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Social Movements

Civil Society Reactions To United Nations Climate Ambition Summit

September 22, 2023 Climate Action Network international. , , , ,
Several leaders made compelling statements at the UN Climate Ambition Summit today in New York. Leaders from Chile, Colombia and the Governor of California called out fossil fuels as the main cause of the climate crisis but some of the worst polluters- and among the richest countries – were conspicuous by their absence. They did not make the cut to speak at the Summit which was set by the Secretary General last year reserving the mic for those who had ambitious new commitments and were on track with their climate targets. The USA, the UK, Australia, Norway and Japan were absent as were many other G20 countries.

The Far Right Has Hijacked Chile’s New Constitutional Process

September 20, 2023 Nick MacWilliam, The Real News Network. , , , , ,
In 2019 the nation of Chile was shaken by a mass protest movement that has come to be known as the Social Explosion. A central demand of the Social Explosion was the abolition of the current constitution drafted in 1980 under US-backed fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet. In 2020, Chileans overwhelmingly voted for a new constitutional process in a referendum. However, just two years later, a plebiscite overwhelmingly rejected a new proposed constitution. Since then, the far right has hijacked the process by stacking the constituents to create another constitutional draft with their own representatives.

Learning From Chile: Navigating Complexities Of Political Crises

September 11, 2023 Pauline Lipman and Rico Gutstein, Convergence. , , ,
Twenty years of grassroots organizing by Black and Latinx community organizations, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), and the broad Left propelled CTU organizer Brandon Johnson to victory in the April 2023 Chicago mayoral race. Similarly, across the country, progressive and left organizations are focusing on electoral politics as a central arena of struggle. These campaigns are part of a larger motion—a new generation of social movements, union organizing, and Black-led uprisings against racist state violence—provoked by intertwined political, economic, social, and ecological crises in the US and globally. Yet our movements and campaigns lack political cohesion.

Imperialism Has Nothing To Offer Us, Only Threats

September 5, 2023 Zoe Alexandra, People's Dispatch. , , ,
The event, which has brought together over 230 representatives of social movements, trade unions, and left parties from 23 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, takes place amid tectonic geopolitical shifts. In the last year, tensions between imperialist powers of the Global North and emerging Global South economies have intensified significantly. This was evident in the context of the recent BRICS Summit, which was met with significant skepticism and alarm from Washington and the European Union, which continue their campaign of aggression and encirclement against Russia and China, and all those that work with them.

Dilemmas Of Humanity Conference In The US Outlines Principle Task

September 4, 2023 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. , , , ,
“We know this system is in crisis,” said Manolo De Los Santos, co-executive director of the People’s Forum and lifelong communist, opening the Dilemmas of Humanity: A Socialist Horizon conference in Atlanta, Georgia. This conference was organized by the International People’s Assembly-North America as part of the IPA’s international conference series, “Dilemmas of Humanity,” which will conclude with an international conference in Johannesburg in October. The US-based conference was held in Atlanta’s Neighborhood Church on September 2, and supported by organizations such as Community Movement Builders, Faith Coalition to Stop Cop City, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Peoples Forum, Unión de Vecinos, and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.

You Can’t Be A Socialist Alone

September 2, 2023 Astra Taylor and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, In These Times. , , ,
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Astra Taylor — no relation, except their friendship — are two of the Gen X socialist intellectuals and movement leaders bridging the ​“Boomer” activists, radicalized in the 1960s, with the millennials and zoomers politically educated in the internet age. The two comrades held a freewheeling hour-long conversation about the complexities of organizing through the death throes of neoliberalism, a flailing Democratic establishment and a rising authoritarian Right. They shared their journeys to socialism, took on tough questions from reform and revolution to identity politics and electoral politics, and spoke candidly about organizing fatigue and their personal visions of human liberation under socialism.

Hondurans Mobilize In Support Of Xiomara Castro’s Government

August 30, 2023 Peoples Dispatch. , , , ,
Thousands of people took to the streets of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa on the afternoon of Tuesday August 29 to express their support for the government of President Xiomara Castro. The head of state had called for the mobilization in response to the attempt by right-wing opposition deputies to impede the election of a new Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General. Xiomara and others from the Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre) have warned that the moves by the National Party, which ruled for 12 years following the coup against Manuel Zelaya in 2009, and its allies from the Patriotic Alliance and Salvador Honduras parties, are part of a broader campaign of destabilization with the objective to carry out a coup against her.

Letter From The Haitian People To African Countries

August 29, 2023 Camila Escalante, Kawsachun News. , , , , ,
Honorable Heads of State and Government of the sister countries of Africa: We, the undersigned Haitian organizations, have been astonished to receive the surprising news that a sister country, Kenya, has agreed to send troops to Haiti to serve in a US-UN occupying force disguised by the label “multinational force” to continue to deceive international public opinion by concealing the Machiavellian nature of this criminal initiative. In order to prepare national and international public opinion to accept this felony, they have mobilized armed bands on a national scale to create absolute chaos and thus justify the US-UN occupation of our country.

Atlanta Conference: ‘What Will A New Society Run By Workers Look Like?’

August 26, 2023 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. , , ,
Social movement organizers and leaders from across the US will gather in Atlanta, Georgia, on September 2, for the International People’s Assembly-North America conference titled “Dilemmas of Humanity: A Socialist Horizon”. They will meet at the city’s historic “Neighborhood Church” to deliberate on questions including “What will a new society run by workers look like? How will we reverse the climate crisis and restore our relationship to the earth? What could global cooperation look like without US imperialism?” This conference will take place in the context of dire financial hardships for the people of the US. The US Census reports that out of over 230 million people surveyed, nearly 70% struggle to pay basic weekly living expenses.

The Nonsensical ‘Right And Left Need To Unite To Take On Elites’ Take

August 17, 2023 Adam Johnson, The Real News Network. , , ,
Every few months—sometimes for sinister and ideological reasons, sometimes for just plain ahistorical and dimwitted reasons—a pundit comes along who thinks they’ve cracked the DaVinci code of class politics. “What if,” they ask us (as if the question has not been asked countless times before), “left and right unite to take on the elites”? The phrasing of the question can vary, but it’s invariably some version of the same claptrap. This take has a particular superficial appeal: What if the right and left could set aside their seemingly insurmountable differences and unite to take on these mysterious “elites,” or “those in power”? What if, indeed!

Niger Accuses France Of Destabilization

August 10, 2023 Tanupriya Singh, People's Dispatch. , , , ,
On August 9, Niger’s military leadership, the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP), announced that it was raising the alert level throughout the country in response to alleged acts of “destabilization” carried out by France to undermine the security of the country. In a communique issued on Wednesday, the CNSP stated that at 6:30 am local time, the Niger National Guard’s position near the Samira Hill Gold Mine had come under attack. The CNSP’s spokesperson, Col. Major Amadou Abdramane, also added that “through direct communication with Western partners, the behavior of French forces has been criticized for having unilaterally released captured terrorist elements”.

Black Women Are Under Attack: Here’s How To Protect Our Sisters

August 8, 2023 We All Deserve Safety and Peace, The Real News Network. , , ,
We are mamas, daughters, sisters, and aunties. We are teachers, social workers, community organizers, and researchers. We are activists and changemakers, taking on the crucial social and environmental issues of our time. What we have in common is that we are Black women working to achieve a just society. And we are under attack. Today, one only has to read the latest headlines to see that hate and violence are on the rise in the United States. And Black women are disproportionately targeted, as a toxic brew of racism and misogyny saturates American life. We know this from personal experience.

Why Has Progress In The National Single-Payer Movement Stalled?

August 5, 2023 Ed Grystar, Counter Punch. , , ,
With the public support for a national single payer system remaining strong and the need greater than ever, why is the movement stalled? What are the key sources of our power? Who are our allies? What can we do and how do we focus our energies to build the power necessary to end profiteering and make health care free at the point of service? More than a decade after the misnamed Affordable Care Act, (ACA) we still have tens of millions without any coverage while millions more are saddled with high deductible, narrow network “junk health insurance” plans. The pandemic exposed the USA’s bankrupt for-profit privatized “healthcare system.”

Lessons From Gramsci For Social Movements Today

August 2, 2023 Mark Engler and Paul Engler, Waging Nonviolence. , , , ,
He has been called one of the most original political thinkers of the 20th century. Historians point out that “If academic citations and internet references are any guide, he is more influential than Machiavelli.” And his impact on the way we think about the processes of social change has been described as “little short of electrifying.” The accomplishments of Antonio Gramsci, born in Italy in 1891, are all the more remarkable considering that his life was both short and notably difficult: His family was destitute in his childhood; he was sick for much of his life; he spent the prime of his adulthood confined to prison by Benito Mussolini’s fascists after his own party’s attempts to foment revolution had failed; he was often denied access to books during his incarceration; and he died at the age of just 46.

The Unity Of The Youth Of The World

July 28, 2023 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , ,
From 28 July to 5 August 1973, eight million people, including 25,600 guests from 140 countries, participated in the 10th World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin (German Democratic Republic or DDR). The festival was a key activity organised by the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), formed at the World Youth Conference held in London (United Kingdom) in November 1945. The 1973 festival marked an epochal moment: the Vietnamese appeared to be on the march against US forces while, from Mozambique to Cabo Verde, the peoples of Portugal’s African colonies were preparing to seize power, and in Chile the Popular Unity government was in a major struggle against copper multinationals and Washington.
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