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Social Movements

Revolution In An Age Of Resurgent Fascism

January 8, 2022 Atlee McFellin, Hampton Think. , ,
The late sociologist Erik Olin Wright used the phrase “ruptural transformation” as stand-in for revolution, inaccurately summarizing this as “Smash first, build second.” His immensely popular and useful work also unfortunately erased historical European anti-fascist strategy whose approach to revolution differed from the caricature he presented.  To move beyond Wright’s important, yet misleading framework, one can even turn to DSA-founder Michael Harrington’s last book, Socialism: Past and Future. Published in 1989, Harrington expanded upon his own earlier critique of the German social democratic party, specifically the electoral path to socialism as strategy against Hitler and the Nazis. Harrington would ultimately look to a leading member of that same party at the end of this book as the basis for what he referred to as a “new middle class” on the march of “visionary gradualism.” 

Sudanese Dictatorship’s PM Hamdok Resigns Amid Protests

January 3, 2022 Telesur English. , , ,
On Sunday, Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok announced his resignation from his post in the wake of the political crisis in the country. "I announce to you my resignation from the post of prime minister to make way for another person from the daughters or sons of this generous country," said Hamdok in a speech to the Sudanese people broadcast by the official Sudan TV.

How The World Went From Post-Politics To Hyper-Politics

January 3, 2022 Anton Jäger, Tribune Magazine. , , ,
Ten years and a decade of populist turmoil later, Ernaux’s testimony reads both familiar and unfamiliar. The rapid individualisation and decline of collective institutions she diagnosed has not been halted. Barring a few exceptions, political parties have not regained their members. Associations have not seen attendance rise. Churches have not filled their pews, and unions have not grown precipitously. Across the world, civil society is still mired in a deep and protracted crisis. On the other hand, the mixture of diffidence and apathy so characteristic of Ernaux’s 1990s hardly applies today. Biden was elected on a record turnout; the Brexit referendum was the largest democratic vote in Britain’s history. The Black Lives Matter protests were mass spectacles; many of the world’s biggest corporations took up the mantle of racial justice, adapting their brands to support the cause.

Our Age Of Uprisings: We Are A World Remaking Itself

December 19, 2021 Max Haiven, ROAR Magazine. , ,
The global pandemic unfolds amidst a world of uprisings. Some have seen huge numbers gather in the streets and become ungovernable, including the victorious farmer’s strike in India, the efforts to expropriate the landlords in Berlin, the mass refusal of anti-Black police violence in the US, and the mobilizations against the neoliberal regime in Chile. Elsewhere, in Chiapas, Kerala, Rojava and an archipelago of smaller “zones to defend,” the uprisings take more sustained forms as people reinvent or reclaim life in common. Indigenous people around the world are refusing to allow their lands and lives to be sacrificed on the altar of extractive capitalism. The great global struggle against capitalism’s climate apocalypse is escalating.

The Latin American Left Is Ready For 2022

December 1, 2021 Pablo Navarrete, Novara Media. , , ,
Latin America, the 21st century’s leading region for progressive victories, is in the midst of a leftist resurgence. A new “pink tide” is commencing, with the left holding office in a number of countries and challenging for power in upcoming presidential elections. Kicking off a collection of articles on Latin America’s left, we present an overview of the continent’s war between progressive and conservative forces as flashpoints loom from Chile to Brazil. The original pink tide of leftist electoral victories began in the early 2000s, reaching a climax between 2006 and 2007. Evo Morales assumed the presidency in Bolivia in January 2006, Hugo Chávez was re-elected in Venezuela in December 2006, and in January 2007 Rafael Correa took office in Ecuador.

COP26: Governments Play Deaf To Social Movements

November 12, 2021 Emilio Godoy, The Citizen. , , ,
Glasgow, Scotland - One element that runs through all social movement climate summits is their rejection of the official meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the low ambition of its outcomes – and the treaty’s 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) was no exception. The leaders of the UNFCCC “gladly welcome those who caused the crisis. COP26 has done nothing but pretend and greenwash,” Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a member of the non-governmental organization Youth Advocates for Climate Action from the Philippines, told IPS during a rally at the Glasgow Screening Room, a few blocks from the venue where the official meeting is being held until Friday, Nov. 12.

Bolivian Organizations Reject Call For Strike And Destabilization

November 6, 2021 Telesur English. , , ,
Social organizations and various Bolivian unions rejected this Friday the call for a national strike for next November 8, made by sectors of the opposition that participated in the 2019 coup d'état, as well as any attempt that seeks to destabilize the country. Union leaders branded this call as illegitimate, stating that it aims to affect the economic reactivation of the South American country, in the aftermath of the de facto government and in the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Chile, Two Years After The Popular Uprising

October 24, 2021 Atilio Boron, Orinoco Tribune. , , ,
That October 18, 2019 was a blow that, in one fell swoop, brought down the deceptive façade of the conservative regime and inaugurated a new stage in the history of Chile. The enormous injustices maintained and deepened during the very slow (and failed) “democratic transition” initiated in 1990 were exposed. The explosive combination of free market without anesthesia and a democracy lacking in substance and completely delegitimized—thus becoming a rapacious plutocracy—was able to stay afloat thanks to the resignation, demoralization and apathy of the citizenry, skillfully induced by establishment politicians and the media oligarchy, partners of the ruling class. The spell was broken on October 18.

Notes From National Peace And Justice Unity Meeting

October 19, 2021 Bruce K. Gagnon, Organizing Notes. , , ,
The meeting was attended by leaders from the US Peace Council, Black Alliance for Peace, United National Antiwar Coalition, United for Peace & Justice, Veterans For Peace, Answer Coalition, Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, WorldBeyondWar, Code Pink, Popular Resistance, Task Force on the Americas, and International Action Center.

Activism Needs To Be Part Of Any Meaningful Climate Education

October 18, 2021 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. , , ,
Last month, crowds of young people and supporters gathered in 1,500 locations around the world for one of the largest youth-led climate protests since countries began emerging from the most restrictive phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many students skipped school or staged class walkouts to participate in the Sept. 24 day of action, the latest surge of activity from the school strike movement that launched in late 2018. The protest was a sign that youth climate activists, who have had to adapt to COVID lockdowns and restrictions on large gatherings, are ready to reassert themselves through mass mobilizations. In just the last few years, young people have raised the profile of climate change as a national concern in the United States, made climate a major issue in Congress for the first time in over a decade, and persuaded colleges and universities to divest billions of dollars from fossil fuel companies.

Teaching Politically and the Problem of Afropessimism

October 3, 2021 Nino Brown And Derek Ford, Black Agenda Report. , ,
In education, as in so many other disciplines, one of the increasingly dominant phrases is “anti-Blackness” and the theory of Afropessimism. The two foundational theorists here are Frank Wilderson and Jared Sexton. For Wilderson, Afro-pessimism contends that “Blackness cannot be separated from slavery,” and that “the Slave’s relationship to violence is open-ended, gratuitous, without reason or constraint,” whereas “the human’s relationship to violence is always contingent.”

Ten Years After Occupy: Building The Power We Need

September 27, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
Ten years ago, prominent activists and a variety of organizations came together early in the year to organize the October2011 Movement, styled on the occupations of space that were occurring during the Arab Spring and in capitals across the United States. That movement merged with the Occupy Movement when it was announced later that year. Clearing the FOG speaks with Bill Moyer of the Backbone Campaign, one of the organizers of October2011, about what was happening at the time, the occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC and the impact the Occupy Movement had on activism in the United States. Moyer discusses the lessons learned and the movements and victories that came after Occupy. Plus a segment by Paul Tulloch on the 2008-09 financial crash and the current precarious global economy.

Ten Years After Occupy Wall Street, Its Real Legacy Is Anarchism In Practice

September 20, 2021 It's Going Down. , , ,
Lenapehoking, Turtle Island (also known as New York City) – Since its demise in the Fall of 2012, various individuals, websites, social media accounts, and politicians have tried to claim the mantle of Occupy Wall Street. The associations are endless, from Bernie Sanders-aligned “socialists” to neoliberal Twitter accounts praising landlords for evicting people. Any journalist writing about the OWS movement should know its actual history, separated from the machinations of those who later tried to co-opt its message for themselves. OWS was anarchism in practice, and that is its legacy. Several members of MACC were present for the early days of Occupy Wall Street, and, along with thousands of others, helped to build it into what it became.

Understanding The Basics Of 21st-Century Democracy, Autocracy, And Capitalism

September 19, 2021 Richard D. Wolff, Counter Punch. , , ,
Democracy exists if and when a community organizes its self-governance around the full participation, on an equal basis, of all the members of the community. Its other, autocracy, exists when a community organizes (or allows) its governance by an individual or subgroup of that community, a ruler. Universal suffrage is clearly a step toward at least formal democracy because voters elect leaders. How real this formal democracy is depends on the inclusivity of the population voting and the concrete reality of voters’ equal influence on the election’s outcome. Residential communities in many parts of the modern world operate in formal democracies. However, they usually allow individuals with high levels of income and wealth to use these means to influence others in their voting, whereas individuals with low levels of income and wealth can and usually do wield less influence.

Occupy Wall Street Trained A Generation In Class War

September 18, 2021 Arun Gupta, In These Times. , ,
When Occupy Wall Street was evicted from its home base in Zuccotti Park on November 15, 2011, by the NYPD in a paramilitary-style operation under cover of the night with a press blackout, the obituaries were being written. The day before, Occupy Oakland, which vied with New York as the leader of the leaderless movement, was evicted for the second and final time. A convergence to shut down the New York Stock Exchange on the two-month anniversary of OWS, on November 17, fizzled. Lacking a base of operations, two thousand Occupy protesters at most showed up and were bloodily swept away by police from Wall Street and an attempted reoccupation of the park. Over the next few months, Occupy camps were forcefully ousted in Portland, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, New Orleans, and Los Angeles with hundreds of arrests.
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