator, and more specifically the caudillo — or strongman leader — by commentators from across Latin American. From his taste in decor and his adversarial relationship with the media, to his fundamental assault on human rights, the similarities are hard to contest. Our neighbors to the south have a long history of resisting authoritarian and fascist regimes, which often were supported by the U.S. governments. They were able to survive under difficult situations and — thanks to social movements — move the region in a more progressive direction. After decades of struggle, here are four lessons that movements in Latin America can teach those in the United States organizing against their own authoritarian leader. 1. Defend public services. Today, as Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos move to further dismantle the public education system and impose a neoliberal model of education...

Interview With Max Blumenthal: The Left’s Failure To Confront Root Of Syrian Conflict

May 10, 2017 Kevin Gosztola, www.shadowproof.com Resist! Left Politics, Syria

By Kevin Gosztola for Shadow Proof - Hosts Rania Khalek and Kevin Gosztola welcomed Max Blumenthal, journalist, senior editor of AlterNet’s Grayzone Project, and author of The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza. Blumenthal has appeared on the show before, but this time he was our guest because multiple listeners requested an episode featuring him. His interview is more than one hour. During the show, Blumenthal addresses the root causes of the Syrian conflict as well as the failure of the left, particularly in the United States, to oppose U.S. military intervention and confront what is destroying a country. “You might not be a leftist if you defend Wahhabism while constantly attacking the left,” Blumenthal states. “You might not be a leftist if you are an apologist for any of these rebel groups or if you are edging toward calling for the replacement of a post-colonial state with a Sunni Islamist theocracy that requires NATO or U.S. military intervention. There’s just nothing leftist about that, and none of this is possible without U.S. intervention.” He confronts the position of much of the International Socialist Organization and journalist Anand Gopal’s recent comments on “Democracy Now!” arguing Syrian President Bashar al Assad created ISIS.

Radical Art, Sweet Potatoes & Mainstream Parades

May 5, 2017 Eleanor Goldfied, www.vox.com Resist! Art, Climate Change, Left Politics

By Eleanor Goldfied for Occupy - The People’s Climate March was this past weekend and roughly 200,000 people descended on Washington, DC to walk along Pennsylvania Ave, past the White House and up to the Washington Monument where speakers and musicians worked the crowd in a festival like setting. And while the energy brought in particular by indigenous and frontline communities was powerful, the march felt very much like a parade and as Dissentralized Organizer Jimmy Betts put it exemplified the “messterpiece of NGO-dom.” While the Climate March garnered most if not all the media attention, the day before, activists picketed and protested outside of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - calling for an end to the blanket rubber stamping of dirty energy projects including the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Even further outside the media gaze was the Uptown Art House, a flat structure community art space where indigenous, borderlands undocumented, black, white and everyone beyond and in between gathered together to create art and share ideas and inspiration. This compilation serves as a platform for the people involved in the building of movements, in fighting the frontline battles and in walking the walk.

The Greek Left Takes Stock Of The Commons

March 6, 2017 David Bollier, www.bollier.org Educate! Greece, Left Politics

By David Bollier for Bollier - If the Greek experience of the past two years shows anything, it is that conventional Left politics, even with massive electoral support and control of the government, cannot prevail against finance capital and its international allies. European creditors continue to force Greek citizens to endure the punishing trauma of austerity politics with no credible scenario for economic recovery or social reconstruction in sight. After the governing coalition Syriza capitulated to creditors’ draconian demands in 2016, its credibility as a force for political change declined. Despite its best intentions, it could not deliver.

Marta Harnecker: Ideas For The Struggle

February 19, 2017 The Old and New Project, www.oldandnewproject.net Strategize! Democracy, Latin America, Left Politics, Mass Movement

By The Old and New Project. July 2016— When we asked Marta Harnecker whether it would be OK to post her “Ideas for the Struggle” (12 short articles about the left and the challenges it faces) on the Old and New website, with an invitation to revolutionary activists in the USA to discuss it, she said she would be delighted. But she also urged that we write an introduction explaining why a piece that was originally composed in 2004 is being reprinted today, with only a few modifications. That question, however, seems relatively easy: not much has changed on the revolutionary left since 2004 concerning the issues Harnecker is addressing in these notes. They have not been adequately discussed or resolved, far from it. Another question also seems significant: Why do we think a text inspired by and considering the practices of the Latin American left will be helpful to revolutionaries in the USA? This should also be obvious to readers who take even a quick look at the topics Harnecker considers.

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