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A Letter from North America #3 – Our migrant crisis
March 18, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Left Unity — This is the third of Ernie Tate’s letters to Left Unity detailing and analysing the struggles against Trump as they emerge on the other side of the pond. Ernie is a lifelong revolutionary who emigrated to Canada from Northern Ireland as a young man. He was one of the most important activists of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in the 1960s and has recently produced a two volume memoir, “Revolutionary Activism of the 1950s and 1960s”.
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A by-product of present toxic atmosphere in the United States against immigrants and refugees has been a sharp increase in this country in recent weeks in the number of asylum seekers walking across the Canadian border, often placing themselves and their families in harm’s way from our extremely harsh winter. It’s also a consequence it should be noted, of the military interventions by the American empire in the Arab and African world — now greatly destabilized because of it, especially since the fall of the Soviet Union. And like everywhere else, reactionary forces here are attempting to exploit it to stoke up anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment.
Syria: A confederal or theocratic revolution?
By Davide Grasso
March 15, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from InfoAUT — When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire on December 17, 2010 – few of us knew the dimensions of what was about to happen. North Africa and Southwest Asia were ticking time-bombs waiting to explode, waiting to manifest, sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly, deep contradictions and new paths towards the future. Few among us were aware of how unprepared we were for these events and, initially, for developing a solid analysis of what was happening beyond the Mediterranean.
At the time, a friend told me: "These 'springs' have swept away the Salafis from the history of those countries denying that tendency to be the dominant one among the youth." The following events, up to the present ones, demonstrate how incomplete and one-sided this impression was. We were projecting our expectations on the events. We did not analyze the facts in all their complexity, for what they were, albeit in their ambivalence; we looked at them for what we wanted them to be.
Trump and after: Letters from North America
March 7, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Left Unity — One of the most important areas of work for socialists in Europe in the period of Trump will be to establish ongoing working political relationships with comrades in the US and Canada. To that end Left Unity will increase our coverage of politics across the pond. We will begin with a new ‘letter from North America’ courtesy of Ernie Tate. Ernie is a lifelong revolutionary who emigrated to Canada from Northern Ireland as a young man. In the 1960s working in Britain he was one of the most important activists of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. He has recently produced a two volume memoir of that period, “Revolutionary Activism of the 1950s and 1960s”, published by Resistance Books. Now at the age of 82 and living in Toronto he is still active and an acute observer of the political scene. Ernie will send us his thoughts twice monthly. Below are the first two instalment written to Phil Hearse his longtime friend and comrade.
Building a socialist left under Trump
With Flynn Murray, Charlie Post, Jen Roesch and Bhaskar Sunkara
March 2, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from We Are Many— As Trump enters the White House, millions of people are looking for a way to fight back against what is sure to be an all-out assault on the rights of women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and the working class as a whole. Our effectiveness in the struggle ahead requires clear strategy and tactics and a commitment to work together to cohere a strong socialist pole of attraction within the emerging movements against oppression and austerity.
Following the historic national mass mobilizations taking place during the inauguration weekend, the Democratic Socialists of America, the International Socialist Organization and Solidarity invite you to join us for a comradely discussion and debate on the next steps for socialists in the Trump era.
Will science go rogue against Donald Trump?
By Chris Williams
February 22, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Socialist Worker with the author's permission — IN THE age of Trump, the person writing those words has much to teach us about the impending scientific struggles of our own time."Please let us remember that to investigate the constitution of the universe is one of the greatest and noblest problems in nature, and it becomes still grander when directed toward another discovery."
China and Trumpism: the political contradictions of global capitalism
February 14, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — When China’s richest man, Want Jianlin, warned last December that a U.S. trade war against China would result in disaster for the United States it was no idle threat. Trump scores political points with his social base each time he rails at Beijing yet the U.S. and the global economy would grind to a halt if it were not for China’s preponderant role in shoring up global capitalism at this moment of acute crisis.
Women’s Marches: from protest to movement? (plus Angela Davis speech at Women's March on Washington
“Over the next months and years we will be called upon to intensify our demands for social justice, to become more militant in our defense of vulnerable populations. Those who still defend the supremacy of white male hetero-patriarchy had better watch out.
“The next 1,459 days of the Trump administration will be 1,459 days of resistance: Resistance on the ground, resistance in the classrooms, resistance on the job, resistance in our art and in our music.
Tripping up Trumpism through a global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign
By Patrick Bond
January 23, 2017 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – The forces arrayed against Donald Trump’s presidency and neo-fascist movement range from the Central Intelligence Agency to oppressed minorities, and will soon encompass the whole world once his climate change threats are carried out. From above, conflicts will continue with moderate Republicans, Democratic Party elites, so-called Deep State opponents including neoconservative factions of the military, exporting companies concerned about protectionism, and deficit hawks worried about excess spending on filthy-Keynesian infrastructure.
Estados Unidos: La ascensión del trumpismo
[Original in English here]
Por Barry Sheppard
13 de enero 2017 –– Traducido por Faustino Eguberri para Viento Sur –– Una de las características de la reciente campaña electoral presidencial habrá sido la manifestación de las profundas divisiones en el seno de los dos partidos, demócrata y republicano. Esto se añadía al atasco en el Congreso, el pat, entre los dos partidos del capitalismo. Además de esto, el país está muy polarizado a propósito de la raza, la economía y muchas otras cuestiones.
Etats-Unis. L’ascension du trumpisme
[Original in English here]
Par Barry Sheppard
13 janvier 2017 - traduction A l’Encontre - Une des caractéristiques de la récente campagne électorale présidentielle aura été les profondes divisions au sein des deux partis, démocrate et républicain. Cela s’ajoutait à l’impasse au Congrès, le pat, entre les deux partis du capitalisme. En plus de cela, le pays est très polarisé à propos de la race, de l’économie et de beaucoup d’autres questions.
Will Washington’s new pro-Moscow, anti-Beijing gang drive a wedge through the BRICS in 2017?
By Patrick Bond
January 9, 2017 –– Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal –– The weeks following an underwhelming Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) mid-September summit in Goa and the United States presidential election in November have unveiled ever-widening contradictions. Thanks to blatant corruption, presidential delegitimation has reached unprecedented levels in both Brazil and South Africa, while ruling-party religious degeneracy in India also included an extraordinary bout of local currency mismanagement. And sudden new foreign-policy divergences may wreak havoc in China and Russia. The BRICS bloc’s relations could well destabilise to the breaking point.
From Obama to Trump: The failure of passive revolution
By William I. Robinson
January 8, 2017 –– Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal –– Barack Obama declared to CNN this past December 26 that he could have beaten Donald Trump had he the chance to run against the president elect for a third term, but he may have done more than anyone else to assure Trump’s victory.
While Trump’s election has triggered a rapid expansion of fascist currents in US civil society and the political system, a fascist outcome is far from inevitable and will depend on the fight back that has already begun. But that fight back requires clarity as to how we got to such a dangerous precipice. The seeds of a 21st century fascism were planted, fertilized, and watered by the government of outgoing president Barack Obama and the bankrupt liberal elite that Obama’s presidency represents.
United States: The rise of Trumpism
By Barry Sheppard
January 6, 2017 –– Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal –– A feature of the recent election campaign was the deep divisions in both the Democratic and Republican parties. This was on top of the stalemate in Congress between the twin parties of capitalism. In addition, the nation is polarized over race, the economy and many other issues.
Also, it should be noted that there is and was no mass working class party that could have championed an alternative.
Donald Trump emerged and was then elected as the strongman who would take over and set things right, although exactly how he will do this has been left open on many issues.
United States: Trump’s demand to ban Muslim immigration is extreme, but not outside the mainstream
January 6, 2017 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Antipodean Atheist with permission – There are many analyses of the incoming Donald Trump administration examining the reasons for his electoral victory, the racism and Islamophobia that he deployed to win votes, his populist appeals to the American working class, the emboldened position of the “alt-right”, and the ultra-rightist nature of his incoming cabinet.
It is no exaggeration to state, for instance, that his chief-of-staff, the man Trump turns to first for political advice, is an outright fascist. It is not difficult to ascertain that the leading personnel of the Trump regime, composed of billionaires, ex-generals and ultra-rightist psychopaths, are going to make life harder for the US working class – and by that I mean people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.
United States: Attack on St. Louis homeless sneaks under a dark cloud
By Don Fitz
December 31, 2016 –– Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal –– The sub-freezing temperature was dropping. As the snow began to fall, many felt their hands were too cold to hold signs during the December 17 action. Two dozen had answered the Green Party call to picket the mayor of St. Louis for his efforts to close down New Life Evangelistic Center, the city's homeless “shelter-of-last-resort.” They knew things would be much worse for those forced to sleep in the cold if the shelter were shut down. The action was one in a series of efforts to draw attention to the city government's continual onslaught against those with no place to go.
Trump and the limits of globalization
By Steve Ellner
December 30, 2016 –– Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Steve Ellner’s blog with the author’s permission –– Many analysts have belittled the seriousness of Donald Trump's anti-globalization rhetoric and even such jingoistic proposals as the construction of a wall along the Mexican border. They point to Trump’s appointments of such global players as Rex Tillerson and Steven Mnuchin as evidence that Trump cannot and will not turn his back on global commitments and realities.
Along these lines, William I. Robinson (whose work I have always admired and used extensively in the classroom) argues that Trump represents the rise of neo-fascism, but in no way threatens to put a halt to, or a break on, globalization. As proof, he points to the global dimensions of Trump’s own capitalist holdings.
In contrast to Robinson, I argue that globalization is still basically a tendency rather than an all-encompassing reality and that the nation state is a fundamental element, which has to be at the center of any analysis of the world’s political economy.
Black America facing 2017: The Obama legacy and rise of Trump
"We fight for our collective liberation because we are clear
that until black people are free, no one is free."
From Black Lives Matter statement after Donald Trump’s election victory.
By Malik Miah
December 16, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — So much is said about why Donald Trump won the presidency, and the anger of the white working class. White supremacists are overjoyed by his victory. White Americans who believed that they had suffered so-called “reverse discrimination” from Blacks, Latinos and undocumented immigrants proclaimed the defeat of “identity politics.” Many feel confident to strike out verbally and at times physically against Muslims and others.
Much less is written or discussed about the failures of liberalism and the Obama presidency for Blacks and other minorities who voted for Hillary Clinton as a lesser evil.
Dakota (USA) – Standing Rock: Battle won, but war continues
By Barry Sheppard
December 9, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Native Americans and their allies won an important battle in their fight to prevent the Dakota Access Pipeline going through historic tribal lands of the Sioux, and under part of the Missouri River where the Sanding Rock Sioux reservation gets its drinking water.
United States: Left responses to Trump's election victory
Below, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is republishing a series of statements releases by left parties and organisations in the United States in the wake of Donald Trump's election as president. This includes statements by the US Green Party's presidential candidate Jill Stein and VP running mate Ajamu S. Baraka, the national steering committee of Solidarity, and the International Socialist Organization, as well as an article by Dan La Botz.
United States: Who would you vote for in 1840? And who will you vote for on November 8?
By Dan La Botz
November 2, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from New Politics — Imagine that it is 1840 and someone approaches you on the street and hands you a flyer for James G. Birney, the presidential candidate of the new Liberty Party. The flyer says that the Liberty Party opposes slavery. It is the only party that does.
The Democrats and the Whigs--the two parties of the two-party system of that time--supported slavery, not to the same degree perhaps, but neither party opposed slavery. The Liberty Party is new and small, tiny. It’s candidate Birney has absolutely no chance to win the election. But he stands opposed to slavery. Who will you vote for on voting day in 1840?
Will you argue that voting for the Liberty Party would be wasting your vote, and that instead you would vote for the Whig or Democratic parties, both of which accepted slavery?
