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Left Politics

‘Latin America Undergoing Transformation’: Venezuela’s Maduro

July 19, 2018 Staff, Telesurtv.net , , ,
"Latin America is undergoing a permanent process of renewal and transformation," Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro told the closing ceremony of the XXIV Forum of Sao Paulo on Tuesday. Addressing 479 delegates representing leftist political parties and social movements from across the world, Maduro said: "We must confront and diminish the current Latin American right-wing, which has tried to destroy the integration processes of the continent." The forum, held in the Cuban capital of Havana, focused on ways to strengthen unity and integration across Latin America and the Caribbean. The Venezuelan president vowed to continue in his fight against the forces of imperialism, manifest in constant attacks by the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump.

The Rise Of A New, Global, Indigenous Left

July 14, 2018 Staff, Summitzine.com , ,
At the third stop, DLNR officers finally begin to make arrests. Among the bevy of Hawaiians whose wrists are zip-tied as they sit still on the dirt and gravel road, refusing to move of their own volition, are University of Hawai‘i Maui Community College professor and activist Kaleikoa Ka‘eo and then-26-year-old community organizer Kaho‘okahi Kanuha, who was among the first of the wave of millennial protectors that had used social media to rally the cause and who formed the backbone of the effort to shut down the telescope project. Some DLNR officers are Hawaiian themselves, and a few weep as they haul their extended family members off the path. All the while, floating through the intermittent mist, is the constant refrain of Kumu Hina Wong-Kalu’s song, “Kū Ha‘aheo.”

How Gustavo Petro Has Given Life To Colombia’s Left

June 19, 2018 Staff, Telesurtv.net , ,
8,034,189 million people voted for the former guerrilla member, Gustavo Petro - nearly double the number he gained during the nation’s first round at the polls less than a month ago. "What defeat? Eight million Colombians free and standing. There is no defeat here. For now, we will not be the government," tweeted Petro when the conservative media outlet, Caracol Radio called his election a loss. Far from being a loss, Petro’s performance at the polls is closer to a win. After decades of a fractured left, this is the farthest a leftist candidate has made it in a presidential race in contemporary history. The Progressivists Movement contender even beat his own electoral record from eight years ago. Running in the 2010 elections Petro gained just over 9 percent of the vote, ending his bid for the head of state.

The Fake Left At The Left Forum

June 15, 2018 Danny Haiphong, Black Agenda Report , , ,
The fake left at the Left Forum should be distinguished from the fake left of the non-profit industrial complex. The non-profit industrial complex indeed hires fake activists beholden to government and corporate funders responsible for the very problems that non-profit activists oppose in the first place. Fake left activists reside in non-profit organizations such as MoveOn.org and Indivisible. The fake left I refer to in this piece is perhaps even more insidious than those paid by foundations and non-profits. This band of leftists verbally states opposition to imperialism and an embrace of socialism in theory yet behaves more like amateur soft agents of the US intelligence services in practice. These fake leftists reside in an alphabet soup of so-called Trotskyist organizations like the International Socialist Organization (ISO).

Chomsky: Anarchism, Libertarianism, Socialism And Propaganda

June 8, 2018 By Michael S. Wilson, Alternet.org , ,
Anarchism "assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them," explains Chomsky. The following is the adapted text of an interview that first appeared in Modern Success magazine. So many things have been written about, and discussed by, Professor Chomsky, it was a challenge to think of anything new to ask him: like the grandparent you can’t think of what to get for Christmas because they already have everything. So I chose to be a bit selfish and ask him what I’ve always wanted to ask him. As an out-spoken, actual, live-and-breathing anarchist, I wanted to know how he could align himself with such a controversial and marginal position. Michael S. Wilson: You are, among many other things, a self-described anarchist — an anarcho-syndicalist, specifically.

The Second Sight Of W.E.B. Du Bois

June 5, 2018 Chris Hedges, Truthdig.com , ,
W.E.B. Du Bois, more than any intellectual this nation produced in the first half of the 20th century, explained America to itself. He did this not only through what he called the “color line” but by exposing the intertwining of empire, capitalism and white supremacy. He deftly fused academic disciplines. He possessed unwavering integrity, a deep commitment to the truth, and the courage to speak it. That he was brilliant and a radical was bad enough. That he was brilliant, radical and black terrified the ruling elites. He was swiftly blacklisted, denied the professorships and public platforms that went to those who were more obsequious and compliant.

Noam Chomsky’s Political Analysis Comes To Life In Graphic Novel

June 4, 2018 Mark Karlin, Truthout.org , ,
Coming together through activism is one way to imagine and experiment with creating a better future. The Occupy Wall Street Movement is one example we explore in the book. Chomsky begins by discussing aspects of mutual aid and solidarity he views as present within certain formations in Occupy. For instance, during the interview he specifically takes note of the organizing work done within The People’s Library, which was a part of the larger New York City occupation. With that discussion in mind, I went back and interviewed some of the librarians involved in Occupy. Here they offer important insights about what it means to practice mutual aid and solidarity and the necessity of a physical space for groups to come together to work against alienation.

Needed Now: A Real And Radical Left

June 1, 2018 Paul Street, Truthdig.com
It’s “socialism or barbarism.” So wrote the brilliant German Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg in 1915. The 20th and 21st centuries have borne her out. The list of barbarian horrors that have disfigured the human record under the class rule of capital across the last century is daunting indeed. Now, however, we have to say that Luxemburg put things too gently. Marx and Engels got closer to our contemporary reality in 1848. They wrote in “The Communist Manifesto” about how the long-standing class struggle between producers and appropriators always ends “either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” It’s socialism or barbarism if we’re lucky. To be more precise, its eco-socialism or annihilation as capital turns the planet into a giant greenhouse gas chamber.

Mind The Stop-Gap

May 29, 2018 Eleanor Goldfield, Artkillingapathy.com , ,
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 , , , ,
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 , ,
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 , ,
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 , , ,
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 , ,
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 , ,
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.
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