IV491 - December 2015

Historically the prime targets of bigotry and domestic terrorism in the United States have been Black people, who were considered less than human and definitely not as equals to whites. Native peoples were slaughtered by the settler colonists, removed from their tribal lands and put on “reservations.” Native Americans to this day suffer from the original genocidal crimes of the European colonists.

On the day of the October Revolution, November 7, left-wing academics and activists in Kyiv proved their ability to carry out socially critical activities of international level. The renowned Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (KPI) hosted researchers from Ukraine, France, Great Britain, Russia, Belgium, Germany, and Greece. The “Economic Crisis or Crisis of Neoliberalism? Alternative Development Policy for Ukraine” conference demonstrated a high level of debate against the dominant ideological discourse. Economists, sociologists and trade union activists voiced many pressing issues. However, the representatives of the Ukrainian government, who would need to hear the raised proposals in order to save the country from the collapse, did not show up at the conference.

IV491 December 2015 PDF magazine

Not a single region for the National Front - which nevertheless obtained the highest score in its history. A victory for the right - weaker than it had hoped. The Socialist Party (PS) pushed back - barely saving face. A "left of the left" marginalized or subordinate, inaudible. That sums up, in a few words, the results of the regional elections of December 2015.

Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the United States set off a political and media firestorm that’s raging as we go to press. But Trump’s latest outrage essentially lit the match to underbrush that was ready to be ignited. Trump himself is not so important — a vicious demagogue, but not a mass organizer or leader. What matters, following the carnage of the “Islamic State” attack in Paris and the San Bernardino mass shooting, is the climate in which the priority target of opportunity for racist reactionaries has become Muslim refugees, immigrants, communities and mosques.

The 2015 UAW/Big Three contracts took 67 days and multiple attempts to ratify, resulting in what most autoworkers see as a partial victory.

The electoral campaign for the Spanish state parliamentary elections on December 10, 2015 has brought back the elongated shadow of the great absentee of Catalan politics: the binding referendum. Denied by the state and replaced by the pro-independence forces with elections converted into a plebiscite, the presence of the absent referendum is felt increasingly.

In August-September 2013, I drafted a course of measures to be implemented in Greece in case the radical left won the election. On 10 September, 2013 I sent this draft to the activists of Greece and elsewhere to ‘gather critical comments and proposals for further improvement’, as I put it at the time.

When visibility is minimal because powerful storms cloud the perception of reality, it may be appropriate to enlarge one’s view, to climb slopes to look for broader observation points, in order to discern the context in which we move. In these times, when the world is crossing through multiple contradictions and interests, it’s urgent to stimulate the senses to gaze far and inside.

In the wake of the November 13 attacks in Paris, much of the Left has linked the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to the deepening imperialist violence in the Middle East.