IV503 - December 2016

IVP 503 PDF magazine available to download here

The municipalist movements of the Spanish state can’t ignore the global crisis of neoliberalism. It’s up to us to stand up and defend our idea of bottom up, feminist and radically democratic change.

On November 8, some 135 million U.S. voters chose between the two least popular capitalist party candidates in the country’s modern history. By a margin of close to 2.7 million votes — concentrated, to be sure, in huge majorities in California and New York — they opted for the choice that seemed less frightening, if hardly inspiring. She did not, however, win the election. By virtue of a relic of slavery-era federalism called the Electoral College and narrow victories in Midwestern battleground states, Donald J. Trump emerged as the president-elect.

“Water versus oil: life versus death:” [1] Across Canada, Indigenous peoples continue to resist Canada’s ongoing disregard for treaty rights and the subjugation of environmental welfare to capitalist extractivism. The brutal suppression of water protectors at Standing Rock, North Dakota and their ongoing resistance has also galvanized Canadian conversations about Indigenous land rights and environmental welfare.

Marcelo Freixo was the mayoral candidate for the PSOL in the municipal elections of October 2016 in Rio de Janeiro. He was interviewed by Francisco Louçã, who is part of the leadership of the Left Bloc in Portugal and of the Fourth International. This interview, which took place on November 27, 2016, was first published by the electronic daily of the Left Bloc, Esquerda.net.

REBECCA KEMBLE IS an alder (representative) on the Madison, Wisconsin Common Council. She organized the Council to pass a unanimous resolution on September 20, 2016 expressing solidarity with the Indigenous resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Rebecca and her husband travelled to deliver the petition to Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman David Archambault II. They were at Standing Rock for three days. She spoke with David Finkel from the ATC editorial board on November 23 about what she witnessed and experienced. Thanks to Ann Finkel for assistance with transcribing the interview; photos by Rebecca Kemble.[ATC]

As Kermit the Frog, America’s most famous Muppet, says: “it’s not easy being green.”

Preliminary results of the Green Party’s latest national campaign confirm the reality of his observation. The Party’s much-touted goal was getting 5% of the vote on Nov. 8, so it could qualify for $10 million in federal funds for 2020 campaigning and maintain broad nationwide ballot access.

A country known for the role of military interventions in its political culture, on the night of July 15, 2016 Turkey witnessed an attempted coup live on the television screens and social media. Deprived of popular and international support and with very limited forces, the coup was rapidly defeated. This “attempt is the gift of God” said Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the day after, thus indicating that it would provide the desired opportunity to carry out his own civilian coup, waging an unprecedented wave of repression against all opposition forces and consolidating his dictatorial regime.

This week [first week of November, 2016] could well be remembered as South Africa’s most important political inflection point since the September 2008 ousting of sitting President Thabo Mbeki by his own party, the African National Congress (ANC). His main tormenter then was Jacob Zuma, who – following a brief handover period – has ruled the country in an increasingly dubious manner since May 2009.

The Supreme Court of India in a landmark judgment (Criminal Appeal No: 11 of 2011) observes: “The injustice done to the tribal people of India is a shameful chapter in our country’s history. The tribals were called rakshas’ (demons),asuras’, and what not. They were slaughtered in large numbers, and the survivors and their descendants were degraded, humiliated, and all kinds of atrocities inflicted on them for centuries. They were deprived of their lands, and pushed into forests and hills where they eke out a miserable existence of poverty, illiteracy, disease, etc. And now efforts are being made by some people to deprive them even of their forest and hill land where they are living, and the forest produce on which they survive.” [section 36].