#left forum

Left Forum 2017 - Economy & Psychology: A Tale of Two Depressions

Published on Jun 10, 2017

Most Americans have never recovered from the recession of 2008 and the outsourcing, mechanizing, robotizing and computerizing of their jobs. Men’s salaries and working conditions have been deteriorating since the mid 1970s. Women’s salaries have increased to 77% of men’s low salaries. Americans are emotionally depressed. We consume 50% of the world’s psych meds and 80% of the world’s heroin. Suicides addiction obesity and other social ills have increased. Too many are in despair. This panel explains what happened, why it happened and what to do about it.

New York City: Even Bernie Wants to Bomb Syria (Left Forum Panel)

Saturday, June 3 - 10:00 am

John Jay College, 524 W. 59th Street, Manhattan

This panel will be in Room 1.103

Hosted by Workers World Newspaper

On April 6, the US military launched 59 tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase. It was an event that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross described as “after-dinner entertainment” for those gathered at Mar-a-Lago that night. Nevertheless, politicians of every stripe applauded the action, including Bernie Sanders. Why is this? What is missing in your politics—especially your “socialist” politics—that allows you to justify war, even its “after-dinner” varieties?

From “humanitarian interventions” to theories of “self-defense,” the US capitalists, their political representatives, and the bourgeois media have saturated the discourse with justification for war. In this panel, we will examine why these and other theories are distractions. To understand war, you must understand the underlying economy of war, why wars are waged and who they are waged against.

This panel will analyze war from a Leninist perspective, grounded in anti-imperialist politics. We will spend the first half of the presentation outlining Lenin’s definition of imperialism, applying this to contemporary states today, and distinguishing an imperialist state (the US) from a mere capitalist state (Russia) and a socialist state (China). The second half will provide a materialist analysis of why anti-war news is virtually extinct in professional journalism today and how we choose a side in imperialist war and take our activism to the streets.

Speakers include:

Abayomi Azikiwe -- Pan-African News Wire and Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice

Andrew Mayton -- Baltimore Antifascist Community Defense & Baltimore Asian Resistance in Solidarity

John Steffin -- International Action Center

Taryn Fivek -- Workers World Party

Black anti-imperialist defended

By Julie Varughese

The irony of the first full-blown demonstration against a speaker at the Left Forum in New York City being aimed at a Black anti-imperialist calls into question the motivations of supposedly anti-genocide protesters.

An article being circulated throughout the conference weekend on June 1-3, as well as a walkout protest during the closing plenary of the annual event, decried Black Alliance for Peace national organizer Ajamu Baraka’s support for the Syrian state.

Syria has been devastated by a seven-year, U.S.-led intervention that has armed so-called rebels and created millions of refugees. An international attempt to investigate Syria for allegedly possessing chemical weapons, used to allegedly commit genocide, was thwarted by an April 13 attack by a U.S.-led coalition that included France and the United Kingdom.

Protesters at the Left Forum called Baraka an “Assadist” and a Trump supporter, as well as a “genocide denialist.”

June 6: At the recent Left Forum on New York City, a small group of people handed out a flyer attacking Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance for Peace for his political orientation on Syria and other issues and held a demonstration at the final plenary session when he started speaking.  The United National Antiwar Coalition has issued the following statement in defense of Ajamu and Black Alliance for Peace, a valued member of UNAC.

Two organizations used Ajamu Baraka's presence at the recent Left Forum in order to attack anti-imperialism itself. They falsely accuse him of being a defender of genocide and a Donald Trump supporter as a ruse to hide their support of imperialism as carried out not just in Syria but around the world.

Ajamu Baraka's history of activism and his role as National Organizer and National Spokesperson for the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) demonstrate a commitment to democracy, justice, and the rights of all people to self-determination. United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) is a partner with BAP on initiatives such as the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases. BAP is also represented on the UNAC Coordinating Committee. The two groups work together because we share the same determination to end U.S. state sponsored violence wherever it is carried out. In just one year since its founding, the Black Alliance for Peace has made great strides in reviving the black radical tradition of opposing "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world."

While the lies and vitriol directed at Ajamu Baraka were not strictly personal they were in essence attacks carried out against this black led movement as well. BAP's success in a short period of time make it a target of faux leftists whose goal is to legitimize U.S. foreign policy while cynically appearing to oppose it. The attempt to silence a leading black anti-war organization is therefore racist and makes their actions all the more insidious. These organizations reveal themselves to be supporters of the U.S. hegemon, telling slanderous falsehoods in order to hide their true political stance. They have a history of disrupting anti-war actions and forums hosted by UNAC and others whenever an anti-imperialist position on Syria or other issues are being discussed. UNAC stands with everyone who is clear about the necessity of ending the U.S. goal of reaching full spectrum dominance in Syria and everywhere. As such it is vital for us to stand with Black Alliance for Peace and against any effort to denounce its work and its leadership. We encourage other organizations to add their names to this statement or to issue their own statements of support and solidarity.

Any U.S. Attack on Syria Is International Gangsterism, by Black Alliance for Peace

Global Capitalism update February 2017.