The leftist candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador, has been carried to victory in the Mexican presidential election by an enormous popular outpouring of voters hoping to improve their lives and those of their fellow citizens. Promising to drive out the political mafia that runs the country, to end the pervasive corruption in government, and to bring an end to the violence that in the last dozen years has taken more than 250,000 lives, AMLO, the left’s perennial candidate, won such a decisive victory this time that the Mexican establishment finally had to recognize his achievement.
Syria: The Social Origins of the Uprising
22 July 2018, byRemembering the real causes of the eruption the popular uprising in Syria, which is increasingly turning into an international war.
The Roots of Trump’s Immigration Barbarity
21 July 2018, byThe outrage over Trump’s heartless family separation policy provides an opportunity to reverse the bipartisan consensus that has long victimized immigrants.
Notes for a balance sheet of ten years of reforms
20 July 2018, byI. Since, at the end of 2007, Raúl Castro called for a broad national debate, ten years have passed. It was a kind of "social catharsis" of all the problems of the country. This fact can be marked as the beginning of a transformation process that has affected all the spaces of economic, political, social and subjective life in Cuba.
The BRICS, global governance, accumulation, class struggle and resource extractivism
19 July 2018, byAn exceptionally interesting debate about how imperialism is now behaving.
The Haitian people revolt, demonstrators control almost all the country
18 July 2018Three people were killed on Friday 13 July 2018 during demonstrations against the Haitian government’s decision to increase fuel prices. Journalists saw the bodies of two protesters who were shot in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince during clashes with the police. It was not clear who shot them.
Revolts against price rises bring down government
18 July 2018, byOn Friday 6 July 2018 the government of Haiti, obeying the IMF’s injunctions, decided to end subsidies for certain products, including fuels. This meant a 38% increase for gasoline, 47% for diesel and 51% for kerosene lamp oil. This when there is no electricity in poor neighbourhoods!
‘A Better Past is Still Possible’. Interview with Boris Buden
16 July 2018Note from LeftEast Editors: This interview was originally published in Bulgarian for dVERSIA (8/2017) on the occasion of the publication of the Bulgarian translation of Boris Buden’s book ‘Zone des Ãœbergangs. Ãœber das Ende des Postkommunismus’.
Democracy and Ecological Crisis
15 July 2018, byLast fall 15,000 scientists issued a second dire notice to humanity that we are on a collision course with the limits of our planet. They concluded, “To prevent widespread misery, humanity must practice a more environmentally sustainable alternative to business as usual,” including “reassess[ing]... the role of an economy rooted in growth.” That means that we have to challenge capitalism; there is no capitalism without growth. Rosa Luxemburg’s statement on the eve of World War I that the choice is between socialism or barbarism was never more true. But today our struggle is about our very existence.
Walkouts teach U.S. labor a new grammar for struggle
12 July 2018, byLike the Arab Spring, the U.S. “education Spring,” was an explosive wave of protests. State-wide teacher walkouts seemed to arise out of nowhere, organized in Facebook groups, with demands for increased school funding and political voice for teachers. Though the walkouts confounded national media outlets, which had little idea how to explain or report on the movements, for parent and teacher activists who have been organizing against reforms in public education in the past four decades, the protests were both unexpected and understandable. What was surprising was their breadth of support (state-wide), their organizing strategy (Facebook), and their breathtakingly rapid spread.