Who Assassinates the Third World Leaders?, Cuban Poster -- Daily LIFT #164
A Cuban poster from around 1980 that is all too relevant still with examples like the Yankee imperialists placing a bounty on the head of Venezuelan President Maduro.
Wednesday, April 1, 2020
TTC Workers, the Coronavirus, Wet'suwet'en, Cuba & more -- February and March on The Left Chapter in review
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!
"Today capitalism itself is bankrupt"
Excerpt from the statement "The end of myths and illusions" by the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) Dimitris Koutsoumbas, March 31, 2020.
Translated from the original Greek by the KKE.
WE BREAK THE SILENCE that the government and the big employers want to impose in the name of the slogan "let's overcome this crisis together", which is a reflection of hypocritical bourgeois ethics. Quite simply, because we cannot "all together" recruit healthcare professionals, [requisition] the private sector, take preventive and protective measures providing all the necessary tools and means to protect workers. In the framework of this system, all the above must be done by the state and the government that leads it, along with the class that has the real power and ownership. Of course until the working class and the popular strata, "all together" and united sideline them permanently and irrevocably and construct a society where social goods will be given priority, as opposed to the capitalist profit that leads to the death of our fellow humans...
...Above all, however, the pandemic highlights, more so with every day that passes, the limits of the capitalist system.
It turns out that contemporary needs and social goods, such as health, cannot be left to the mercy of markets and profit.
This decay cannot be concealed by the adjectives that some people use to describe capitalism, such as "neoliberal capitalism", "extreme capitalism" and so on, ultimately only to conceal that they fully support the capitalist system itself.
Because, now it can no longer be said that "it may be a wrong approach", a "simple political strategy mistake" that may perhaps be "corrected by individual improvements" or by "changing some managers of the bourgeois power by alternating from liberals to social democrats" and vice versa ...
It is the same old story.
But the people in this case are permanently intubated, trapped in conditions of a coronavirus pandemic...
...These outrageous situations, with doctors being forced to choose who will live and who will die, exist both in countries with "neoliberal" governments, such as Italy, but also in countries where fake "progressive alliances" govern, such as Spain.
Today capitalism itself is bankrupt, the market economy itself in all its versions is bankrupt, which nullifies every opportunity for the working class and the people to enjoy high-quality health services in line with the evolution of science and technology, precisely because its main criterion is capitalist profit.
Even in pandemic conditions, everything is subject to the profitability of capital. This is why workers in the industries of Northern Italy have been working despite the prohibitions*, without protective measures, with the known tragic results.
This is why the competition between transnational monopolies over who will patent the new vaccine is sharpening, at a time when there should be cooperation and joint efforts by the world's best scientists and research centers.
This is why even now the big employers trample over any remaining labor rights, try new forms of exploitation, such as teleworking, and proceed to mass layoffs.
Against the decay of bankrupt capitalism, we can clearly see the superiority of socialism that ensured health and healthcare for all...
...The figures in Soviet Russia 30 years ago, which cannot even be compared to the situation prevailing in our country and EU countries, are: over 1.1 million doctors, free healthcare for the entire population, 1,387 hospital beds per 10,000 inhabitants.
Even today, the mission of the Cuban doctors to Italy, the health infrastructure in countries such as Germany, existing thanks to the socialist system of half of Germany back then, the German Democratic Republic, and even the management of the pandemic in capitalist China, which reveals its socialist residues, show that socialism has left its powerful social imprint even three decades after its overthrow.
So in these unprecedented conditions, we stay strong, we struggle for protection measures of workers' lives and rights, we put forward the only perspective for the working class, the majority of our people, which is the new society, i.e. socialism.
The tangible superiority of socialism, social ownership, and central scientific planning is the great legacy for the next day.
* Editor: The same is happening with man camps in British Colombia where pipelines continue to be built with a reckless disregard for the health and safety of workers, local communities and Indigenous people.
For the full statement see: https://inter.kke.gr/en/articles/The-end-of-myths-and-illusionspTo-face-the-present-and-prepare-tomorrow/
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
The Triumph of the Bolsheviki, John Reed, March, 1918
Vintage Leftist Leaflet Project
Leaflet: Red Russia -- The Triumph of the Bolsheviki, John Reed, March, 1918
Published in 1918 in the very first issue of the American socialist magazine The Liberator, this incredible firsthand account of the triumph of the Bolsheviks in 1917 written by John Reed reads like a thriller.
It has twists and turns, threats and counter threats, confused pivots when at any moment everything could go wrong, and, ultimately the initial seizing of power.
Lenin and Trostsky are the principal revolutionary characters in the drama that unfolds and Reed interviews Trotsky. It is all the more compelling when one realizes that this was published mere weeks after the Bolsheviks took control of Petrograd and when it was by no means clear that they would hold it.
As we now know a terrible civil war lay ahead.
Reed, of course, went on to write perhaps the most famous book about the revolution itself, Ten Days That Shook the World. He died in October 1920 in Moscow at the young age of 32.
The article ends with words that still inspire today:
"Comrades! Greeting from the first proletarian republic of the world. We call you to arms for the international social revolution."
(Click on scans to enlarge)
Knowledge For Everyone!, Poster USSR, 1972 -- Daily LIFT #163
Knowledge For Everyone!, Poster USSR, 1972 -- Daily LIFT #163
Monday, March 30, 2020
Soviet Stamp in Honour of Manolis Glezos -- Daily LIFT #162
Soviet Stamp in Honour of Manolis Glezos -- Daily LIFT #162
Manolis Glezos was a legendary Greek resistance fighter. On 30 May, 1941 Glezos and Apostolos Santas climbed on to the Acropolis in Athens and ripped down the Nazi flag that was flying there after the occupation. He was arrested by the Nazis and tortured, though they did not realize they had the man who had done this, and despite the torture, tuberculosis and a subsequent imprisonment by the Italians he survived the war.
After the war he was arrested, imprisoned and even sentenced to death for his leftist activism during the Greek Civil War, the Cold War and the fascist military junta. In total he spent over 11 years in prison and over 4 years in exile.
Glezos died today at age 97.
Whole Grain Oobleck and Eggs
By Natalie
This fun vegetarian dish combines a cabbage salad with "Oobleck" and poached eggs.
Cabbage Salad Ingredients:
1/2 Napa cabbage chopped into bite sized pieces
handful of chopped parsley
1 green onion sliced
2 teaspoons soy sauce
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 teaspoon of grated ginger
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon sugar
Rinse the Napa cabbage pieces in cold water and shake dry. Combine all the other ingredients to make a sauce. Slice and toss the cabbage with the sauce.
Oobleck Ingredients:
1C water
1/2 cup of Red River Cereal
1/4 cup of large flake oats
pinch of salt
I made this during a Covid-19 pantry raid. Serving some Red River Cereal traditionally to my youngest. Amazingly, he liked it and started asking for more Ooblek, so thank Robert for that name. Ooblek is also the name of a Dr Seuss book and cornstarch and water slimy concoction.
Cook the Red River Cereal in a medium sized pot with a pinch of salt for around 25 minutes. Then add the large flake oats and cook for about 15 minutes more, until much of the water has been absorbed and to desired doneness.
To assemble the dish place a large spoonful of the Oobleck in a bowl, top with some of the salad on one side and with one or two poached eggs on the other.
Make sure to not overcook the eggs as it is wonderful to have the yolk break and ooze into the Oobleck.
If you have it the dish is nice topped with sesame seeds and spoonful or two of hot sauce.
Enjoy.
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