There are two points of common agreement amongst almost all sections of the Left. We are in the midst of a fundamental turning point in the earth's environment from climate change, with many catastrophic consequences unfolding, from species extinction to habitat loss to enormous obstacles and costs for human adaptation; and the Left remains, in almost all zones of the world, but especially in North America, on the margins as a social force in the face of a reconstructed and more authoritarian neoliberalism. How to respond in such a situation?
Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, gave this remarkable opening talk at the summit of the Group of 77 plus China, meeting in Santa Clara, Bolivia, on June 14, 2014.
. . . We have recovered our nation for all of us. Ours was a nation that had been alienated by the neoliberal model, a nation that lived under the old and evil system of political parties, a nation that was ruled from abroad, as if we were a colony.
Karl Marx is on fire right now. More than a century after his death, the co-author of “The Communist Manifesto” still has the honor of being the first smear against ideas slightly to the left of Hillary Clinton. (See: Thomas Piketty.) Marx also graced the cover of the National Review as recently ast last month. Few other thinkers, and certainly few non-religious figures, can claim the honor of being so widely misappropriated by the political rearguard.
Sam Gindin's recent contributions to the The Bullet and Jacobin explore the lost potential of the working class in revolutionary politics. On the economic and ecological fronts, he argues, working-class politics has been incapable of catalyzing widespread and consequential societal mobilization, or becoming vital sites of theoretical and practical struggle.
A very large and loud event is about to reshape New York City once again this September – and likely propel social change across the continent. A convergence of organizations under the banner of the "People's Climate March", have pledged to make this event in New York City an opportunity for an unprecedented climate mobilization.
Fifty years ago, great leaders raised the flags of the anticolonial struggle and decided to join with their peoples in a march along the path of sovereignty and independence.
The world superpowers and transnationals were competing for control of territories and natural resources in order to continue expanding at the cost of impoverishing the peoples of the South.
But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence… illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness. Feuerbach, Preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity
The following remarks were made by Seattle City Councilor Kshama Sawant on Monday, June 2, as the council voted unaminously to pass a $15 minimum wage, the highest in the nation:
Where we strongly disagree with Parenti is in his notion that such an enormous transformation in the structure of the economic and social order as is now required can be accomplished through what he presents as a mild, and thus necessarily slow, “reformist” strategy, relying primarily on the two proposals he advances: (1) using the power of the executive branch of the federal government in the United States to order the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to impose additional costs on fossil-fuel use through the Clean Air Act, and (2) ordering government agencies, presumably at the initia
