Brazilian peasant leader: ‘Capital’s attack on nature endangers humanity’
João Pedro Stedile - Today, humanity is at risk because of senseless social inequality, attacks on the environment, and an unsustainable consumption pattern in rich countries that is imposed on us by capitalism and its profit-seeking mentality.
Labor and the Left in Azerbaijan: An Interview with the Worker’s Voice Collective
LeftEast editors met our Azerbaijani comrades at LevFem’s/Transnational Social Strike’s conference in September 2022 in Sofia. As we knew almost nothing of the left in that country, we asked them for an interview, and they generously obliged.
Armenia-Azerbaijan: The Karabakh fault line
Karl Lebt - How has the Russian invasion of Ukraine affected the dynamics of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan? What choice did the Armenian leadership face? On the prospects for a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement.
Denmark 2022: A landslide election
Reinout Bosch - The Danish election was truly historic: consolidated parties have fallen from grace, new ones have stormed into parliament, and never before have so many voters shifted their alliances between parties in the months leading up to the election.
Sweden’s new government – a dystopian nightmare
Petter Nilsson - The political results of the Swedish election are in, and they bear all the hallmarks of a bad dystopian novel. The new government will be composed of the Moderates, the Christian Democrats and the Liberals, and – in all ways except appointed ministers – the far-right Sweden Democrats.
Ukraine, self-determination, and the national question
Bill Fletcher Jr., Bill Gallegos, Jamala Rogers - The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been met with strange responses on the part of segments of the USA Left and among many progressives. While, generally speaking, there has been a strong condemnation of the Russian invasion, there has simultaneously been a tendency to excuse the Russian invasion and place the responsibility for the aggression solely on the US government (and NATO). Not only is such an analysis factually inaccurate, but it arises from an analytical error rooted in a downplaying of the entire issue of the right of nations to self-determination.
(Video) Ukrainian and Russian academics discuss the war
Debates over the proper approach to the Russo-Ukrainian War have dominated much of the year. Yet discussions within the western left have not always featured the perspectives of Ukrainians and Russians themselves. The Real News Network board member Bill Fletcher, in partnership with Haymarket Books, hosts a panel with Ukrainian and Russian academics.
Michael Pröbsting - Several events in the past few years have provoked profound instability in relations between the imperialist Great Powers. It is therefore not surprising that ideologists and strategic thinkers of the ruling class are working hard to elaborate analyses and perspectives on how their respective Great Power can best respond to the challenges of the current period.
Why Marx was right about capitalism needing to have periodic crises
Mike Treen - The key questions for Marx were understanding why capitalism operates the way it does and whether capitalism is a historically limited system that will reach a limit and need to be superseded.
MES/PSOL (Brazil): Lula's victory was a great democratic triumph against authoritarianism
The victory of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers Party, PT) in the 2022 Brazilian elections was the most important democratic triumph since the fall of the military regime (1964-1985). Celebrations took over the country on Sunday night (October 30), harking back to the best traditions of the Brazilian people's struggle. There were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets taken as a whole, with the epicenter of celebrations on Avenida Paulista; the moving scenes of the opening of a voting school in Bahia, where hundreds of people waited with enthusiasm and confidence for the moment to vote for Lula, also expressed this feeling.
Sean Purdy - Lula da Silva narrowly won the Brazilian presidential elections against Jair Bolsonaro. Yet, Bolsonarismo—the far-right ideology punctuated by fascist traits and enthusiastically supported by the higher ranks of the Armed Forces—continues as strong as ever.
Against The Current - As Russia's invasion and its global impacts spread with ruinous impact, it’s high time for factual, political and moral clarity on what this war is about. That requires sorting out a great deal of ideological mythology on all sides.