Left Politics

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

December 14, 2020 Luis Fernando Coss, NACLA. Organize! 2020 Elections, Independence, Left Politics, Puerto Rico

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.

How Do We Solve A Problem Like Amazon?

December 2, 2020 Craig Gent, Novara Media. Strategize! Amazon, Left Politics, Union Organizing, Worker Rights

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. Educate! 2020 Elections, Brazil, Left Politics, Neoliberalism

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. Educate! 2020 Elections, Brazil, Left Politics, Socialism

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. Resist! Democracy, Left Politics, Neoliberalism, US Regime Change

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. Strategize! 2020 Elections, Corporate duopoly, Joe Biden, Left Politics

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.

A New Revolutionary Alternative For The People Of Venezuela

October 23, 2020 Ben Lunn and Paul Dobson, Venezuelanalysis. Strategize! 2020 Elections, Left Politics, Socialism, Venezuela

For many on the left in Britain and within the heart of the global capitalist system, Venezuela has been an example of staunch opposition to US and Nato imperialism, with a broad collection of revolutionaries fending off multiple coups, mercenary attacks and resisting an imperialist blockade of late. This vision of defiance and tenacity has painted a very particular idea of what the experience is in Venezuela, which ultimately makes the formation of the Popular Revolutionary Alternative (APR), a new bloc of left wing groups without the ruling PSUV, quite a remarkable surprise.

Three Cities Designated As ‘Anarchist Jurisdictions’ – What That Means

September 23, 2020 Kim Kelly, NBC. Educate! Anarchism, City Budget, Left Politics, Trump

On Sept. 21, 2020, millions of people in three major U.S. cities awoke to find themselves living in what President Donald Trump and his Justice Department cronies had declared "anarchist jurisdictions." New York City, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle — all of which are led by Democrats — were slapped with the label and, as a result, are now at risk of being defunded by the federal government, even as they grapple with massive budget shortfalls tied to the coronavirus pandemic. The president is playing a political game with those whom he considers to be his enemies, and that list is growing day by day.

The Opposite Of A Cynic: David Graeber, 1961-2020

September 5, 2020 James Butler, Novara Media. Educate! David Graeber, Left Politics, Occupy Movement

David Graeber was kind of anti-cynic, at pains to point out how common acts of altruism, mutual support, sharing and solidarity were, and that their absence from accounts of the world – because they were invisible to, or undervalued by, the people who wrote those accounts – was intensely political. The motivation for that exclusion on the right might be thought obvious: those acts don’t fit comfortably with the contemporary capitalist conception of the human being, a perpetually value-maximising agent of economic exchange. David might also point out how fragile that conception is – why else must it so frequently be backed up and restated in advertising and mass media? – but also that it has gradually supplanted an older conservatism which recognised a place for non-market mutual support, especially if it could be subordinated, domesticated and kept in its proper place. That this secret history of solidarity should be frequently invisible to the left, as well, would often puzzle him: perhaps it was the result of unconscious acculturation in capitalist society, or perhaps the intellectual legacy of a tilt to economism on the British left.

New Alternative Left Alliance Forms In Venezuela

August 11, 2020 Paul Dobson, Venezuelanalysis. Create! Elections, Left Politics, Socialism, Venezuela

Merida - Two major Venezuelan left-wing parties have announced that they will not be backing government candidates in the upcoming December 6 parliamentary elections. For the first time, the Homeland for All Party (PPT) and Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) are set to lead a broad alternative coalition for the 277 seats up for grabs. Apart from the two parties, the inaugural Popular Revolutionary Alternative(APR) will look to incorporate trade unions, social movements, LGBTIQ groups, communes and campesinos organisations, as well as a range of smaller leftist currents.

Neoliberal Centrists And The American Left

August 9, 2020 Rob Urie, Counterpunch. Strategize! 2020 Elections, Left Politics, Neoliberalism, Socialism

The rapid end to the electoral fortunes of the Anglo-American left in 2020 was engineered by radical centrists for the benefit of capital. What was banished, in addition to vibrant and informed opposition to an atrophied political class, was the prospect of Federal government programs that are both desired and needed by the American people. Even if the agents of atrophy get it together in coming weeks to toss a few crumbs to those economically displaced by the pandemic, current woes arrived decades into engineered economic decline.

Letter To The Socialists, Old And New

August 9, 2020 Chris Townsend, Regeneration Magazine. Organize! Labor Movement, Left Politics, Socialism

I joined the labor movement 41 years ago. I had enrolled in the socialist movement two years before that. When I started out my links to the rest of the socialist movement were few; there were dwindling handfuls of people who identified publicly as “socialists.” The U.S. Mail and shortwave radio were my links to the bigger movement out there in the world. What remained of the socialist movement was rapidly decelerating and fissuring after the big 1960’s radicalization had run its course. Even in these inopportune conditions I managed to climb aboard and find my places in both the labor and socialist movements.

US Left Needs Humility To Understand The Politics Of México

August 6, 2020 Bill Gallegos, Portside. Educate! AMLO, Left Politics, Mexico, oligarchy

Nearly all US media articles about the visit characterize it as AMLO abandoning his progressive principles and shamefully kowtowing to Donald Trump, despite the latter’s obvious racism towards Mexicans, his brutal deportation and anti-immigration policies. Without exception, none of these articles considers the political and economic context in which AMLO and his Morena party are attempting to implement significant economic, social, and political reforms in México. In order to better appreciate what AMLO and Morena are attempting to do and the significant challenges they face, here are some important factors the Left, especially the North American Left, needs to consider.

The Kurdish Freedom Movement, Rojava And The Left

August 1, 2020 Thomas Jeffrey Miley, Middle East Research and Information Project. Strategize! Direct Democracy, Kurds, Left Politics, Rojava

The revolution in the Kurdish region of Syria called Rojava has generated significant enthusiasm among broad segments of the left in Europe and North America. The heroic resistance by Kurdish forces in Kobane, Syria during the siege by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in late 2014 and into early 2015 proved to be a pivotal moment. Images of revolutionary fighters, and particularly of armed women, engaged in a life-and-death struggle, bravely resisting the vicious onslaught by Islamist thugs, caught the attention and imagination of many on the so-called international left.

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