Ecosocialism

Click here for this leaflet distributed by Vancouver Ecosocialists.

Kamran Nayeri | Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism | January 5, 2019

There have been millions of conflicts that reflect the fundamental antagonism between the working class and capital: in workplaces, in politics, in most of the institutions that help make the system tick. Through struggles, workers, sometimes in alliance with peasants, have won markedly better working conditions, protective laws, extensive social welfare provisions, even, in a few cases, sweeping revolutionary transformations. They have fought against racism and sexism and the destruction of Mother Earth. Indeed, the working class has significantly changed the world.

"Interesting article in parts. The brief exploration of direct vs. representative democracy poses a question we don't think about often, let alone discuss. If representative democracy leads to "oligarchy" (we have called it "bureaucracy" in unions and left parties) and direct democracy has a definite tendency to wear people out, what can we do? Of course, this is a problem we'd love (theoretically) to be facing now or soon, but, even though it isn't urgent for us, it is a question that haunts the history of revolution." - Gene McGuckin

Hear 15 year old Greta Thunberg tell it like it is. Clear on the causes. Clear on what needs to be done.

The images from the streets of Paris over the past weeks are stark and poignant: thousands of angry protesters, largely representing the struggling French working class, resorting to mass civil unrest to express fear and frustration over a proposed new gas tax. For the moment, the protests have been successful. French President Emmanuel Macron backed off the new tax proposal, at least for six months. The popular uprising won, seemingly at the expense of the global fight against climate change and the future wellbeing of our planet.

December 5, 2018