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Left Politics

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.

A New Revolutionary Alternative For The People Of Venezuela

October 23, 2020 Ben Lunn and Paul Dobson, Venezuelanalysis. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , ,
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.

The Forgotten History Of The Jewish, Anti-Zionist Left

July 27, 2020 Sarah Lazare, In These Times. , , ,
Anti-Zionists argue that this brutal reality is not just the product of a right-wing government or failure to effectively procure a two-state solution. Rather, it stems from the modern Zionist project itself, one established in a colonial context, and fundamentally reliant on ethnic cleansing and violent domination of Palestinian people. Jews around the world are among those who call themselves anti-Zionists, and who vociferously object to the claim that the state of Israel represents the will—or interests—of Jewish people. In These Times spoke with Benjamin Balthaser, an associate professor of multiethnic literature at Indiana University at South Bend. His recent article, “When Anti-Zionism Was Jewish: Jewish Racial Subjectivity and the Anti-Imperialist Literary Left from the Great Depression to the Cold War,” examines the erased history of anti-Zionism among the Jewish, working-class left in the 1930s and ‘40s. Balthaser is the author of a book of poems about the old Jewish left called Dedication, and an academic monograph titled Anti-Imperialist Modernism. He is working on a book about Jewish Marxists, socialist thought and anti-Zionism in the 20th century.

Spain’s New Left-Wing Socialist Government Offers Hope In Dark Political Times

January 20, 2020 By Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead, Occupy.com , ,
“Corbynism has come to Spain” leaving business leaders “trembling,” wrote the Telegraph last week in response to news that the Mediterranean country had elected its first truly left-wing government in decades. Following months of political deadlock, nearly a year without a government and four general elections in as many years, January 7, 2020, saw Spanish Parliament swear a Socialist Party (PSOE) and Unidas Podemos (UP) coalition into power.

In The Year Ahead, Both Perils And Prospects Exist For The American Left

January 10, 2020 Danny Haiphong, Blackagendareport.com ,
It is difficult to have optimism for the future when you live in the United States. A large section of the population is completely alienated from the truth about the unjust system that dictates their lives. Corporate media lies protect a class society which is dedicated to the impoverishment of over half of the planet.  The violence of white supremacy, endless war, and economic catastrophe is coupled with the ongoing destruction of the natural world. Michelle Obama recently expressed deep unity with the “values” of George W. Bush and her husband followed suit by expressing that any woman...

The Latin American And Caribbean Left In 2019

December 28, 2019 Angel Guerra Cabrera, La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau , ,
A gang of bandits arrived in Brazil’s Government thanks to that coup. The same as the Macri Administration in Argentina, they immediately started to govern for the one percent and the defense of the national sovereignty and social welfare set up by the Workers’ Party was taken to pieces.  Uncontrolled financial speculation was unleashed, as well as selling natural resources and public goods to transnational companies. Though these were the most devastating defeats for the left in this analyzed period, they were not the only ones.

The Global Left Can Learn A Lot From This Tiny Country

October 14, 2019 Natasha Hakimi Zapata, Truthdig.com , , , , ,
There’s a place in the West where a smattering of anti-austerity, pro-immigration, pro-public-spending left-wing parties are not only in power, but are actually popular. I’m talking about Portugal, the small European country I have witnessed grow into a global political marvel. On Sunday, progressives around the world cheered as a loose left-wing coalition won enough seats to rule the country for another four years. The story of Portugal’s resurgent left starts in 2015, when, as a center-right government continued to force austerity measures painfully down the throats of a suffering nation, the Portuguese voted for an alternative—sort of.
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