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UK Labour Party’s leadership race a test of strength for grassroots democratic socialism
EuropeIn a field of relatively underwhelming candidates, the best possible outcome appears to be a Long-Bailey victory. Though far from ideal, Long-Bailey is at least the best chance the left has of keeping anti-austerity and a radical green industrial strategy in mainstream conversation, and holding the line against those who would use the U.K. election results to silence grassroots democratic socialist movements everywhere.
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Manufactured Ignorance about the Ukrainian-Canadian Left
Canadian PoliticsBlowing off the fog of ignorance that now hides the history of the Ukrainian-Canadian left would help to dismantle a problematic conservative consensus. It would throw light on the Ukrainian left’s historic and ultimately unsuccessful efforts to put into practice a progressive form of nationalism, one that protects the independence of distinct cultural groups within a shared democratic space.
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Why Labour Lost in Britain
EuropeCorbyn had the best policies of anyone in my lifetime who was leader of major western country party. There is no evidence that Corbyn’s policies were unpopular, they poll fine, the issue is that the election wasn’t fought on his policies, it was fought on Brexit and whether or not a man who spent his entire life fighting racism was a racist.
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Big Capital will use every tool at its disposal to crush socialists like Corbyn
EuropeThe Labour Party’s election failure in the UK proves that, for the progressive left to succeed, it will have to become considerably more revolutionary. The ‘softly, softly’ approach isn’t working. Since, in some sense, the election was about Brexit, the first thing that strikes the eye is the asymmetry in the position of the two big parties.
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Reflections on Labour’s defeat and the challenge ahead
EuropeMany voters were very open outright about not giving us their vote this time, while emphasising that they have never voted Tory before, and many still preferred not to vote altogether over having to vote Tory now, because they knew what that would mean to their rights and condition, yet they would still not vote for us either.
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UK election: Media elitism and its threat to progressive change
EuropeThe people who stand to gain the most from leaders like Corbyn and Sanders are being fed increasingly ruthless lies about these candidates by the elites who fear their progressive policies. The extent to which the democratic process is being hijacked by these monopoly interests in deeply troubling and should be a focal point of public debate.
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Someone interfered in the UK election, and it wasn’t Russia
EuropeI am not claiming here that the billions of dollars’ worth of free mass media reporting that was devoted to smearing Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party had a greater effect on the election results than Brexit and other strategic stumbles in the party. I’m just saying that it definitely had a much greater effect than the few thousand dollars Russian nationals spent on social media memes in the U.S., which the American political/media class has been relentlessly shrieking about for three years.
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The Vilification of Jeremy Corbyn
EuropeThe vilification of the leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, as an antisemite has intensified in the run up to the December 12 election in Britain. What makes this especially troubling, not to say bizarre, is that since he first became a member of parliament in 1983 Corbyn has been the most consistent campaigner against all forms of racism. Rather than being traduced, Corbyn deserves to be praised for making it so clear that principled support for Palestinian rights does not preclude principled opposition to antisemitism.
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Labour’s manifesto promises to transform Britain. Why are the middle classes so hostile to it?
EuropeWhat are we to make of a political class that proclaims its ethical commitments but that cannot bring itself to endorse the only concrete actions that would honour them? As John von Neumann, the great mathematician turned Cold War warrior, once said of J Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, “some people profess the guilt to claim credit for the sin”. It is the duty of progressives uninterested in the reproduction of the current reality to give Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party the electoral victory it richly deserves.
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Support for fascist forces growing in Germany
EuropeAfD, the Alternative for Germany, is currently polling 13% in all Germany – worrisome enough – and is vying for top ranking in opinion polls in three East German states now facing elections. In Saxony it is tied in first place at 26%; it is tied for first place in Brandenburg at 19%. Both states vote on September 1st. Thuringia votes on October 27th where, at 24%, it lacks only one point for first place.
