TTC Workers, the Coronavirus, Wet'suwet'en, Cuba & more -- February and March on The Left Chapter in review

February 1 seems like an awful long time ago!

February and March saw 149 posts of various kinds on The Left Chapter.

The posts have, needless to say, become dominated in the last 2 to 3 weeks by the capitalist coronavirus crisis and the fight to prevent workers being the ones who pay for it. You can see a roundup of these posts at: Not on the Backs of Workers! -- The Capitalist Coronavirus Crisis News on The Left Chapter

Before the crisis exploded we had some special features such as a series of daily posts of vintage photographs of Che Guevara during the month of February. These were from a Soviet archive and you can see them all at: 32 Photos of Che Guevara from 1943 - 1967.

The period also saw the launch of Nathaniel Laxer's podcast Hellworld. The most recent episode was Exile -- Hellworld #7.

Aidan Monis, a teacher in Toronto, contributed the powerful Teachers change kids' lives: An Open Letter to Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario, and Stephen Lecce, Minister of Education.

If you have an article, editorial, analysis, recipe or story you would like to contribute there are details on how to do so on our Submissions page as well as at the end of this post.

There were a large number of articles that came very close to making the list such as 4 Tweets tell the tale of another week in the life of the NDP and Stop the falsification of history and persecution in Poland!.

Our top food related post (in terms of hits) was: Marinated Steak and Swiss Sandwiches on Rye

Thanks very much to all our readers and contributors.

Without any further ado, here are the top six posts, in terms of hits, from February and March.

1) TTC plans to eliminate the subway guard and when people hear about it they are not happy


Did you hear the news? After raising fares and hiring more goons, trying to shame riders with idiotic, condescending new fare evasion posters and admitting that the Eglinton LRT construction  is running way behind schedule, it turns out the folks running the TTC are planning to get rid of the subway guard position on subway trains.

Read more!

2) Panic buying and hoarding are a function of capitalism

As the capitalist coronavirus crisis unfolds and people across North America (and around the world) face quarantine for two weeks or more coupled with the prospect of lost income, we have seen scenes of what has been described as "panic buying" as well as instances of hoarding. People are stalking up on food -- especially non-perishables like canned goods and pasta -- as well as, most famously, on items like toilet paper.

Read more!

3) Art and Artists of the Soviet Crimea, 1957 -- 15 Paintings

Published in 1957 in the USSR this folder of 15 cards looked at the art and artists of the Soviet Crimea. The works here were painted between 1946 and 1956.

Read more!

4) 18 Postcard Images of Soviet Stavropol, 1972

Published in 1972, this packet of 18 particularly vivid photographs showed images of the Russian city of Stavropol which is south of Rostov-on-Don and Volgograd. At this time it was a rapidly growing administrative, cultural and industrial city with a population of around 250,000.

Read more!

5) RCMP launches violent raids into Wet’suwet’en territory

The RCMP launched a violent pre-dawn raid into Wet’suwet’en territory this morning in British Columbia to enforce an injunction on behalf of Coastal GasLink against land defenders.

Read more!

6) "The miracle we are performing...could not be performed in a capitalist society" -- Cuban socialism's remarkable accomplishments despite the criminal, imperialist blockade

February 7 marked the anniversary of the imposition of the illegal and criminal, imperialist economic blockade of Cuba by the United States in 1962. Over the course of the last near sixty years of trying to strangle the Cuban economy and destroy its socialist system as a viable alternative in Latin America it has cost the Cuba at least $130 billion US according to the United Nations.

Read more!

Do you have a left point-of-view or opinion, event or petition, a recipe or a story you want to share?

Send them to The Left Chapter via theleftchapter@outlook.com!

Canadians need to demand an immediate end to criminal imperialist sanctions

Cuban medical team arrives in Belize to help fight the coronavirus outbreak

As the capitalist coronavirus crisis increasingly highlights the inability of the "advanced" capitalist countries to even take care of their own citizens adequately let alone engage in international solidarity actions, socialist Cuba has risen to the occasion.

Cuba has a long tradition of humanitarian internationalism and has sent doctors around the world for decades to help in times of crisis or to build public health infrastructure (see: "The miracle we are performing...could not be performed in a capitalist society" -- Cuban socialism's remarkable accomplishments despite the criminal, imperialist blockade). As the Cuba Solidarity Campaign noted in an open letter against the continuing criminal American blockade of the island:

The island’s altruistic response to the global emergency continues a long history of Cuban humanitarianism. In the last 56 years 400,000 Cuban health workers have responded to natural disasters and helped build health services in 164 nations. This includes sending medical brigades to Pakistan in the aftermath of the Kashmiri earthquake (2005), to Haiti to assist with the devastating cholera outbreak following the earthquake (2010), and to West Africa in the region’s fight against Ebola (2015). Cuba has also trained 35,613 health professionals from 138 countries at its Latin American Medical School since 1998.

Despite American attempts to slander these efforts, Cuba is pursuing them now and providing desperately needed medical aid in spite of the blockade. The letter noted some of these:

In recent days the island has sent highly skilled medical brigades to many countries including Italy, Grenada, Jamaica, Nicaragua and Venezuela to support foreign health services overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis.
On 18 March the Cuban government offered safe haven to passengers of the stricken British cruise ship MS Braemar allowing it to dock in Havana when many other countries had refused. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab publicly thanked Cuba for this assistance in a statement to the UK parliament.
It has also made its anti-viral drug Interferon Alpha B available to nations around the world to help in the treatment of patients infected with COVID-19.

In fact, over 45 countries have asked Cuba for Interferon to treat Covid-19. In addition to the above, Cuba is sending doctors to Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, and Argentina. Countries like Brazil, whose government expelled Cuban doctors from communities when fascist Bolsonaro took power, are asking for Cuban doctors to return.

Meanwhile, in contrast to this kind of humanitarian work the United States continues to impose cruel and sweeping economic sanctions not only against Cuba but also countries like Venezuela and Iran.

In the case of Venezuela the Americans are actually increasing the pressure with absurd criminal charges against some of the country's leaders including placing a $15 million bounty on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro himself like out of some pathetic old John Wayne movie.

The World Peace Council outlined the barbarity of the situation in a statement on March 27:

This decision of the US-administration constitutes not only a further escalation in the provocations, coercive measures and interference against a sovereign country, it proves also the cynical and arrogant approach of the USA, which is using the critical times of the pandemic of COVID 19 worldwide, to impose new additional sanctions on the country and its people. The people of Venezuela are already suffering from the sanctions and restrictions imposed by the US imperialists and its allies from EU and the “Lima Group”, which do not allow the country to purchase medicine and other vital products since more than one year. It is the same forces who recognize a self-proclaimed puppet as their “chosen leader” against any legitimacy, logic and international law and it is the same forces which do not allow during the COVID 19 crisis the country to buy and provide technical equipment and health products for the National Health System in the international markets.

The Lima Group, of course, is essentially led by Canada.

The International Monetary Fund also refused a plea by the Venezuelan government for $5 billion in emergency relief

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova quite rightly stated that American sanctions against Venezuela under these circumstances could result in an avoidable humanitarian catastrophe that would amount to a genocide.

There are mounting global calls to end or ease the sanctions to avoid the possible deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has spoken out. Talking about continued American efforts against Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and other countries she noted:

The majority of these states have frail or weak health systems...obstacles to the import of vital medical supplies, including over-compliance with sanctions by banks, will create long-lasting harm to vulnerable communities. The populations in these countries are in no way responsible for the policies being targeted by sanctions, and to varying degrees have already been living in a precarious situation for prolonged periods.

Even in the empire itself some politicians are demanding a change of course.  Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as well as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have called for sanctions to be at least partially waived. Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy penned a letter co-signed by 10 other Democrats in Congress also calling for this that read in part:

It hurts our nation’s security and our moral standing in the world when our sanctions policy results in innocent people dying. I am particularly concerned about the impact of sanctions on the COVID-19 response in Iran and Venezuela.

It is essential that pressure is put on the American administration to end the criminal sanctions before it is too late.

Canada has played a disgraceful role in trying to sanction and overthrow the democratically elected, legitimate government of Venezuela.

Despite this, and despite Canada's alleged opposition to the blockade of Cuba and many of the sanctions against Iran, there has not been a peep from the Trudeau government in recent days demanding even just a temporary suspension.

Nor has Canada's "social democratic" party, the NDP -- whose position on Venezuela is perhaps best described as incoherent support for American sock puppet stooge Guaido -- had anything officially to say.

The time is long overdue for all progressive Canadians to demand an end to the sanctions immediately. Continuing to impose them on countries during a global pandemic cannot be seen as anything other than a crime against humanity.

Canadians have to decide if they want their government to be complicit in it.

The centre did not hold

An Italian supermarket worker

When the epic horror story that is the capitalist coronavirus crisis is finally over the truth will be that the centre did not hold. Things had already fallen apart, but somehow many needed a catastrophe to truly show it.

For over a generation politicians of all stripes -- including  "social democrats" like Tony Blair and Roy Romanow and Democrats and liberals like Jean Chrétien, and Bill Clinton -- have devastated civil society, the social safety net, social solidarity and the institutions that were meant to protect working people.


After the trauma of the Great Depression and the Second World War, and with the alternative of a developing and seemingly energetic Soviet Union and Socialist Bloc, the capitalists were pushed into a post-war "compromise". Workers in the advanced west would get unions, middle-class wages, cars and homes, opportunity for their kids, and some semblance of job and social security in the hope that they would eschew a more radical alternative or communism.

The social democratic parties like Labour in the UK and the NDP in Canada bought into this fully. They became an essential electoral outlet that told working people that they had some version of "representation" in parliaments and legislatures while, when in power, actually selling them out in virtually every case. "Power" became an exercise in quisling attempts to prove that they would be good little capitalist managers and they, too, would stand firm in defense of the "western" system.

When the neo-liberal era dawned and the "death" of communism seemed to be the end of history no one bought into the new paradigm more than social democrats who were certain that they could build a new capitalism that would include everyone as "stakeholders" and that would truly allow equality of opportunity.

Of course, it was all a lie.

Over the last three decades inequality has risen to near feudal levels in virtually every respect. Not only is inequality staggering in terms of wages and lifestyles, but any semblance of democracy that once existed has been shown to be a sham from the rigged primaries and elections in the United States to the near Shakespearean tragedy that was the utter capitulation of Syriza in Greece.

The "left" gleefully participated in destroying the "welfare state" from Tony Blair's "Cool Britannia" to the saxophone prison state of Bill Clinton, to the neo-con "Liberal" budget in Canada of 1995 to the squandered opportunities of NDP governments from Nova Scotia to Ontario to British Columbia now.

Among the many travesties were the devastation of public health institutions and the decimation of laws protecting working people and, for example, renters.

When the 2008 crisis came the companies and banks were bailed out, but working people were allowed to drown. Barack Obama gave Wall St. criminals a pass and the penalty for corporate malfeasance was massive corporate welfare.

While there have been flashes of backlash against this in Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn the truth is that they have not led to much. They have failed, nobly perhaps, to change the disastrous course we are on. Sanders lingers in the Democratic primary at the moment, but it does not matter at all in terms of how this unfolding nightmare will play out other than in rearguard attempts to build enough public pressure to prevent the absolute worst. A worthwhile effort to be sure, but not one coming from a place of power.

With the coronavirus we are seeing the reality of the corporate state laid bare.

The corporations and their hired staff political class have built an economy and society that is entirely based around corporate power and the fantasy that "economic growth" meant something for everyone.

After having sold the public on tax cuts, contracted out public services and endless cutbacks, the corporations and the wealthy have being doing extraordinarily well while supposedly "advanced" countries like the United States and Canada lack sufficient hospital beds or infrastructure to cope with what is now on the horizon.

When we look, as working people, in vain for allies we see governments like the NDP in British  Columbia refusing at first to stop evictions by greedy landlords in the truly terrible housing market of Vancouver while also allowing mass concentrations of workers to continue to build colonial and environmentally destructive pipelines despite the obvious and terrible health risk this poses.

It is grotesque. It is appalling. It is enraging. It is predictable.

Some fightback has and will begin. We can only work to make sure it is not too late to prevent the mass destitution of millions of North American workers all while this terrible illness spreads exponentially.

But even if we do salvage some semblance of justice and fairness for working people during this terrible time we must remember that what the coronavirus has shown us is that the society we live in is built on fictions and injustice.

And that when the time came and the cases of illness and death spiraled out of control, the right spoke of opening the economy back up anyway even if that killed hundreds of thousands while the left fiddled with half-measures and its own impotence.

In the immediate future we are very likely to see the already greatly emboldened western far right encouraged and gaining momentum in this context of immense disempowerment and displacement.

To counter this will require a mass movement and a new anti-capitalist vision. We know that this will not be forthcoming from the parties of the institutionalized "left". The rotten edifices of parties like the Democrats and the NDP are corrupted by parliamentarianism and a fundamental faith in the system. Large elements of the Labour Party worked to destroy Corbyn, for example, because when push comes to shove they would rather have the Conservatives in power than an actual socialist. We need to move far beyond the notion that fairness is just a little bit of tinkering away or that by electing this or that candidate in an old-line party we can achieve transformative change.

This is by no means an easy task and I am not suggesting that a blueprint exists for how to do it, but when "Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned;", such is the moment for the left to rise again out of the ashes of the old order.

It had best lest it is the rough beast of fascism that slouches instead towards Bethlehem to be born.

Watkins explains the Waffle alternative, January 1972 -- Daily LIFT #120

Watkins explains the Waffle alternative, January 1972 -- Daily LIFT #120

Report in the "Pro Tem" student newspaper from the Glendon campus of York University on a meeting held by the Waffle, the Movement for an Independent Socialist Canada, at which one of the Waffle's leaders Mel Watkins spoke.

This was after the 1971 NDP leadership convention at which the Waffle stunned the party establishment when its candidate for leader, James Laxer, did far better than expected. Laxer is on the left in the photo and Watkins on the right.

Just a few months after this article was published the Waffle was expelled from the party at the behest of the Lewis family leadership clique and their allies in June, 1972. It was a stunning act of political cowardice that has had ramifications on the NDP's dictatorial political culture to this day.

Further readings: Fifty years later it is time to acknowledge the Waffle was wrong

On the 40th anniversary of the expulsion of the Waffle

The Saskatchewan NDP wants to consult with business before committing to banning replacement workers because of course it does

Unifor leader Jerry Dias arrested on the Co-op picket line

Against the backdrop of one of the most significant labour disputes in Saskatchewan  -- and even arguably Canada as a whole -- in many years the provincial NDP has let it be known that to the great rallying cry "which side are you on" their answer to workers is, for now, no one's.

The ongoing Co-op refinery lockout has seen heightened union militancy due to efforts by the company to break the union by using replacement workers. This has led to union roadblocks, arrests of senior union leaders, threats by the police and courts and a refreshing stance of unity by many national union leaders.

While it is both perfectly obvious that this entire confrontation would have been avoided if the province had anti-scab legislation -- and while such legislation is a basic and fundamental demand of the union movement that you would think would be reflected by Canada's alleged party of labour, the NDP -- the provincial NDP is refusing to commit to such legislation in the unlikely event it were to ever win power.

David Forbes, labour critic for the Saskatchewan NDP "said the NDP will discuss any proposals with “both sides,” presumably meaning employers and labour. He expects the current lockout at the refinery will provide “a lot of lessons learned.”"

With all due respect, Mr. Forbes, those lessons were learned a very long time ago and that comment is bullshit. It is yet another in the endless examples of the NDP seeking to claim it will be a fair and unbiased manager of the capitalist state. Forbes even used the disgraceful and reactionary term "stakeholders" when talking about workers and the bosses as if there is somehow two sides to labour disputes like the Co-op one or something akin to equality in power and influence between unions and corporations.

Ontario anti-poverty activist John Clarke called out the Saskatchewan NDP on Twitter for this and actually got a response from its leader.

If it has been seen to "level the playing field" and "avoid lengthy disruptive labour disputes" then why does it need to be "explored". Why not simply advocate for it as, obviously, it "levels the playing field" in favour of workers and unions.

But that is exactly what the NDP is worried about. Simply advocating for this might make the party appear to be too pro-worker or as on the side of workers and they can't have that.

Corporate and fossil fuel industry quisling Rachel Notley showed this old and tired rule from the NDP playbook when on her very first day in "power" in Alberta she said ""I'm going to be making phone calls today to leaders within the energy industry to begin those conversations. They can count on us to work collaboratively with them."

Of course, industry is totally uninterested in working collaboratively with unions, workers or the NDP, but why not just sell the farm in advance? It is a time-honoured NDP tradition.

As I have noted before "At times it is like the so many New Democrats and their supporters who love to share the 'Mouseland' parable that Tommy Douglas made famous have entirely missed its point. It is not going to be a government by and for the mice if it wants to find "common cause" with the cats.'

When it comes to the struggle between corporations that have not had as much power as they do now for decades and workers who have not had so little, if you say you want to talk to "all stakeholders" and "both sides" you are on the side of the bosses.

Period.

Trudeau dodges, Horgan and Singh contort on Wet'suwet'en, the RCMP and UNDRIP

On the same day NDP leader Jagmeet Singh revealed that he was open to Canada footing the security bill for Royal castaways Harry and Meghan, he also came a little more out of the shadows in de facto support of fellow NDPer and BC Premier John Horgan's colonialist line on Wet'suwet'en and the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Singh has tried to deflect any blame for the standoff from Horgan and his social democratic swamp of deepening hypocrisy by expressing "concern" over the actions of the RCMP which he paints as the fault of the federal Trudeau government.


Hence, as we have pointed out before, the farce of tweets like this one:

First, Singh himself, unlike the federal Green Party, is not actually yet calling for the RCMP to withdraw from Wet'suwet'en territory. He has only said they “should be careful,” and, as we all know, that is sure to make the RCMP think twice before acting.

Further, Singh is now echoing the misleading  propaganda of folks like Horgan and Trudeau that tries to divide and conquer with rhetoric of how "“the vast majority” of elected First Nations officials and communities along the proposed route support the project" as if that somehow overrides the concerns and opposition of the Hereditary Chiefs who do not. This is an old and ugly tactic.

It is difficult to reconcile this with Singh's role as federal NDP Indigenous affairs critic, especially given ongoing protests such as the temporary occupation of the office for the BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources on Wednesday and the statement of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) that unequivocally noted that the "Wet’suwet’en Jurisdiction and Governance Must be Upheld". 

Horgan has made his commitment to pushing the project through very clear. He was profoundly dismissive of the Hereditary Chiefs in his comments on Monday saying "I'm not going to drop everything I'm doing to come running when someone is saying they need to speak with me...I'm not being disrespectful, I'm just saying be realistic here" as if the chiefs are somehow cranks or lobbyists demanding unreasonable attention from the imperial overlord.

Of course, were they actually industry lobbyists Horgan probably would meet with them, though the $10,000 dinner fee getting a one-on-one with him for resource industry corporate talking heads that was the price tag back in 2016 is not the option it once was.

Horgan also tried to say that his government's alleged commitment to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) does not apply in this case since it was "meant to be forward looking, not backward looking" as the CBC paraphrased it, meaning projects that violate it that have already been approved must barrel ahead.

"There is no negotiating to be done," he claimed. 

Perhaps sensing that this is not playing terribly well with significant sections of the NDP's voting base, Horgan did soften this stance somewhat when later on Monday he "sent a letter to Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief Nam’oks on Monday, saying he would like to send the province’s minister of Indigenous relations and reconciliation" for talks in his stead.

The NDP leadership both federally and in BC should be concerned with the federal Green Party being far stronger in its support for both the rights of the Hereditary Chiefs and the principles of UNDRIP.

In a press release Green Party MP Paul Manly said:

The fact that the RCMP have been sent in shows that this is a political failure on the part of the provincial and federal governments. The Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs provided alternative routes to Coastal GasLink that would have been acceptable to them as a pipeline corridor. Coastal GasLink decided that it did not want to take those acceptable options and instead insisted on a route that drives the pipeline through ecologically pristine and culturally important areas...
...Greens call on B.C. Premier Horgan to meet with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs as quickly as possible. We also want the B.C. government to address this situation through the lens of UNDRIP. Since UNDRIP was brought in to address historic injustice, how can it be ignored in order to allow this injustice to persist? The Wet'sowet'en hereditary chiefs have jurisdiction over their traditional territories, and they clearly have not given their consent.

Green Party Parliamentary Leader Elizabeth May stated further that “British Columbia recently enacted new legislation in line with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). This situation undermines the constitutional role played by the hereditary chiefs."

Prime Minister Trudeau, of course, is very happy to leave the ball entirely in Horgan's court stating “It’s a provincial project and provincial processes. It is being well taken care of by the provincial government.” This is mildly clever, if typically disingenuous.

Still, despite all of Horgan's attempts to claim matters as somehow out of his hands due to the "rule of law", it is a provincial project that would never have gone ahead without the NDP offering up billions of dollars in tax and other incentives and issuing all the necessary permits. The NDP provided all of these incentives despite also turning around and telling BC teachers that their "demands for (a) pay increase don’t square with balanced budget".

Meanwhile the RCMP, having set up roadblocks, now also "admits it’s deploying “air assets” to monitor Indigenous land defenders". Matters are coming to a head and if history is any guide the RCMP, when it acts, will do so with great violence, threats, arrests and brutality. Future progressives will likely not judge Trudeau, Horgan or Singh too kindly unless they take steps now to force a change of course.

NDP partisans have long sought to portray the Green Party as little more than "conservatives with composters". Whatever the accuracy of that moniker, Singh and Horgan had best watch out as they are increasingly -- along with the best past efforts of former Alberta Premier Rachel Notley -- making the NDP look like the corporate apologists the Liberals are, only with dusty old copies of the Regina Manifesto hidden in a desk drawer somewhere.

Further Readings: 

Horgan, Trudeau and Singh show once more "progressive" rhetoric about reconciliation is a sham

Open Letter to Jagmeet Singh regarding Trans Mountain, Site C and Coastal GasLink

Soleimani Assassination, Australian Bushfires, Bolivia & more -- The Week in News, Opinion and Videos December 29 - January 5

This week's list of articles, news items, opinion pieces and videos that I see as a must if you are looking for a roundup that should be of interest to The Left Chapter readers.

This list covers the week of  December 29 - January 5.

The round-up links, videos and photos are presented in sections related to topic/region listed alphabetically except for links and videos related to the Soleimani assassination and the fallout from it which are at the start along with a new "Featured Article" post.

Featured Article:

- America is guilty of everything we accuse Iran of doing

Soleimani Assassination: 

- Iran ends nuclear deal commitments as fallout from Suleimani killing spreads

- Trump's adventurism and killing of Soleimani destabilizes the Middle East and World -- A The Left Chapter overview




- Trump threatens Iran will pay ‘a very big price’ over US embassy protests in Baghdad

- Who Was Qassem Soleimani and Why Was He Targeted by the US?

- The Killing of Qassem Suleimani Is Tantamount to an Act of War

- Donald Trump has blundered into a crisis of his own making with Iran

- 'World War III' Trends as Hawks Rejoice at Trump Decision to Assassinate Iranian Military Leader

- Donald Trump’s assassination of Qassem Suleimani will come back to haunt him

- Soleimani's death will give Iran renewed legitimacy

- US deploys thousands more troops to Middle East after Trump-ordered airstrike kills Iran general

- Suleimani killing the latest in a long, grim line of US assassination efforts

- Bernie Sanders Condemns Trump for Putting US on Path to 'Another Disastrous War in the Middle East'

- Hundreds of Thousands of Iranians Flood Streets to Condemn US Assassination of Qassem Soleimani

- Anti-Isis coalition suspends operations as Iraqi MPs vote to expel US troops

- Trump is starting a war with Iran – whether it is by accident or design

- Communist Party Says “No” to Trump war with Iran

- STOP THE US DRIVE TO A NEW WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

- Thousands Take to Streets in More Than 70 Cities Across US to Protest Trump's "Reckless Acts of War" Against Iran

- WPC Statement on the criminal attack of the US on Baghdad airport

Australian Bushfires:

- The climate war is here

- Australia, your country is burning – dangerous climate change is here with you now

- Australia bushfires: towns devastated and lives lost as blazes turn the sky red

- Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison Heckled for Insufficient Response to Bushfires by Residents of Devastated Community

- Australians Brace For Flames As 'Frighteningly Quick' Bushfires Advance Toward Sydney

- Paradise lost: residents flee Eden as Australia fires race towards them

- We are seeing the very worst of our scientific predictions come to pass in these bushfires

- Australia fires create plume of smoke wider than Europe as humanitarian crisis looms

- Tony Abbott, former Australian PM, tells Israeli radio the world is 'in the grip of a climate cult'

- 'Unprecedented National Crisis': Australians Flee to the Water as Fires Consume Coastal Town on Southern Coast in Victoria

Bolivia:

- Evo Morales: Bolivia’s Top Judge Must Take Charge, Call Elections

- Evo Introduces Legal Team to Fight Coup Government Accusations

- Mexico Ratifies Asylum to Bolivian Refugees in Its Embassy

- Bolivia's TSE Ratifies MAS Participation for The 2020 Elections

- Spain Expels 3 Bolivian Diplomats in Tit-For-Tat Move

- Bolivia Expels Mexican Ambassador Amid Ongoing Diplomatic Row

Brazil:

- Meet the Intellectual Founder of Brazil’s Far Right

- Dreams of Dictatorship and the Nightmare of Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro

- Brazilians on Bolsonaro's first year: 'If you disagree, you're seen as a traitor'

Canada:

- Top CEOs made as much as average worker earns in a year by mid-morning today

- Capitalism and colonialism: hiding the past on stolen land

Climate Emergency:

- Against Recycling

- Amazon threatens to fire employees who speak out on climate change

- It's Not Just You—Wild Swings in Extreme Weather Are Rising

- Germany cuts fares for long-distance rail travel in response to climate crisis

Europe:

- Portugal’s Left Bloc Says It Will Abstain or Vote Against Budget

- Thousands of far-right Ukrainians honour Nazi-linked nationalist Stepan Bandera in march through Kyiv

Feminism / Women's Rights:

- The Cyprus case shows how easily rape victims are let down and distrusted

French Strikes:

- French unions heading for showdown with Macron on pensions

- On Day 29, French rail strike makes history

Global:



Ideas:

- Antisemitism has been used to smear the left, while the right targets Jews

- Conservatives have adapted to new realities that liberals don't understand - but the left must try to

India:

- Right-wing goons attack students, faculty at India’s Jawaharlal Nehru University

- Hundreds attend CPI(M), Congress joint anti-CAA protest

- Many Indian states 'will not implement' Modi's citizenship law

- 'Won't leave': Women lead protest in India capital's Muslim area

Israel / Palestine:

- Israel: A model for the far right

- Palestinian journalist tortured in Israeli prison

New Democratic Party:

- Fifty years later it is time to acknowledge the Waffle was wrong

- Singh disavows the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, shows NDP's true colours again

- Here are some reasons why the B.C. NDP needs to watch its back

Porn & Prostitution:

- Porn site to pay $12.7m to women who didn't know videos would be posted

South & Central America:



- Latin America: A Decade in Review

- Colombia: Over 10,000 Homicides, 230 Activists Killed in 2019

- 61 Years Strong: Cuba’s Revolution Lives On Despite Blockade

- Ecuador: Judge Releases Leftist Activists Accused of Rebellion

Spain:

- Pedro Sánchez loses first vote, after highly charged investiture debate

- Spain: Electoral Authority Disqualifies Catalonia's President

- PSOE-Podemos governing plan will see hikes on taxes and the minimum wage

Tim Hortons:

- Homeless advocates furious after Tim Hortons removes all tables and chairs

- Tim Hortons staff locked out, replaced over dime hourly raise

United Kingdom:

- UK could forfeit security council seat over Chagos Islands dispute

- British fascists join Johnson’s Conservative Party

- UK Muslims demand investigation of Conservative Party’s Islamophobia

- Labour's Long Bailey sets out stall to replace Corbyn and fight for a socialist Britain

United States:

- Donald Trump vows to put prayer in schools during rally to shore up evangelical support

- 'Your Body Being Used': Where Prisoners Who Can't Vote Fill Voting Districts

- US: Auto Plant Closures Tied to Surge in Opioid Overdose Deaths

- In Los Angeles, Number Of Homeless Homicide Victims Rising

- Holding Pens for the Homeless

Venezuela:

- Venezuelan Opposition Rejects Juan Guaido's Leadership

Singh disavows the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, shows NDP's true colours again

In a predictable and totally revealing turn of events, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh seems to have joined the ranks of politicians like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Justin Trudeau and the leadership of Israel on the issue of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid.

According to Rabbis Edward Elkin, Baruch Frydman-Kohl and Chaim Strauchler in the Canadian Jewish News, during an interview on December 18, 2019, Singh stated "that the NDP supports the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism as an educational tool to help policy makers address the ever-evolving scourge of Jew-hatred."

You can listen to the interview at a link below.

Just five days prior to this, Kenneth Stern, who drafted the IHRA working definition wrote again in the Guardian of how he had disavowed it as "rightwing Jews are weaponizing it".

Going even further Singh:

...unequivocally condemned BDS, stating that it “creates tensions and divisions,” and “does not advance peace.” Singh stated that neither he nor the NDP support BDS, believing that it is not “the right path forward.”
Singh spoke positively of his 2016 fact-finding mission to Israel, about the Jewish state’s nation-building experiment, its contribution to technological innovation, the revival of Hebrew as a language, and the diverse and complex range of political positions among Israelis. He condemned Iran and supported sanctions against the regime, while still seeking cautious ways, alongside tough sanctions, to engage that country in order to change its behaviour.

The authors contrast Singh positively with UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who, of course, was the victim of an unrelenting smear campaign on this issue.

You can listen to the podcast here: CIJA Podcast – Jagmeet Singh.

This is a terrible, appalling position. While he says he opposes attempts to ban the movement on free speech grounds, he clearly states that both he and the NDP oppose BDS starting at around the 28 minute mark in the podcast.

The NDP, over and over again, tells us exactly what it is. As I have said before, it is time for us to listen.

Fare Evasion Frauds, NDP Debacles, Racism in Canada & more -- 2019 on The Left Chapter in review

2019 saw over 470 posts of various kinds on The Left Chapter. These ranged from analysis to opinion pieces to left history to art and recipe posts.

Consistently popular were our vintage postcard and photography posts such as On Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands - A Photographic Trip to the Soviet Far East, 1973 and Sofia, Bulgaria 1973 -- 19 Vintage Postcards and Images. We continued with our Republics of the Soviet Union series in posts like The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic 1987: Photos, Culture, Economy, History & more.


Meanwhile the Vintage Leftist Leaflet project is ongoing with posts like The World Communist Movement: Yesterday and Today, 1983 and "An Act of Solidarity in Angola" - Speech by Fidel Castro, 1975. Readers can look forward to many more of these in 2020.

We debuted our new feature the Daily LIFT (Leftist Image for Today) with posts like Eugene V. Debs Portrait, 1919 -- Daily LIFT #7 while having extensive coverage of the attempted coup in Venezuela, the coup in Bolivia, international news and events with our weekly round-ups and issues such as the Parkdale NDP nomination debacle as well the Kafkaesque fiasco that unfolded with other NDP nominations in the lead up to the election.

The disgraceful capitulation of the Liberal government to imperialist narratives were looked at in the posts Which of these countries is not like the other? -- A Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland Imperialism Quiz! and Canadian hypocrisy and double standards in South and Central America on full display and others, some of which made this list.

I want to thank all of our readers and contributors very much for their feedback, support, criticisms and engagement.

The year had many posts that came very, very close to making this list. We also had contributions from writers that were widely read and shared, including three that made this top of the year list.

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed this year and I look forward to seeing what interesting viewpoints and arguments we see next year.

(Remember that if you have a left point-of-view or opinion, a recipe or a story you want to share or if you want to share a petition/appeal or upcoming event you can send them to The Left Chapter via theleftchapter@outlook.com!)

Readers can look forward to new features in 2020. Remember also to watch for our list of the top food and recipe posts of 2019 early in the new year.

While normally we have the top ten posts, this year after we had already started our countdown a new post Canada has a racism problem and the fact so many Canadians think we don't is a part of it, did so well that it made this list at #4 so we have expanded the list to eleven so that nothing gets bumped off.

Here, without further ado, are the top eleven posts (in terms of hits) on The Left Chapter in 2019:

#1) The "fare evasion" narrative on the TTC is a total fraud. Here's why.

Every year the same line is trotted out by the TTC and various civic politicians in Toronto with the damage done monetarily always increasing from 20 to 40 to now allegedly over $60 million a year. Fare evasion, they say, is a serious problem and then they tsk-tsk about the "cheaters" and the need for more enforcement and get to shift the narrative of blame about the TTC's woes from themselves and decades of mismanagement, incompetence and underfunding to those mean and nasty freeloaders, i.e. TTC riders themselves.

(See also: The policing of fare evasion reveals the twisted agenda of our politicians)

#2) Of course Ford has not revealed plans for the TTC "Ontario Line". It will never be built.

Of course -- with many detours, delays and fake routes still to come -- in the end likely nothing gets built which will be blamed by Doug Ford and his stooges on the federal government, Toronto City Council, aliens or whatever.

It doesn't really matter who they say was at fault, nothing getting built was almost certainly the plan all along.

(See also: Higher TTC fares, more fake cops and a cancelled LRT -- Ontario's politicians ring in the holiday with a boot to the face for transit users)

#3) Green Party RA President steps down citing "racism", demands Green leadership apologize to Jagmeet Singh

By Ammario Reza


The president of the Saint John East provincial Green Party riding association has stepped down from his position late Sunday night. In a Facebook post Kevin (Kage) O’Donnell blasted the Greens for being what he described as “a party that allows people who promote...racism”

#4) Canada has a racism problem and the fact so many Canadians think we don't is a part of it

Perhaps after an election where Justin Trudeau was exposed for having worn blackface on several occasions and yet not only was not forced to resign as Liberal leader but was ultimately reelected as Prime Minster (albeit with a minority) it should not come as a surprise that "49 per cent of Canadians don't think racism is a serious problem in the country".

(See also: For Horgan "peaceful resolution" apparently flows from the barrel of a gun)

#5) Where Does the NDP Stand on Venezuela?

Entirely predictably it would appear the NDP is going over to the imperialist camp.

(See also: In Venezuela as in Chile, what is past is prologue)

#6) The election results in Toronto tell a story the NDP does not want to hear


The NDP's Toronto federal election results really put the lie to a number of the narratives their partisans and organizers are trying to spin.

(See also: No, the NDP losing over 600,000 votes and 20 seats is not a "victory")

#7) Canada extends Ukraine military mission against alarming backdrop of rising fascism and neo-Nazism

Greatly overshadowed by other news out of Ottawa the Trudeau government today announced its decision to extend the Canadian military mission to Ukraine until at least 2022. Chrystia Freeland -- who notoriously celebrated her Ukrainian grandfather's nationalist past despite the fact that he was a Nazi collaborator -- stated that the mission "allows us to meet Ukraine's needs and to offer new forms of support as Ukraine needs them."

(See also: Canada and Freeland's rhetoric about a "rules-based international order" is bullshit and the US just proved it again)

#8) The NDP's election disaster shows again the need for something new on the left

Apparently the masses didn't get the memo.


Despite all the assurances and social media posts of NDP partisans, and despite the surprising number of left activists who decided to jump onto a bandwagon to nowhere, Jagmeet Singh and the NDP not only did not surge they ended up with their worst result in 15 years wiping away all the gains of the Layton years that were supposed to deliver them to the Promised Land of power.

(See also: Fifty years later it is time to acknowledge the Waffle was wrong)

#9) “The End of History” and the Post-Soviet Tragedy

By Nathaniel Laxer 


When almost any discussion of the USSR occurs today it is clouded by the western framing of the Cold War. Generally it is only the flaws of the Soviet Union or the Stalin Era that are looked at. Due to this it is often taken for granted that the collapse should be seen as a great and positive defining moment of the modern world and a victory over tyranny.

(See also by Nathaniel Laxer: A Holiday Nightmare)

#10) Sid Ryan's nomination run in Oshawa yet another federal NDP debacle

It would appear that Sid Ryan is the latest casualty of a long standing, right wing NDP trend. 

(See also: The cat is out of the bag with the Sid Ryan and NDP vetting fiasco and Janet-Lynne Durnford's NDP nomination story a Kafkaesque travesty)

#11) What happened at the Parkdale NDP's nomination meeting?

by Myles Hoenig


Alabama of the 50s and 60s has migrated to Toronto.  The ghost of South Africa has a consulate here. Israel’s apartheid government must be jealous over how well Toronto’s NDP runs its elections. So what the hell happened?

(See also: Canada’s NDP Looks Like the US’s GOP: Voter Disenfranchisement in the Parkdale-High Park Riding and The optics of the Parkdale NDP's federal nomination meeting are not good)

Have a happy and safe New Year! See you all in 2020.

Fifty years later it is time to acknowledge the Waffle was wrong

As 2019 draws to close so too does the 50th anniversary of the birth of the socialist movement within in the NDP that became known as the Waffle.

The Movement for an Independent Socialist Canada. formed in late 1969, was an attempt led by leftists, economic nationalists and feminists like Mel Watkins, James Laxer, Krista Maeots and others to change the NDP from within from a reformist social democratic party into a more robust socialist party. The Waffle Manifesto and vision called for the NDP to advocate for nationalization, anti-American and anti-imperialist economic and foreign policy and for a radical vision of social transformation that in part flowed out of the student protest and New Left movements of the time.

The Waffle's high point came during the 1971 federal leadership convention when the then relatively unknown James Laxer stunned the party as the Waffle nominee by taking the leadership vote to a fourth ballot and getting nearly 37% against the establishment candidate David Lewis.

In what would set the tone for decades of anti-democratic, nepotist and anti-left behaviour by the NDP leadership to follow, in 1972 Stephen Lewis -- who went on to be a dilettante favourite of the Canadian establishment while pretending always to be a progressive -- would do his daddy's dirty business and engineer the expulsion of the Waffle from the party at a meeting of the Ontario Provincial Council.

I have written about this before on Rabble in the piece: On the 40th anniversary of the expulsion of the Waffle.

The stunning cowardice of this on the part of the Lewis clan and their sycophants was evident to pretty much anyone who was not a party hack at the time. Its consequences were deep and far reaching. There is little doubt that it not only drove a generation of social activists out of the party but that it also made the party template into the paranoid, centralized, leadership driven one it is to this day.

Fifty years later the direct legacy of the Waffle is a mixed one. Many of their ideas, such as gender parity in governing bodies, have become fairly mainstream in NDP and social democratic circles. Nationalization of industry and resources remains almost entirely anathema to the party. One can make a very good case that due to globalization the Waffle's brand of left Canadian nationalism is a fairly dated concept.

Yet the one aspect of the Waffle's legacy that has been shown time and time and time again is that its failure to take the reigns of the party and the establishment reaction against it were no anomaly. Rather it was the sign of things to come.

The Waffle not only failed -- nobly, yes, but still failed -- but every single attempt to imitate it has failed more. No left faction or movement within the NDP has posed anywhere near the threat to the leadership that the Waffle did. No other left leadership candidate came as close to winning the leadership as Laxer.

There have been a number of utterly futile attempts to turn the party left -- including some I have been personally involved in -- but chronicling them would be akin to adding another few hundred pages to the adventures of Don Quixote.

Amusing perhaps, but a waste of time. Tilting at windmills.

There are many aspects of the Waffle that are worth considering but, despite the delusional attempts of "entryists" and leftists within the party to claim otherwise, the idea of anti-capitalists or socialists taking over the party from within is not one of them.

The NDP and its provincial counterparts are far more right wing and wed to capitalism than they were in 1970. The NDP has capitulated to right wing narratives in ways that make David and Stephen Lewis look good.

Had the last fifty years since the Waffle been spent building a serious anti-capitalist alternative to the NDP, socialists in Canada would be far ahead of where they are now. The Green Party stands as evidence that persistence and diligence can pay off even within the limitations of our "democracy". Countless articles and "think pieces" have been written by alleged academics engaging in mental masturbation calling for a new party that end up going nowhere while any real attempts to build something are relentlessly attacked or ignored.

It is not too late however. Regularly I see people who know we need a new socialist or anti-capitalist party outside of the NDP. Many anti-capitalist stalwarts are already fighting for a new society outside of it including in formations like Québec solidaire or the Communist Party.

The best way we now can honour the Waffle is by acknowledging the primary lesson it taught us. Under no circumstances are the careerists and power brokers whose family compacts have controlled the NDP since the Waffle era going to allow any kind of activist, grassroots or left takeover.

If we want to see a triumph of the socialist politics and the ideals of the Waffle we need to act outside of and in opposition to the NDP's capitulation to bourgeois liberal politics and the sooner left activists in the NDP realize this the closer we will be to starting a new and truly interesting chapter in the anti-capitalist struggle in Canada.