Subjects Archives: Movements

The history of empires amply demonstrates that in their phase of decline they become more violent and bloodthirsty, and that their leaders tend to be coarser and more brutal. Not only their leaders, as Donald Trump clearly demonstrates. Also its environment of advisors reflects similar devolution, becoming something similar to what Harold Laski, referring to the leaders of European fascism, called “outlaw elites”.

On 26 April 1937, twelve bombers of the German Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria flew low over the Basque country of Spain in the midst of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). They tore down over the small town of Guernica, where they let loose their fiery arsenal. Almost two thousand people died in this defenceless town.

We are writing to you from inside the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, DC where we are taking action against a U.S. coup of the independent and sovereign Bolivarian Republican of Venezuela. The Embassy Protection Collective (Colectivos Por La Paz) is here with the permission of the Venezuelan government to show our solidarity with the Venezuelan people. The upcoming week will be a critical one, as we explain below.

Once seen as the vanguard of a new social order, the contemporary labor movement has been written off by many progressive activists and scholars as a relic of the past. They should not be so hasty. Rather than spelling the beginning of the end for organized labor, globalization has brought new opportunities for reinvention, and a sea change in both trade unions and the wider labor movement.

China formally invited Latin America to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative in January 2018, during its meeting with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Santiago, Chile, where the Chinese and Venezuelan chancellors shook hands. Since then, 16 countries in the region have expressed their intention to be part of this trade connection project and have signed agreements to do so.

ROAR published an article Can the Bolivarian revolution survive the Venezuelan crisis? containing the views of different professors, but with only two worth reading: Dario Azzellini’s and George Ciccariello-Maher’s. Of the others, Raul Zibechi appears to be the chosen faux left commentator committed to repeating U.S. ruling class propaganda against Venezuela.

The Alliance is a political association of various animal liberation groups centered in Germany and Switzerland. It was formed to support research, criticism and debate over the ideas of Marxism as they impact the animal liberation struggle and to contribute to a new approach to the praxis of the movement. The Alliance published it’s 18 Theses on Marxism and Animal Liberation in January, 2017.

Aruba and Curaçao are two Caribbean territories under the dominance (in terms of security and foreign policy) of the Netherlands. Since 1999, the United States has agreed to establish “counter-narcotics” operations centres on both islands.

Over 25 years ago now the people of South Africa won the struggle to end the Apartheid regime. Nevertheless, even though it is now against the law, de facto racial segregation is still apparent.

Labor Notes is one of the most successful socialist projects in the labor movement in U.S. history. It has trained and connected tens of thousands of union militants throughout the world.

Facebook’s cryptocurrency initiative furthers an agenda of neoliberal financialization, writes Josh Gabert-Doyon

A PLC is a programmable industrial computer to automate industrial processes. Its architecture has similarities to computers that are at the hands of anyone: power source, CPU (Central Processing Unit), communication modules and inputs / outputs. The control programming that is designed for these devices will be done according to the process or processes that are intended to be controlled.

Camilla Royle looks at the new climate activism.

The title of this newsletter comes from a poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a poem called This Hour of Chain and Noose (Tauq o dar ka Mausam, 1951).

“Each number presented here corresponds to the face of a Venezuelan woman, a man, a boy, a girl. It is not only about the economic impact on imports or production, it is about the impact that these economic aggressions have on the guarantee of the human rights of each Venezuelan” –Pasqualina Curcio, The Impact of the Economic War Against the People of Venezuela.

‘Our aim is to create moments in time when humanity stops and fully considers the extent of the harm we have done’.

How can we reconcile social struggle and environmental struggle? This question poses problems for trade unionists.

The media calls them armed thugs and US Senator Marco Rubio wants them put on the terrorist list, but who are Venezuela’s colectivos (collectives)? Green Left Weekly’s Federico Fuentes met with some of them to find out.

In this episode, we speak with Robert Hockett, Edward Cornell Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. At Cornell, about his role in crafting the Green New Deal Resolution, his conception of finance as a franchise, and his experience as an advisor to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as well to Senators Sanders and Warren.

Steve Ellner and Alan Freeman talk about the Pink Tide and what came after in Venezuela and in the Latin American region.