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January 27, 2022

The Solidarity Economy: anti-fascism at the intersection of Ella Baker and Clara Zetkin

This article is a continuation of a previous one titled “Rethinking Revolution for an Age of Resurgent Fascism.” Ella Baker’s work leading the Young Negroes’ Cooperative League (YNCL) from 1930-1933 is here used to further inform today’s anti-fascism. Overall, this article relates Baker’s work to the dissenting views of German Communist Party (KPD) co-founder Clara Zetkin, specifically her views on fascism and the systemic alternative she referred to as a “Soviet Congress for a Soviet Germany.” This was a federation of autonomous councils formed in neighborhoods and workplaces for mutual aid, self-defense, and as dual power to succeed in revolution through general strikes in the event of a Nazi coup.

January 25, 2022

by Kim Gasper-Rabuck

Abortion Rights Under Attack: What do we do? Stand up, fight back!

The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has made it clear in a brief two-hour hearing on December 1, 2021 that there is intent on finding the Mississippi 15-week abortion ban constitutional. In all likelihood this will lead to complete overturning of Roe versus Wade, and begin the outlawing of abortion across the country. If this comes to pass, it will amount to the overthrow of an edifice of essential health practices, hard-fought political rights, and bodily autonomy for more than half of the population.

January 12, 2022

by Dusty Ray

Mass shooting in Denver: understanding fascism in order to stop it

On Monday December 27, 2021 at around 5:00 pm, a lone gunman initiated a targeted shooting spree which left five people dead and one in critical condition. Lyndon McLeod, also known by his pseudonym Roman McClay, was a believer in far-right ideology, anti-covid conspiracies, masculine supremacy, apocalyptic prepping, crypto-Nazi aesthetics, and race science.

January 7, 2022

by Zack Frailey Escobar

What kind of party do we need?

This is a crucial moment for the socialist movement. There has been substantial growth of socialist organization in the last four years and the highest point of public support for socialism since the 1970s. But it would be a mistake to believe that socialism’s popularity will simply continue along this trajectory indefinitely, or that this necessarily translates to a fundamental shift towards class struggle. Membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), largest U.S. socialist group in the US, has recently plateaued. The second largest group, the International Socialist Organization, collapsed 2 years ago. To make matters worse, the trend within DSA which had been moving toward a break with the Democrats and the formation of an independent party has undergone a reversal. If this trend becomes dominant within the socialist movement, the trajectory towards socialist party building will become stunted, and a new generation of potential revolutionaries will be funneled back into the Democratic Party like so many before them.

December 27, 2021

by Susanna de Guio y Gianpaolo Contestabile

La lucha de Berta Cáceres sigue

El pasado 15 de noviembre la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) emitió una nueva resolución para renovar las medidas cautelares en favor de la familia de Berta Cáceres por la situación de urgencia de riesgo de daño a sus derechos. La resolución llega pocos meses después de la condena de Roberto David Castillo Mejía, quién ha sido identificado como uno de los autores intelectuales del asesinato de Berta Cáceres: así se estableció durante la audiencia del pasado 3 de agosto en la que se aplazó la definición de la pena que oscila entre los 20 y los 25 años.

December 14, 2021

by Justin Akers Chacón

Rebellion and Reaction: behind the attack on Critical Race Theory

The orchestrated attack on Critical Race Theory (CRT) is one facet of the racist and reactionary response to the decade-long Black Lives Matter struggle and the tremorous uprising of summer 2020. The surges of protest and revolt, taking distinct and elaborating form since the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin, have grown in size, scope, and militancy. These movements have shifted anti-racist class politics and consciousness to the left, culminating into abolitionist cadence at its most organized and advanced points. Over one year on, the unified call for radical justice has been countered by the foul, cacophonous, and rage-induced dysphoria of the rattled ranks of the reactionary right.

December 12, 2021

by Bill V. Mullen

Under Siege: why socialists must fight for Palestine and BDS

The struggle for Palestinian liberation from Israel’s U.S.-backed settler-colonial regime has become a cornerstone of most radical and progressive political platforms. Especially since Palestinian Civil Society launched the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign (BDS) in 2004, modeled closely on the South African campaign to end Apartheid; the broad U.S. and global Left have made the struggle to end Israel’s occupation part of a wider critique of U.S. imperialism.

Yet recent events have challenged the unity and momentum of both the struggle for Palestinian liberation on the Left, and its primary global weapon, the BDS campaign. One of those challenges has come from the reformist wing of the Left, the Democratic Socialists of America. Another, even more potentially threatening to Palestinian liberation unity, has come from within the ranks of the U.S. Arab political class and its institutions.

December 3, 2021

by Kim Gasper-Rabuck

The Aftermath of the Rittenhouse Acquittal: Report from Wisconsin

After the murder of George Floyd May 25, 2020, millions of people protested—most for the first time in their lives—to say that “Black Lives Matter”. Thousands demonstrated dozens of times across the urban centers of Wisconsin. in Madison, the protests were called by large not-for-profits as well as new, young groups of African- American activists. Hundreds of national guard members were called up by Democratic Party Governor Tony Evers—and supported by Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway—to teargas and arrest Black and white protesters on the street. Much of State Street experienced fires and graffiti as peoples’ rightful rage against overwhelming police and National guard violence erupted.

November 19, 2021

by Zack Frailey Escobar

Base building meets cadre development: the alternative to socialist opportunism

The subterranean forces of capitalist development have begun to produce ruptures. The economic growth of the neoliberal period stalled as early as 2007-08, leading to the Occupy movement and the nascent class politics of the 99%. The phony post-racialism of the early Obama period has been exposed as a fraud again and again, most significantly by the Ferguson riots and the national uprising following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Covid-19 exposed the inability of our capitalistic health infrastructure to even keep the economy running, let alone care for people’s basic needs. As both the ecological and economic situation continue to deteriorate, these crises will only compound. Without an organizational framework that can capture the inevitable rage of the exploited and oppressed and bind it to a vision for revolutionary transformation, the potential power of the working class – the only class which can overthrow capitalism – will not be realized. It will remain a “class-in-itself” but not a “class-for-itself.”

October 1, 2021

by Puntorojo Editorial Collective

Serious about Systemic Change: an interview with Marco Amaral

Marco Amaral is a progressive candidate running as an Independent for the position of California Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2022. He is Chicano educator and long-time activist who teaches high school Special Education in a low-income area. Amaral lives and works in a community near the US-Mexico border in San Diego, a largely working-class Mexican community and is currently a Board of Trustees member at the South Bay Union School District. He spoke to Puntorojo about activism, education, politics and his campaign.