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Left Politics

Ecuador’s Left Is Back

February 6, 2021 Denis Rogatyuk, Tribune Magazine. , , ,
Since the beginning of the right-wing turn by Moreno’s government and the political persecution of the key leaders of the Citizen Revolution—most notably Rafael Correa and Jorge Glas—countless attempts have been made to prevent the participation in the elections of either Correa himself or any other political leader affiliated to his movement. This has included preventing the registration of the Citizen Revolution Movement as a political party, a ban on the Fuerza Compromiso Social (FCS) electoral movement used by them to run in the 2019 local elections, a ban on Correa running as a vice-presidential candidate, and several attempts to prevent the registration of the Andrés Arauz-Carlos Rabascall presidential ticket.

On The Critical Predation Of China

February 5, 2021 the Qiao Collective. , , ,
Amidst the feverish critiques of China made by a growing cadre of “China scholars,” “media watchers,” and “think tank freelancers” across the Western world (the “free world,” they might tell you), a virulent distaste toward China for supposedly ethical reasons has become the norm. We’ve woken up to find ourselves in a Twilight Zone where the precondition for engaging with Sinophobia is the performance of a different kind of Sinophobic antipathy—one that disavows the possibility of Chinese political legitimacy while it virtue signals the Western critic’s own commitment to “justice.”  Western critiques of China, however, lay bare its stakes even as it feverishly disavows the very position from which it emerges.

Scheer Intelligence: The Egregious Price America Exacts For Integrity

February 5, 2021 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. , , , ,
“George and Mary Oppen were branded enemies of the state,” writes Joel Whitney in a recent essay for The Poetry Foundation titled “The Violent Years.” “Their FBI files document just how deep their activism went, and the price they paid for it.” The author of “Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World’s Best Writers” has long been interested in the links between the world of literature and the U.S. surveillance apparatus that grows more unwieldy by the day. As he finished his most recent book tour for “Finks” just as Donald Trump and neo-fascism were on the rise, he tells Robert Scheer on this week’s installment of “Scheer Intelligence,” Whitney kept hearing a few lyrical lines ringing through his mind.

Facebook Purges Left-Wing Pages And Individuals

January 25, 2021 Andre Damon, WSWS. , , ,
On Friday, Facebook carried out a purge of left-wing, antiwar and progressive pages and accounts, including leading members of the Socialist Equality Party. Facebook gave no explanation why the accounts were disabled or even a public acknowledgement that the deletions had occurred. At least a half dozen leading members of the Socialist Equality Party had their Facebook accounts permanently disabled. This included the public account of Genevieve Leigh, the national secretary of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, and the personal account of Niles Niemuth, the US managing editor of the World Socialist Web Site.

The Rosenberg Orphans And The Power Of Radical History

January 19, 2021 Annie Levin, Current Affairs. , , ,
The Left would go crazy over Jewish American dissidents Abel and Anne Meeropol if they were alive today. Their tale is a radical epic so poignant that one wonders where the 10-part miniseries is. It covers a range of contemporary themes: children separated from parents, the political persecution of dissidents, and social justice warriors doing battle against a racist, xenophobic, increasingly fascistic America.  It’s a story so fantastical, and containing so many celebrated names, that it’s hard to believe it hasn’t stuck better into the mainstream. Then again, a tale involving judicial executions on fake charges of espionage and the heroism of Jewish and Black radicals probably wouldn’t get the prestige TV greenlight.

Nine Reasons Why There Was No People’s Rebellion Against A Fascist President

January 18, 2021 Paul Street, Counterpunch. , , ,
Last Friday’s New York Times included Paul Krugman’s elementarily accurate editorial observation that “Donald Trump…is indeed a fascist – an authoritarian willing to use violence to achieve his racial nationalist goals. So are many of his supporters. If you had any doubts,” Krugman rightly argued, the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol (by a frenzied mob of fascists directly instigated by Donald Trump and his Big fascist Lie that the 2020 election was stolen!) “should have ended them.” Some of us lost our doubts about that long ago. In May of 2016, the liberal New Yorker commentator Adam Gopnik issued what turned out to be a prophetic warning seven months before Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton

The Political Lessons Of The Pandemic

January 4, 2021 Joseph Kishore and David North, WSWS. , , ,
1. As the New Year begins, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to sweep across the globe. This is a world crisis of vast historical significance. The pandemic is a “trigger event” that manifests in a highly concentrated form the contradictions of the world capitalist system and is unleashing long-suppressed forces of social transformation. 2. The pandemic cannot be described as merely a medical crisis. In the course of the past year, the thoroughly reactionary character of world capitalism has been exposed. The interaction of the drive for profit regardless of social cost, the lust of the oligarchs for obscene levels of personal wealth, and their inhuman indifference to the lives and welfare of the world’s population has created a global social catastrophe.

Max Blumenthal Meets Rafael Correa In Venezuela

December 14, 2020 Max Blumenthal, The Grayzone. , , ,
Max Blumenthal interviews former Ecuador President Rafael Correa, who was in Venezuela to observe its legislative elections and show support to a government under sustained economic and political attack by the US. Correa addresses issues ranging from the repression in his country under the watch of its outgoing neoliberal president, Lenin Moreno, to the persecution of Julian Assange and the role of a CIA contractor in targeting him and the Wikileaks founder. Blumenthal and Correa also discuss the prospect of a left-wing victory in Ecuador’s upcoming national elections, and what the US-backed government is doing to stop it.

Puerto Rico 2021: A Shift In Perspective, A New Opposition

December 14, 2020 Luis Fernando Coss, NACLA. , , ,
One of the things often taken for granted by the independence and socialist movement is knowing when to claim a victory. As a consequence of suffering so many blows throughout its history, the movement has become reflexively cynical when having to assess some kind of partial victory or progress. Let’s recall, among other signature chapters, in 1976 the Puerto Rican Independence Party received 80,000 votes, which, when combined with those of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, equaled nearly 100,000 votes. Or the founding and progress of the Workers United Movement (MOU), which managed to bring together the country’s top unions and mobilize a sizable radical movement.

On Contact: Wrecking The left

December 13, 2020 Chris Hedges, RT. , , ,
On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to journalist Diana Johnstone about the betrayal of the left with its historical role as the champion of social justice and peace now replaced with the boutique activism of identity politics, political correctness and what has become known as humanitarian intervention, the justification of US and NATO adventurism and wars on the specious belief it would liberate the women of Afghanistan or the peoples of Iraq. Diana Johnstone’s memoir is ‘Circle in the Darkness: Memoir of a World Watcher’. Johnstone was the European editor of In The Times from 1979 to 1990, and her work has appeared in New Left Review, Counterpunch and Covert Action Quarterly.

How Do We Solve A Problem Like Amazon?

December 2, 2020 Craig Gent, Novara Media. , , ,
Progressive International has launched a global campaign to #MakeAmazonPay. Yet for two decades numerous unions and campaigns across the globe have scratched their heads wondering how to curb the ever-expanding might of what has become one of the world’s most valuable companies. At Bad Hersfeld and (eventually) internationally, Amazon has become far more accustomed to strikes, yet the company’s power shows no signs of being tempered. Indeed in Germany, despite more than 300 days lost to strike action, Amazon has consistently been able to resist workers’ demand for a collective agreement.

Brazilian Elections – A Day Of Shame For The Far Right

November 17, 2020 Brian Mier, Brasilwire. , , ,
On Sunday, November 15, over 147 million Brazilians went to the polls in the largest round of local elections in the nation’s history. One state, Amapa, had to cancel most of its elections due the fact that most of it has been without electricity for over 2 weeks because of the massive failure of the privatization of it’s power grid. In the other 25 states elections went smoothly, with the biggest complaint being the 3 hour delay due to computer glitches which caused final results to be announced only  7 hours after the polls closed (watch and learn, USA).

Brazil: Municipal Elections Promise Gains For Left

November 14, 2020 Brian Mier, Brasilwire.com. , , ,
On Sunday, November 15, residents of Brazil’s 5570 municipalities will vote for mayors and city councilors in what promises to be a day of moderate gains by left wing political parties and embarrassing loses for candidates aligned with Brazil’s far right President Jair Bolsonaro. In 2012, the Brazilian Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores/PT) elected 638 mayors, including 19 in Brazil’s largest 95 cities (those with population above 200,000). In 2016, after 3 years of a relentless national and international media smear campaign based on false corruption allegations...

After Bolivia, Never Again

November 10, 2020 La Paz Declaration signatories. , , ,
They said that the beasts and savages would never return to Bolivia, as they killed our brothers, persecuted and detained us and burned our houses and radio stations. But we have returned, peacefully, to recover our democratic patria [homeland] armed only with the conscience of the people.” So proclaimed former Bolivian leader Evo Morales on the day his comrade Luis Arce was sworn in as the country’s president, having won a landslide election victory in October. Morales himself returned to Bolivia on Monday – nearly one year after he was forced to flee the country...

Leveraging The Ruling Class’s Loss Of Legitimacy

November 5, 2020 Roger D. Harris, Popular Resistance. , , ,
The polls closed with “no winner yet in cliffhanger presidential election,” as of Wednesday evening. Despite a period of uncertainty, which is typically the nemesis of Wall Street, the Dow climbed 0.9%, the S&P 500 opened 1.5% higher, and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.6%. The explanation is that the financial elites know that they win regardless of who occupies the Oval Office, which is something that some leftists, who had advocated temporarily subordinating an independent working-class alternative to campaign for the leading neoliberal candidate, did not firmly grasp.
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