Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Left Voice at The Left Forum 2018

This year Left Forum is taking place from Friday, June 1 through Sunday, June 3 at The John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City; the theme is bringing together the broad left and rising movements in face of the Trump presidency and the embolding of the right. Featured speakers include Juan Gonzalez, Jane Sanders, Silvia Federici, Cathy Dang, Ajamu Baraka and others.

Left Voice

May 30, 2018
Facebook Twitter Share

Among the many ideas present at the conference, we encourage you to come to our panels and discuss Left Voice’s perspectives on the current struggles and what lies ahead. Left Voice will be presenting three panels:

Frontline Workers Organizing in the Healthcare Crisis (Saturday, June 2, 4-6pm. Room L2.81)

For the majority of people in the U.S., healthcare is a system in crisis – a landscape marred by subpar services, unequal access, racial inequalities, millions of uninsured, rising premiums and soaring debt. This trillion-dollar industry reaps massive profits for hospital execs, insurance corporations, pharmaceuticals and technology firms while patient care facilities are put on the chopping block and working-class communities struggle with prohibitive costs. In New York City alone, 16 hospitals have been shut down since 2003. Heightened competition, management-by-stress, technological advancements, rapacious profit-mongering, neoliberal policies, and the weakened position of labor unions have led to intolerable conditions for workers and patients. However, healthcare workers are not taking this lying down.

In recent years, nurses have been at the forefront of labor battles and audacious strike actions. The force of healthcare workers – many of whom are women, immigrants, People of Color, and more widely unionized than other sectors – supported Black Lives Matter, went on strike, and fought for better staffing and universal healthcare. Those watching the recent strike wave among teachers have pointed to the strategic importance of the unrest brewing among both educational and healthcare workers. Join a discussion with frontline workers who are practicing and exploring what it means to be socialist on the job, in the union, and in a brutal healthcare system.

Panelists:
Roona Ray, PNHP – NYC-DSA
Kate Doyle Griffith, Red Bloom
Sarah Dowd, NYSNA – NYC-DSA
Shreya Mahajan, NNU – Left Voice
Tre Kwon, NYSNA – NYC-DSA – Left Voice

For more info: https://www.leftforum.org/events/nurses-doctors-union-broads-frontline-workers-organizing-healthcare-crisis

The Tasks of the Left in Latin America after the Pink Tide (Saturday, June 2, 4-6pm. Room 1.107)

For the past two decades, Latin America — particularly the Southern Cone — have been characterized by a leftward turn under the so-called “Pink Tide” governments. However, deepening economic crisis and mass discontent spurred by increasing austerity have resulted in reactionary trends and new right-wing governments assuming power.

In Argentina, neoliberal president Mauricio Macri represents this backlash against the Pink Tide. In Brazil, the right-wing government of Michel Temer came to presidential power through an institutional coup d’etat with an explicit agenda to gut pensions and labor protections. Mexico, which had been a privileged partner of the United States, is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis as a result of U.S. imperialist oppression and the war against drug trafficking.

As new regimes attempt to take political control, workers, the left and the popular movement are beginning to struggle. In Argentina, there have been mass mobilizations against the austerity program and the repression of the government. In Brazil, there has been significant resistance against the coup, the assassination of the socialist city council member Marielle Franco, and new austerity. In Mexico, organized struggle has emerged against militarization, imperialist dispossession, and for the rights of migrant workers. This panel will deal with this and other questions of the current Latin American reality.

Panelists:
Jimena Vergara, Movimiento de Trabajadores Socialistas (MTS), Mexico
Tatiana Cozzarelli, Left Voice – DSA-NYC
Paula Varela, Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas

For more info: https://www.leftforum.org/events/tasks-left-latin-america-after-pink-tide

A Rank and File Response to Racism and Police Brutality (Sunday June 3, 12pm- 2pm. Room 1.89)

The fight against racism is a class issue. Attacks on Black people, Latinos and other People of Color are attacks on the entire working class. Meanwhile, attacks on workers’ rights and working conditions embolden racists and the right wing. This year’s Teacher Spring showed the potential for a new wave of class struggle at the same time that Black youth are rising up against racism and police murders. The struggle against bigotry which has heightened during the Trump administration is interlinked with police murders and attacks on worker conditions.

The panelists — three rank-and-file workers — will discuss their experiences in overcoming racial divisions imposed by the bosses and linking workplace struggles to the struggles against police brutality, deportations, and other forms of racial oppression.

How can labor activists and oppressed peoples unite? What has been the role of the police in class society, and how can workers organize to fight police terror? How can we build a workers’ movement that not only seeks to improve immediate conditions but also can make political gains and overcome the racial, gender and other divisions that capitalism has created?

Panelists:
Julia Wallace, SEIU 721 – Strike Against Police Terror – Left Voice
Donald Jean Marie, Unite Here Local 217 – organizer for hotel workers – fighter for social justice
Jorge Maldonado, Unite Here Local 100 – labor activist in the food service industry

For more info: https://www.leftforum.org/events/rank-and-file-response-racism-and-police-brutality

Facebook Twitter Share

Left Voice

Militant journalism, revolutionary politics.

United States

What “The Daily” Gets Right and Wrong about Oregon’s Move to Recriminalize Drugs

A doctor at an overdose-prevention center responds to The Daily, a podcast produced by the New York Times, on the recriminalization of drugs in Oregon. What are the true causes of the addiction crisis, and how can we solve it?

Mike Pappas

March 22, 2024
Former president Donald Trump standing at a podium in front of American flags.

To Stop Trump, We Need Much More Democracy, Not Less

Democrats have been trying to kick Trump off the ballot as an "insurrectionist." Liberals say we have to restrict democracy in order to save it. As socialists, we think they have it backwards: to beat the Far Right, we need a mass movement fighting for radical democracy.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 18, 2024

New Jersey Democrats Attack the Public’s Right to Government Records

The New Jersey state assembly, led by the Democratic Party, just tried to fast-track a bill that would have gutted the Open Public Records Act. This is a reminder that their party is an obstacle, not an ally, in the fight to preserve democracy.

Samuel Karlin

March 15, 2024
President Biden giving his State of the Union speech at a podium in March, 2024.

Biden’s State of the Union: Hyper-Nationalism and Eroding Legitimacy

President Biden’s hyper-nationalistic State of the Union speech focused on selling himself as a defender of democracy at home and abroad. But it’s not enough to solve his — and the whole U.S. regime’s — crisis of legitimacy.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

March 14, 2024

MOST RECENT

A square in Argentina is full of protesters holding red banners

48 Years After the Military Coup, Tens of Thousands in Argentina Take to the Streets Against Denialism and the Far Right

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Argentina on March 24 to demand justice for the victims of the state and the military dictatorship of 1976. This year, the annual march had renewed significance, defying the far-right government’s denialism and attacks against the working class and poor.

Madeleine Freeman

March 25, 2024

The Convulsive Interregnum of the International Situation

The capitalist world is in a "permacrisis" — a prolonged period of instability which may lead to catastrophic events. The ongoing struggles for hegemony could lead to open military conflicts.

Claudia Cinatti

March 22, 2024

Berlin’s Mayor Loves Antisemites

Kai Wegner denounces the “antisemitism” of left-wing Jews — while he embraces the most high-profile antisemitic conspiracy theorist in the world.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 22, 2024

Lord Balfour Was an Imperialist Warmonger 

We should give our full solidarity to the Palestine Action comrade who defaced a portrait of Arthur Balfour at Cambridge University. But the problem for everyone who opposes the genocide against Gaza is how to massify and politically equip the movement.

Daniel Nath

March 21, 2024