Donate to Links
Click on Links masthead to clear previous query from search box
Read Green Left Weekly, our sister publication
GLW Radio on 3CR
Syndicate
United States
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?
Studs Terkel and third-party politics
By Alan Wieder
October 31, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — When Noam Chomsky recently told Amy Goodman that he would hold his nose and vote for Hillary Clinton if he lived in a swing state, it reminded me of Studs’ statements during the 2000 Gore-Bush election for the presidency. In 2000, Studs endorsed Ralph Nader, but like Chomsky at the present time, he suggested that it might be prudent in certain cases to vote for Gore. In 1970, when Chomsky appeared on Studs’ show to discuss his book, The New Mandarins, much of the conversation focused on conquest and corporate power. And the men agreed that grassroots movements, not heroes, changed history. Chomsky argues, in correspondence to the mass support of Bernie, that “The New Deal legislation of Roosevelt, for example, wouldn’t have been passed—it wouldn’t have even been initiated—without militant labor action and other political action.” Studs referenced 1948 Progressive Party candidate, Henry Wallace, during the 2000 election, arguing that Nader might elevate Gore just as Wallace did Truman. Both men also acknowledge realpolitik in terms of Supreme Court nominations to say nothing of Trump’s fascist tendencies.
Philippines: On Duterte's strategy - Why diplomacy can't be a one-man show
By Walden Bello
October 30, 2016 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from InterAksyon – Just into his fourth month as head of state, President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has managed to become one of the most controversial actors on the global stage, rivalling if not eclipsing Donald Trump. His war on drugs, marred by the extra-judicial execution of drug users and peddlers, won him the title of “serial killer” on French television. More recently, his telling US President Obama to “go to hell” and his declaration of “separation” from the United States and “alignment”with China and Russia during a state visit to Beijing has alarmed and befuddled governments in the East Asian region.
Exposing the devil: US foreign policy towards Latin America
By Dae-Han Song
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world that he didn’t exist.”
–The Unusual Suspects
October 12, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from International Strategy Center — Though this famous line emerged from one of the most iconic crime-heist movies of all time, it is just as fitting to the United States’ machinations in Latin America. Of course, few today see the US as benign, or are ignorant of the US’ role in the region. However, even those on the left sometimes forget just how omnipresent and involved the US is in Latin America’s domestic problems and contradictions. As the left forgets this truth, it grows confused and disillusioned with the experiments occurring in Latin America. To properly understand the crises facing progressive parties in Latin America, we must distinguish between its own internal contradictions and those created and instigated by the United States. Only then can we understand the experiments undertaken in Latin America, correctly apply their lessons to our own situation, and find our role in ensuring their success.
US Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein on why "lesser evilism" is a loser
September 17, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Against the Current — Against the Current interviews Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for president in 2016.
United States: The LGBTQ movement today
By Donna Cartwright
August 25, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Solidarity (US) — A year after marriage equality was legalized nationwide, and two months since the June 12 massacre at a gay club in Orlando, the LGBT movement confronts a contradictory future. Although Orlando dramatized that violence against LGBT people persists, fueled by rightwing politicians’ hateful attacks, great victories have been won, and public acceptance of queer people has expanded to levels that once seemed unimaginable.
Before ’68: The Left, activism and social movements in the long 1960s
August 18, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Ernest Tate and Phil Hearse present Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s and 1960s at "Before ’68: The Left, activism & social movements in the long 1960s" conference. Hosted by UEA School of History in conjunction with the journal Socialist History, and the Institute of Working Class History (Chicago).
Ernest Tate's memoir is an important contribution to the history of the left in Britain and Canada during a unique period. It's a political life of Ernest Tate's life as a socialist during the fifteen year period from 1955 to 1970. In volume one, he tells us about his arrival from Toronto in 1955 as a working-class immigrant from Northern Ireland and about how he quickly became engaged in radical politics.
Excerpts of the book are available on Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal here.
'It is not illegal to kill Black people in America': Black Lives Matter Movement grows stronger
By Malik Miah
While police tactics and accountability measures are being examined, many black people are also questioning their safety and place in society. They worry about the next time they interact with police, and about the difficult conversations they must have with their children.
— Mistah F.A.B.
We’re just a bullet away from being a hashtag.
— Mistah F.A.B.
Hearing my son say to the officer, “You shot me,” it pierced my heart.
— Wanda Johnson
— Wanda Johnson
I’m 61 years old, and I have been stopped by police 53 times in my life.
— John William Templeton
— John William Templeton
As a physician I watch these videos and I see health care infractions.
— Dr. Tiffany Chioma Anaebere,
— Dr. Tiffany Chioma Anaebere,
I’m not ready to have the conversation with my daughters.
— W. Kamau Bell
The San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 2016
Contemporary crisis and workers control
By Dario Azzellini
July 31, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- During the first decade of the current century factory occupations and production under workers’ control seemed to be limited mainly to South America, with a few exceptions in Asia. It was beyond the imagination of most workers and scholars in industrialized countries that workers would or could occupy their companies and run them on their own. Nevertheless, the crisis that started in 2008 put workers’ control back on the agenda in the northern hemisphere. Occupations of workplaces and production under control of workers sprang up in the United States, Western Europe and Egypt. This chapter describes some of these struggles and their common characteristics and differences.
The Party, The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988, Volume II: Interregnum, Decline and Collapse, 1973-1988
Hay vida después de Sanders: en busca del futuro político del movimiento
[Original article in English here]
Por Dan La Botz
July 13, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal traducción por Viento Sur -- El ambiente entre los 3 000 seguidores de Bernie Sanders reunidos el pasado fin de semana en el McCormick Place de Chicago rezumaba un optimismo improbable. Muchas de las personas que intervinieron proclamaron, entre vítores de la multitud, que el movimiento había triunfado, a pesar de que Hillary Clinton, la probable candidata oficial del Partido Demócrata, haya obtenido la mayoría de los votos populares y cuente con el apoyo de la mayoría de delegados y superdelegados, además del respaldo del presidente Barack Obama, del vicepresidente Joe Biden y de la senadora Elizabeth Warren. Esta paradoja –entre la creencia del movimiento de Sanders de que hemos logrado algo muy importante y la clara victoria de Clinton en las primarias– marca el contexto contradictorio de esta conferencia de gentes, yo entre ellos, progresistas, radicales y socialistas que buscan una vía hacia el futuro.
The Party, The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988, Volume 1: The 60s
Life after Bernie Sanders: People’s Summit searches for the movement’s political future
By Dan La Botz
July 6, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from New Politics — The mood among the 3,000 Bernie Sanders supporters meeting in Chicago McCormick Place was improbably optimistic over the weekend of June 17-19, with many of the speakers proclaiming to cheering crowds that the movement has been victorious — even though Hillary Clinton, the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party has received a majority of the popular votes and a majority of elected delegates and super-delegates, as well as the endorsements of President Barack Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, and Senator Elizabeth Warren.
That disjuncture — between the Sanders’ movement’s belief that we have achieved something quite important and Clinton’s clear victory in the primary — provides the contradictory context for this conference of progressives, radicals, and socialists searching for the way to the future, I among them.
De-Privatize! A slogan for the Green Party in the 2016 elections
By Don Fitz
July 3, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- In the middle of June 2016, the US House Committee on Natural Resources approved HR 3650, an effort to expand privatization of public lands. The bill would transfer control of “up to 2 million acres of eligible portions of the National Forest System” from the federal to state governments. Since state governments cannot afford firefighting budgets for such huge pieces of land, the law is a slick maneuver to make certain that lands will end up in the hands of private corporations. Endgame: increased logging, increased mining, increased destruction of ecosystems, increased profits for a few of the super-rich, decreased recreational sites, decreased jobs for the 6.1 million Americans working in recreation.
There is a word that the Green Party might consider putting at the front and center of its 2016 presidential campaign. That word would show the commonality of hundreds, if not thousands, of local struggles in the US and set the pace for Green Parties across the globe. It's a word that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton won't touch. The word is: “De-Privatization.”
Strike strategy today
By Tim Goulet
June 19, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Why has the use of the strike in the US become so scarce? While subjective factors are more difficult to quantify, certain basic reasons seem more readily evident. Union membership, particularly in the private sector, is at an all-time low. Most of the unions are heavily bureaucratized, and central labor councils ossified. “Sympathy strikes,” long ago outlawed by Taft-Hartley, militate against the sort of broad-based solidarity so essential to an industrial victory. Moreover, many unions have accepted no-strike clauses for the duration of their contracts, effectively tying one hand behind their backs.
Despite it all, the recent victory of 39,000 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and Communications Workers of America (CWA) workers at Verizon furnishes a stark reminder of what kind of power resides in the organized section of the working class when it is in motion.
It also shows the power of the strike weapon, and how it can be an effective tool -- in not only realizing demands and raising working class living standards -- but also rebuilding our unions.
The Afterbern: How Bernie Sanders has changed the US and what we do now
By Salar Mohandesi
May 12, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal republished from Viewpoint Magazine -- One of the most significant political stories of the year is the meteoric rise of a little-known, seventy-four year old, self-proclaimed “democratic socialist” senator from the small state of Vermont. Although he may win many of the remaining contests, it seems extremely unlikely that Bernie Sanders will clinch the Democratic nomination. Nevertheless, his bid for the presidency has dramatically, perhaps irreversibly, changed the political landscape in this country. At this point, the question for socialists is not whether or not to support Bernie’s campaign, but rather: what do we do now? What, if any political possibilities have emerged, and how can we seize these opportunities to advance revolutionary politics? To answer that, we first need to determine exactly how Bernie has changed the political situation in the United States.
Thinking and voting outside the two-party box: Interview with US Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein
May 10, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from US Socialist Worker -- Dr. Jill Stein (pictured) is a leading member of the Green Party and its likely presidential candidate in 2016. A longtime activist, including around issues of health care reform and ecological justice, Stein ran for several offices as a Green in Massachusetts, before becoming the party's presidential nomination in 2012, where she won 456,169 votes. She talked to Todd Chretien about why she's running again and the importance of an independent alternative to the two-party system.
How Bernie Sanders can harness the kind of momentum transforming British politics
By Kate Aronoff
April 23, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Waging Nonviolence — After his double-digits win in Wisconsin on April 5, Bernie Sanders’s insurgent campaign has a fair amount of momentum behind it. Still, many are asking what comes next, and how to carry the political revolution forward — whether he wins the Democratic nomination or not.
Lessons for Sanders might come from the movement that formed around another white-haired progressive challenger to the political establishment: British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Sanders and the Left After Super Tuesday - Why there is still hope and why the Left should rejoice and push forward
By Brad A. Bauerly and Ingar Solty
March 19, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Socialist Project -- While some have become skeptical, there are those – from The Nation via Politico and Tom Cahill ( U.S. Uncut) to Robert Reich – who are now saying that this is not the end of the line for Bernie Sanders U.S. presidential bid.
Recent comments
19 hours 29 min ago
6 days 16 hours ago
6 days 21 hours ago
1 week 20 hours ago
2 weeks 6 days ago
3 weeks 2 days ago
3 weeks 5 days ago
5 weeks 6 days ago
7 weeks 15 hours ago
7 weeks 1 day ago