Like this article? rabble is reader-supported journalism. Chip in to keep stories like these coming.

Like many people in Canada I have been watching the American primaries with a detached morbid curiosity.

And this last week in American politics did not disappoint. Bernie Sanders pulled off a stunning upset against Hillary Clinton in Michigan on Tuesday. Both of the outsider candidates in the Republican race, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, continue to rack up primary delegates.

Like this article? rabble is reader-supported journalism. Chip in to keep stories like these coming.

What is a petition and what is its role in organizing for people aiming to make radical political and economic change?

Please support our coverage of democratic movements and become a supporter of rabble.ca.

The crisis in Greece has dominated headlines in recent weeks. While there has been much debate and discussion about what is happening and what is to be done in Greece (and how to act in solidarity) we ask what lessons can we draw from this here in Canada?

Chip in to keep stories like these coming.

A year ago this October Nova Scotia voters tossed out the NDP from government and elected a Liberal majority. The crushing defeat for the NDP after only one term in power was primarily the result of its move to the right, which only served to alienate, disorient and demotivate its base of urban and trade union voters. Of course there were other factors -- the MLA expense scandal and the poor state of the economy -- but ultimately the first NDP government failed to deliver on the change that so many people expected. 

I don't support the politics of Hamas, but I stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people up to and including engaging in armed struggle. As one of the principle political actors in the Palestinian fight for liberation and self-determination Hamas can't be brushed aside by the left for convenience sake. To stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine also requires us to formulate a clear understanding of Hamas in the Palestinian political landscape. 

Uncritical and conditional solidarity 

"What would your government do with more than 2,000 rockets raining down at your cities fired by terrorists?" stated Mark Regev, the spokesperson for the Israeli Prime Minister, on CNN. The logic of the Israeli government and its defenders is not without a subversive edge -- if the Israelis have the right to defend themselves, then shouldn't the same go for the Palestinian people? 

With the Peoples' Social Forum approaching in August I thought I would jot down a couple of ideas about where the left is, what challenges it's facing and what roads it could take.

Before I begin I want to list where I am coming from politically to help frame my analysis. I do this because we can't divorce the question of how we should organize ourselves from our political objectives. That being said the purpose of this post is to focus on the former not the latter.

It is impossible to say with certainty what the electoral outcome of Ontario's election will be. However, the political outcome is far easier to discern: after the election there will be a shift right in the political terrain of the province.

Hudak and his Tories seem to have tacked hard to the right after their brief tactical back down on right-to-work during the by-elections earlier this year. The Tories have promised to create a million jobs but also cut 100,000 public service sector jobs. Hudak wants to balance the budget through aggressive budget cuts, 7.6 billion over the next four years. This means ending or reducing all sorts of modest programs and grants that help people squeak by.

The following is a statement by the editors of the Canadian labour news website RankandFile.ca (I am one of the editors). This editorial was originally published on the RankandFile.ca website.