Is the West Experiencing a Left-Wing Drift? (the international left politics activism, news, and strategy thread)

More great pod. Gets into the particulars of American history and connects it up with 2016 and more.

The Dig - Universalizing American Liberty with Aziz Rana

Aziz Rana discusses his pivotal book, _The Two Faces of American Freedom_. Rana overturns conventional accounts of American history, from settlement and Revolution to the Populists and the present day. In reality, settler-colonialism, empire, and a brutally exploitative economic system grounded in racial subjugation have always been at the core of the American project. But radical thinkers and movements have consistently stepped forward at critical junctures to propose transformative alternatives that would make American freedom universal. Rana's most brilliant move is to ultimately make a devastatingly critical account of American history hopeful and optimistic.

I'm glad someone brought up Novara, I've become a big fan over the last few months. Sarkar & James Butler especially I think are great. The Novara FM podcasts I feel actually manage to cover some fairly substantial stuff while still being accessible. The video segments like The Fix etc are def more hit & miss though - some worthwhile episodes but a lot of boilerplate rehearsal of overly neat talking-points too.

To open the discussion up a bit beyond just 'I dig this' (although let's be honest, that's my basic station in life), one thing I find interesting with the Novara people is the tension between anarchists and what for want of better terms I tend to think of as 'radical democrats' or 'democratic utopians' on the one hand, and traditional state socialsts plus fully-blown state communists on the other.
I feel like this tension could be reflected across the Corbynite left or at least within Momentum, and I'm interested to see how it plays out in the long term, especially if Labour under the current leadership do manage to make it into power.
Then again maybe the perception of a split is exaggerated by me focusing too much on Novara and hanging out too much in the Brit corner of 'left twitter', and the more unorthodox elements esp anarchos are too small in number/too marginalized to have any influence, I dunno.

That split is definitely not exclusive to the UK. The saving grace is that the short-term goals of both broad groups is more or less the same, so common mobilization on pressing issues is far from impossible.

If anybody who would like an Australian lefty pod, there’s the Boonta Vista Socialist Club.

For more American ones:

For those of y'all looking for some great leftist podcasts out there, here is a thread.

Subscribe to:@seasonoftheB @DiscoCollective @thetrillbillies @deleteuracct @LeftPod @thisishellradio @StreetFightWCRS @MAKCapitalism @TheDCSentinel @CitationsPod https://t.co/aeBsI9xzQ4

— Kudzu Commune (@kudzucommune) November 21, 2017

For CanCon(sorta), this is more of a monthly show, but Luke Savage & Will Sloan do Michael & Us our of Toronto, where they watch a crappy American(usually) agit-prop polemic. They started with every Michael Moore flick, then moved on to the Fahrenheit 9/11 knockoffs, Hollywood stuff, or whatever Dinesh craps out,

On the american organizing side, I’m wondering the percentage of all the groups that exploded in membership are now hitting growing pains a year in.

My local DSA chapter is trying to slog thru bylaw revision, as the group now is far different than it was originally constituted 12 months back. Quorum reqs are a drag, for instance.

that Aziz Rana interview is really great!

re: the slog/bloat that comes with organizational expansion, do you see it as a necessary evil or would you handle it some other way if possible?

I just think that it’s expected if not necessary; we’re coming out of like 4 decades of bad political habits, and having to relearn a whole mess of shit along with translating to a modern format.

Massive cultural change has to happen, and is underway, and everybody is going to fuck up a lot because the dominant culture was/is this hyperatomizing thing, not to mention all the discursive complications borne out of academia and social media.

DSA New Orleans posted a DIY guide on how & why they chose a taillight replacement action:

http://dsaneworleans.org/img/brake-light-clinic-guide.pdf

Workers Win Big in Ontario
In Ontario, the Fight for $15 just won a huge victory.

By DAVID BUSH & DOUG NESBITT

another podcast, just launched -

http://butterflystorycollective.libsyn.com/

one thing I find interesting with the Novara people is the tension between anarchists and what for want of better terms I tend to think of as 'radical democrats' or 'democratic utopians' on the one hand, and traditional state socialsts plus fully-blown state communists on the other.

At points it has been ugly to watch. Both sides actually managed to converge amicably (so far) over at New Socialist:

https://newsocialist.org.uk/

I love the brakelight clinics so much

I don't agree that the US is more progressive on aboriginal issues. Afaict, these barely even register as an issue on the national level in the US.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Thursday, November 9, 2017 4:19 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya what's up with this? is it just that they historically killed a larger % of them?

Plenty of good arguments here

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/out-of-sight-out-of-mind-2/

talking US first nations though

anyways this is not the thread

Yeah, that Maclean's thing makes no sense to me. If we really need to compare the situation of Canada's aboriginal population to a US equivalent, I would think that it should be the US aboriginal population ("Native Americans"), not the African-American population. And, like I said, I'm not a US politics expert but the only Presidential candidate I observed even mentioning FN issues was Bernie Sanders, who afaict didn't do more than pay lip service in passing.

This might be the UK-version of Chapo btw:

https://twitter.com/reel_politcast

I don't listen to podcasts so this is all bits of educated guesswork.

promising new Left Coast on youth organizing in the US, starting in on it now

https://soundcloud.com/leftcoastpodcast/north-bae-004-the-dictatorship-of-the-teen#t=0:00

Meanwhile, Alex Jones is posting Rosa Luxemburg quotes. Happy American Thanksgiving!

pic.twitter.com/N18dkYTqMd

— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) January 14, 2017

Ha, leftie pods are popping up quick enough to start stepping on each other’s names

Left Coast:
@leftcoastpod
podcast about leftism for west coast idiots by los angeles trash comedians @shutupandrosky and @heysarajune. new ep every wednesday, DMs open

http://leftcoastpod.libsyn.com/

Left Coast Media:
@LeftPod
Interviewing leftists from the best coast and beyond. Follow @chekainformant, @communalsauce, and @rrrrn.

https://m.soundcloud.com/leftcoastpodcast

Beast Coast Podcast:

@BeastCoastPod
East coast is the beast coast. A #leftpod covering culture and philosophy from @the_admo, @lostcosmonaut84, @rayagun19, and @garthotron
beastcoastpodcast.com

Jeeze

Somebody elsewhere mentioned about how leftie folks are taking to podcasts like RW schmucks did to YT

This is probly of heavy relevance:

Both Verso & Haymarket are now running half-off sales til year’s end, with bundled ebooks where available

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3495-50-off-all-our-books

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/55-50-off-holiday-gifts-for-the-red-on-your-list

I’m currently reading this: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2062-the-s-word

Last Verso I read:

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2465-humankind

Is anybody on Tim Faust’s health justice email list? He sent out an update today, and I had to laugh due to two things:

1. He sent it out from “T-Bone Faust,” which is a rare nickname that works for both Coen Bros collaborator and Coen Bros character

2. The opener is almost word-for-word matching a certain Onion columnist:

Hello friends,

This one's long. It’s been a minute since I got to last speak with you.

You can read his missive and sign up for the list here

I earnestly love that dude so much

<3 beavis wallpaper

All eyes on Illinois

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/28/politics/illinois-house-dsa-carlos-ramirez-rosa-chuy-garcia/index.html

^ strategically this makes no sense to me

because there's already a "progressive" running?

yes. why go after an early Sanders supporter who's an automatic yes vote on single-payer?

what is gained?

I would guess that they feel particularly strongly about Rosa's local popularity but otherwise I can't speak to the wisdom or lack thereof. Single payer isn't the only issue to be concerned about. (Then again, as yet, DSA has yet to officially endorse him AFAIK.)

What is the podcast equivalent for those of us who prefer music to podcasts and therefore never listen to podcasts? I mean, apart from hardcore punk lol

xp Garcia and Ramirez-Rosa are going to vote the same on practically every issue of consequence. What's the point of replacing a guy who's 95% left with a guy who's 100% left?

think you're right, there must be some local angle

What is the podcast equivalent for those of us who prefer music to podcasts and therefore never listen to podcasts? I mean, apart from hardcore punk lol

What about Algiers and, uh, Downtown Boys(who are more post-hardcore, really)?

If I understand correctly, I think imago is looking for short podcasts.

I doubt that

imago have u ever deep-listened to Crass' Penis Envy? That's my suggestion.

i was a big fan of motherfucker, aka m-f. episodes about 10 minutes long. it was the realest. they stopped doing it after about 10 episodes though. it was really hard to search for.

I doubt the q is "what is music that I can listen to instead of podcasts and get the same political insight", or at least I hope it isn't, 'cause that's a crazy question.

m-f feels (felt?) pretty punk rock. stripped down to the barest nub of honesty and humor and conversation and swearing. short eps. an ineffable sense of what the kids today call "moving the culture forward". it's not political in the way this thread is looking for in general though

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/m-f/id1241489297?mt=2

I was listening to Flux of Pink Indians yesterday and Rudimentary Peni today. I suppose it makes sense to listen to Crass next

socialist economic darling/enfant terrible Matt Bruenig made an appearance (his first, I assume?) in the NYT today:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/opinion/inequality-social-wealth-fund.html

RE: DSA/Garcia/Rosa, I don’t think a DSA endorsement of Rosa would matter very much. Gutierrez has endorsed Garcia and that counts a lot. Gutierrez is overwhelmingly popular in IL-4 and hasn’t gotten less that 74% of the vote in the last two primaries. I can’t imagine his constituents going against anyone he anoints as a successor.

I gotta say, while I agree (mostly) with their platform, I don't understand what the DSA is trying to do strategically.

The tea party template would seem to be the best approach—obtaining guarantees of support for single-payer, education debt reform and "no" votes on Near Eastern wars from center-left candidates under credible threat of a primary.

But this looks like typical progressive infighting.

AFAICT they haven't run any candidates that have served to prevent Dem-identifying candidates from getting elected

Any chance they can take to run someone and promote socialist ideals and proposals without getting republicans elected is fine by me

Well, that's the thing—they don't actually run anyone. They just endorse them. So they should use *that* as a bargaining chip—in safe districts, obviously—to pull the libs further left.

It worked for the right.

That was their old model, more or less, as I understand it. With the influx of new blood less interested in trying to "reform" or influence the Democratic party, that's changed somewhat. One of the major national slates discussed the difference between electoral strategy vs "electoralism" here https://www.dsamomentum.org/platform/

More broadly, the electoral plank is (again, this is based only on what I've read) just one thing they're interested in and not the principal focus.