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2022-12-01 14:56:02+00:00
On this day 67 years ago, Rosa Parks was arrested when she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Alabama. She is known for her role in sparking the Civil Rights movement in the U.S., but what is often ignored and written out of history books is Rosa's far more radical side.
She grew up in a family that supported Marcus Garvey (whose philosophy inspired various political movements including the Nation of Islam) and became an activist at a young age. Rosa was the first woman to join the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1943.
Parks’ support of the Black Panthers is also widely removed from her narrative. Indeed, she and Malcolm X were neighbours and she extended support to Malcolm’s wife after his assassination.
Rosa Parks left behind a strong legacy and asserted the place of Black women in the struggle for equal civil rights.
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2022-12-01 12:56:02+00:00
Today in 1940, one of the most influential comedians of all time, Richard Pryor, was born. Pryor used his platform to deliver scathing critiques of racism and capitalist society.
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2022-12-01 10:55:04+00:00
On this day in 1987 "literary revolutionary", socialist, anti-imperialist, Black LGBTQ advocate and feminist, James Baldwin passed away.
Born in Harlem, New York, in 1924, Baldwin lived in the"worst poverty" his school teacher ever saw. His Harlem youth became a central focus of his writings, in which he illustrated the dire social conditions that many African-Americans were subjected to as a result of capitalist and racial inequality. In a 1970 letter to Angela Davis, he wrote "We know that we, the Blacks, and not only we, the Blacks, have been, and are, the victims of a system whose only fuel is greed, whose only god is profit.”
He moved to Paris in 1948, where he published his groundbreaking gay novel, “Giovanni’s Room,” in 1956 —the middle of the Cold War era and the height of homophobic America— paving the way for scores of other writers who wrote about queer identity. While in Paris, his political consciousness also grew beyond racism in the US to a consideration of the relationship between African Americans in the US and liberation struggles in the colonized world. He particularly became involved in the Algerian independence struggle and later championed Palestinian freedom during the 60s and 70s.
By the early 1960s, Baldwin became a staunch critic of the US government’s response to civil rights, its repression of dissonance, and its use of police violence against African Americans, causing the FBI to put him on their surveillance list. In reaction, Baldwin courageously threatened to write a book exposing the FBI’s surveillance techniques.
Baldwin was also close to the Black Panther Party and criticized the US government through the lens of capitalist inequality. He also referred himself as a “Yankee Doodle socialist” who promoted an “indigenous socialism” that would be formed by, and respond to, the real needs of American people.
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2022-12-01 16:53:03+00:00
Watch left MEP Clare Daly confront the EU Parliament with the consequences of its imperialist policies during a discussion on the situation in Libya. The country spiraled into a humanitarian disaster following NATO’s invasion eleven years ago.
“What happens after NATO intervenes in your country...? Terror, death, lawlessness, rape, poverty, starvation.”
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2022-12-02 18:30:10+00:00
Just weeks after Josep Borrell called Europe a "garden" and the rest of the world a "jungle, here he is again telling Latin American politicians:“Like the discoverers and conquistadores, we have to invent a New World."
Last time Europe "discovered" the "New World", 56 million people were wiped out.
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2022-12-02 16:22:03+00:00
Since Israel’s infamous attacks on East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood last year, Israeli settlers and occupation forces have aggressively stepped up efforts to annex the West Bank. This year has been the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the UN began tracking fatalities.
Our latest film documents how in the face of increasing Israeli crimes, Palestine’s armed and unarmed resistance is growing and becoming more unified than ever.
Watch “Palestine: Resistance Rising” now on Odysee.
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2022-12-02 15:01:07+00:00
On this day in 2001, "El Corralito" began in Argentina, a period where the entire population was blocked from accessing their savings which sparked a major uprising and bloody repression.
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2022-12-02 12:55:01+00:00
Watch James Baldwin talk about how anticolonial revolutions in Africa had a critical impact on destroying white supremacist stereotypes of Black Americans.
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2022-12-02 11:02:19+00:00
Thousands of doctors and medical workers took to the streets of the Spanish capital Madrid to protest for better pay and working conditions. 5,000 doctors and pediatricians in the city are on an indefinite strike, demanding action to tackle the severely overburdened healthcare system.
Madrid's right-wing regional government and its president, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, made an enemy among much of the medical sector by opposing COVID-19 lockdowns during the height of the pandemic. Unions also condemn her support for private healthcare.
Health sector protests are set to spread beyond Madrid, with the Catalan Doctors’ Union calling 25,000 doctors to strike in January.
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2022-12-04 16:52:03+00:00
Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, assassinated on this day by police, explains how international proletarian revolution is the only way to solve oppression in the U.S.
"We're not going to fight capitalism with Black capitalism, but we're going to fight it with socialism".
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2022-12-04 12:58:02+00:00
Italian anarchist and revolutionary socialist Errico Malatesta was born on this day in 1853.
A leading figure of the anarchist movement, Malatesta was described by friends and foes alike as the greatest Italian revolutionary of his generation, with the press of the time referring to him as “the Lenin of Italy.”
Both a theorist and a militant, Malatesta experienced exile and over 10 years of imprisonment in his eventful life. In 1877, he led an armed insurrection in two villages in Campania. He organized an attack on the tax office, burned tax registers, and declared the end of the monarchy. The villagers met the action with enthusiasm, but due to the quick arrival of troops, the uprising was soon crushed.
In 1878, he was forced into exile, making his way to Geneva where he would befriend Russian philosopher Peter Kropotkin and assist in publishing the anarcho-communist journal Le Révolté.
Malatesta was a firm believer in the inevitability of revolution, and although he believed violence would necessarily constitute a part of it, he denounced disorganized bomb-throwing and explosions as “the most absolute negation of all anarchist ideas and sentiments.”
“Our ideas oblige us to put all our hopes in the masses… The logical outcome is to live among the people and to win them over to our ideas by actively taking part in their struggles and sufferings.”
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2022-12-04 10:56:03+00:00
Today we remember Fred Hampton, organizer and leading member of The Black Panther Party who played an important role in building revolutionary coalitions and uniting working-class people of all races.
FBI director J. Edgar Hoover saw these coalitions as an untenable threat and ordered an intensified FBI crackdown to destroy the Party by any means necessary.
On December 4th, 1969, Fred Hampton was murdered during a raid by the FBI and Chicago police when he was only 21 years old.
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2022-12-07 16:56:01+00:00
That time in 2008 when Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez said: "F**king Yankees, go to hell one hundred times" and expelled the US ambassador after uncovering a plot by Washington to orchestrate a coup against him.
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2022-12-07 15:02:07+00:00
Happy birthday, Noam Chomsky! The radical intellectual known for his trenchant criticism of US foreign policy and capitalist media turns 94 today.
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2022-12-07 13:12:36+00:00
Listen to Irish MEP Clare Daly explain how the EU “aid” to Ukraine amounts to strings-attached loans that will force Ukraine to sell off the land its population is dying to defend.
"Between Russian tanks and European banks there’ll be little left of Ukraine when this is over."
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2022-12-07 10:53:01+00:00
Greek police brutally repressed massive demonstrations in Athens and Thessaloniki on the anniversary of the murder of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos by police.
Thousands came out on the streets, as demonstrations over the police shooting of another teenager, 16-year-old Kostas Fragoulis, from the Roma community in Thessaloniki, are ongoing. Fragoulis is fighting for his life after being shot in the head by police, allegedly for failing to pay a €20 gas bill.
While the police claim Fragoulis was shot over “traffic violations”, protesters insist he was targeted because he is from an ethnic minority that faces heavy discrimination in Greece.
In Athens police beat protesters, attacked a bar in the Exarchia district and even fired tear gas into apartment buildings.
Greece has the second-highest number of police per capita in the EU. Police budgets and violence have risen since the election of the right-wing New Democracy party was elected on a “law and order” platform in 2019.
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2022-12-06 18:26:01+00:00
Listen to Michael Parenti explain how the repressive features of socialist states have been created in reaction to relentless acts of invasion, espionage, sabotage and encirclement by the capitalist world.
"If there hadn't been a CIA, there wouldn't have been a KGB."
From the lecture: Marxism & the Crisis in Eastern Europe.
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2022-12-06 16:58:02+00:00
On this day in 1998, Hugo Chávez was elected President of Venezuela.
Chávez launched the “Bolivarian Revolution,” named after Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century independence leader who liberated Venezuela and 4 other countries from Spanish colonial rule.
Despite failing to eradicate inefficiency and corruption in public administration and controlling the country’s high crime rate, Chávez’s legacy is still celebrated for its grand achievements, which include:
Decreasing the poverty rate from 42.8% to 26.5% between 1999 and 2011, and extreme poverty from 16.6% in 1999 to 7% in 2011.
Increasing the number of doctors from 20 per 100,000 population in 1999 to 80 per 100,000 in 2010, or an increase of 400%.
Reducing the infant mortality rate from 19.1 per thousand in 1999 to 10 per thousand in 2012, a reduction of 49%.
Lowering unemployment from 15.2% in 1998 to 6.4% in 2012.
In December 2005, UNESCO declared that Venezuela had eradicated illiteracy.
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2022-12-06 14:58:09+00:00
Today we remember the Afro-Caribbean anti-colonial revolutionary, Frantz Fanon, who passed away on this day in 1961.
Fanon was not only an important theorist, psychiatrist and political philosopher, he also engaged in armed liberation struggles, first serving in Europe during the Second World War against the fascists and later in the Algerian War of Independence against French colonizers.
His works like Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth with critical insights on racism, colonialism and anti-colonial struggle have inspired decolonization movements and revolutionaries across the world.
“Europe is literally the creation of the Third World. The riches which are choking it are those plundered from the underdeveloped peoples.”
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2022-12-06 12:55:51+00:00
Protesters are on the streets of Athens today to remember 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos who was gunned down by police in Athens on this day in 2008 for no reason. The anniversary comes at the same time as 16-year-old Roma boy, Kostas Fragouli, is fighting for his life after being shot in the head by police in Thessaloniki.
Alexis’ murder on the streets of the Exarchia district in the capital sparked weeks of protests. In June this year, his murderer, Epaminondas Korkoneas, was released from jail despite receiving a life sentence.
Greece has the second-highest number of police per capita in the EU. Police budgets and violence have risen since the election of the right-wing New Democracy party in 2019.
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2022-12-06 10:56:39+00:00
On the anniversary of his death, we remember the legacy of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, one of India’s foremost leaders in the anti-caste movement who ardently struggled for farmers' and women’s liberation.
Born into a Dalit family –the lowest stratum castes in India and previously characterized as the “untouchables” of society– Ambedkar devoted his life to liberating the Dalit people from the brutal realities of India’s Brahmanical caste system, including his leading role in mobilizing farmers in the 20th century.
Ambedkar authored India’s constitution in 1950, guided by a political philosophy that saw education as a pathway to Dalit freedom, and the need for a secular political sphere to eradicate Hindu supremacy.
Ambedkar importantly underscored the contradictions between India’s political and social spheres, which outlined equality for all in the constitution, while at the same time adhering to a caste system that deprives human rights for so many.
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2022-12-05 17:27:03+00:00
On this day in 2013, Nelson Mandela passed away. The west once vilified Mandela as a "terrorist" but today tries to co-opt his legacy.
We remember his unwavering commitment to freedom for the oppressed by any means necessary.
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2022-12-05 16:17:27+00:00
On the 38th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, protestors marched towards the site of the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, holding signs reading “US government protecting killers of Bhopal”.
The catastrophe was the worst corporate massacre in recent history which has killed at least 22,000 people to date. The protesters are still fighting for adequate compensation, treatment, and employment opportunities for the victims and kin of the massive gas leak.
On the night of December 2-3, 1984, workers at the majority U.S.-owned UCC plant in Bhopal were gassed to death when at least 27 tons of toxic chemicals leaked, a catastrophe that would not have happened were it not for UCC cutting critical safety corners when building the plant in order to minimize costs. UCC is today fully owned by Dow Chemicals, one of the world’s largest chemical producers.
The protestors burned an effigy of Dow chairperson, Jim Fitterling, who refuses to show up to court in Bhopal to answer for the crimes committed by UCC, or clean up the site which continues to contaminate the local soil and water supply.
Activists also demanded that the state government present correct figures of the deaths and diseases caused by the disaster before the Supreme Court of India.
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2022-12-05 13:54:03+00:00
9 years after the passing of Nelson Mandela, we remember the South African freedom fighter who sacrificed decades of his life struggling for a society free from oppression and exploitation. Mandela saw the socialist movement as indispensable in that struggle.
Mandela in his 1964 statement from the dock at the Rivonia Trial:
"Today I am attracted by the idea of a classless society. I have been influenced by Marxist thought. I have been influenced in my thinking by both West and East. All this has led me to feel that in my search for a political formula, I should be absolutely impartial and objective. I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism."
Here are pictures of him at a South African Communist Party rally, with Fidel Castro and Angela Davis.
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2022-12-05 12:25:03+00:00
10,000 Italians swarmed the streets of the capital Rome, burning NATO flags and protesting soaring costs of living which they connect to the war in Ukraine. Unions, youth, anti-capitalist and anarchist organizations joined the massive protest under a joint call.
The protesters carried placards and banners with demands such as "Put down the weapons, raise the wages!" and "against war and the war economy." According to the latest poll by EuroWeek News, only 38% of the Italian population is in favor of sending weapons to Ukraine.
The far-right government led by President Giorgia Meloni passed a decree to continue sending weapons to Ukraine next year. The decree also approves expanding the military budget to 2% of GDP by 2028, as required by NATO.
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2022-12-05 10:58:13+00:00
On the anniversary of Nelson Mandela's death we remember his outrage at the U.S. lecturing countries in the Global South about democracy.
"If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world it is the United States of America. They don’t care for human beings."
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2022-12-08 17:57:01+00:00
Watch Colombia's Vice-President, Francia Márquez, at the UN calling on former colonial powers to cancel the debt of Global South countries, as part of a package of reparations towards communities of African descent.
Márquez made the call at the UN’s Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, just a few weeks after Colombian President Gustavo Petro also called for debt reduction in order to free up resources to protect the Amazon, critical to the fight against climate change.
Both proposals have been notably ignored by the Global North.
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2022-12-08 15:59:02+00:00
On this day in 1987, a popular uprising known as the First Intifada broke out as Palestinians rose up against the violence and abuse suffered under Israeli military occupation and to resist Israel’s encroaching settler-colonialism.
The First Intifada was sparked after an Israeli truck driver rammed through a crowd of Palestinian workers returning to the Gaza Strip, killing four people.
Palestinians brought their rejection of Israel’s brutal and repressive military rule to international attention by carrying out an uprising of collective and unified actions as popular committees and responses emerged.
Israel responded with brutal force as unarmed Palestinians were met with fully equipped Israeli soldiers who used live ammunition indiscriminately on the streets. Reportedly, over one thousand Palestinians were killed, including 237 children and tens of thousands were injured under a specific order to break the limbs of rock-throwing rebels, and about 120,000 were imprisoned.
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2022-12-08 13:58:02+00:00
Today marks 40 years since the murder of John Lennon.
Lennon wasn't just a former member of the Beatles and a peace-loving hippie, he was also a radical who supported progressive political causes like the anti-war movement and radical organizations like the Black Panther Party and the IRA. Hoping to place his music at the service of the struggle for a better world, he was even put on the FBI's list of unwanted radicals who were targeted and harassed.
Lennon summed up the meaning of biggest commercial hit, "Imagine", as "anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic, but because it is sugar-coated it is accepted, [...] a political message with a little honey."
Horrified by the British State’s violence in Northern Ireland, after British troops killed 14 unarmed demonstrators in Derry in 1972, Lennon wrote the song "Sunday Bloody Sunday", marched against British troops in Northern Ireland and said: "If it's a choice between the IRA and the British army, I'm with the IRA."
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2022-12-08 11:58:01+00:00
Supporters of ousted Peruvian President Pedro Castillo came out on the streets of Lima to protest his arrest. Holding signs reading “the people are with you President”, the protesters were repressed with tear gas by riot police.
Castillo was arrested after Peru’s right-wing majority congress voted to oust him in what amounts to a legislative coup. Castillo’s attempt to prevent the coup by dissolving congress then provoked his arrest. The congress itself has an 85% disapproval rating amongst the population, one of the worst in the region.
Castillo came to power last year after running on a leftist platform against Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of former dictator Alberto Fujimori. In 2009 Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison for crimes against humanity under international law. Most of his victims were communists, trade unionists and peasants who were subjected to extrajudicial executions, torture, enforced disappearances and kidnappings. He was controversially released early this year.
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2022-12-09 18:25:04+00:00
For the second consecutive day following the arrest of impeached Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, his supporters continue to confront Peruvian authorities in Lima, calling for Castillo's release. The US-dominated Organization of American States already expressed support for the new head of state, Dina Boluarte.
Protests by Castillo supporters in Lima turned violent as protesters marched to the Congress. Police forces fired tear gas grenades and used excessive violence while protesters torched barricades.
The impeachment marks the peak of the power struggle between Castillo and Congress, and the latter's attempts at overthrowing Castillo succeeded on the fifth try. Castillo's effort to repel the coup by dissolving the right-wing Congress backfired, leading to his arrest.
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2022-12-09 16:50:02+00:00
On the anniversary of his death, we remember Amelio Robles Ávila, a Zapatista colonel in the Mexican revolution who was assigned female at birth but lived openly as a man from age 24 until his death at 95. Robles fought many battles in the revolution and was awarded the Mexican Legion of Honor.
Assigned female at birth with the name Amelia Robles Ávila, Robles fought in the Mexican Revolution and rose to the rank of colonel.
In 1912, he joined the Mexican Revolution, from 1913-1918 he fought under the command of the main revolutionary leaders of the state. Famous for shooting his pistol with his right hand while holding a cigar in the left, Avila adopted the male attire of a proud guerrillero and became Zapatista Colonel Amelio Robles Avila, and led many important battles.
One of Ávila’s neighbors later recalled how he would confront anyone who misgendered him, saying: “I always called him Mr. Robles, because he’d pull out a gun if someone called him a woman or Mrs.”
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2022-12-09 14:50:51+00:00
On this day in 1981, freedom fighter, journalist and former Black Panther was arrested. He has been in jail ever since, despite clear evidence that he was framed over the killing of a police officer, and found guilty by a trial "that failed to meet international standards".
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2022-12-09 12:52:01+00:00
Today in 1895, Spanish anti-fascist, communist and Republican heroine, Dolores Ibárruri, was born.
Also known as the mother of Spanish communism, Ibárruri worked since a very young age. She was one of the first women to be part of the Communist Party, was known for her extraordinary oratory skills and became part of the central committee of the party. She was later named president of the Communist Party, and later honorary president, a position she held until her death.
During the Spanish Civil War she played a central role by offering a series of speeches broadcasted by radio from Madrid. But she also was on the frontlines with the troops. She was the one who coined the phrase "No Pasarán" ("They shall not pass") with regards to stopping the fascists during the Battle for Madrid in November 1936 and became a rallying cry for everyone opposing the rise of fascism all over the world.
"Better to die standing up than to live kneeling down!"
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2022-12-09 11:46:24+00:00
As International Anti-Corruption Day falls during the WorldCup2022, a reminder that the US Department of Justice rewarded FIFA $300 million in "compensation" for its own corruption.
The 2015 FIFA scandal involved multi-million dollar bribes and kickbacks, as well as FIFA officials selling their votes in World Cup hosting contests. Qatar allegedly offered a whopping $880million to FIFA just 3 weeks before winning the World Cup 2022 bid.
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2022-12-09 10:02:23+00:00
Since Israel’s infamous attacks on East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood last year, Israeli settlers and occupation forces have aggressively stepped up efforts to annex the West Bank. This year has been the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the UN began tracking fatalities.
Our latest film documents how in the face of increasing Israeli crimes, Palestine’s armed and unarmed resistance is growing and becoming more unified than ever.
Watch “Palestine: Resistance Rising” now on Odysee.
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2022-12-10 15:53:22+00:00
On Human Rights Day, we remember the victims of U.S. crimes for whom there are no international campaigns for justice. Here is a small sample.
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2022-12-10 13:55:04+00:00
Turkish communists from the armed wing of the THKP-C marking the 55th anniversary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in northern Syria.
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2022-12-10 11:51:50+00:00
On Human Rights Day what about all those crimes against humanity the so-called “civilized” world doesn’t want us to talk about?
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2022-12-12 14:57:02+00:00
Nationwide protests are shaking Peru in the wake of the parliamentary coup by the right-wing Congress against imprisoned President Pedro Castillo.
The vast majority of Peruvians, 85%, disapprove of the Congress. Only 12% approve, and 3% remain undecided, according to the latest national survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies. However, the U.S. and several E.U. countries immediately recognized the new unelected government.
Pedro Castillo, facing another impeachment attack by the right-wing dominated Peruvian Congress, tried to dissolve the legislative, which backfired and led to his arrest. The national police and the armed forces released a joint statement announcing their support for the new government.
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2022-12-12 12:57:01+00:00
Peru's nationwide resistance to the right-wing coup against Pedro Castillo is turning deadly. The Peruvian National Police killed at least two protesters in Andahuaylas, respectively shot in the heart and the head.
Protesters have stormed the local airport of Andahuaylas in southern Peru and set fire to the transmitter room, forcing the airport to shut down. According to local reports, the anti-coup protesters detained over 50 police officers during the incident.
Video footage shows protesters marching with captured police officers and attacking police stations, demanding the resignation of the new President, Dina Boluarte, and the release of the imprisoned President Pedro Castillo.
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2022-12-12 10:54:01+00:00
Protesters supporting ousted Peruvian President Pedro Castillo in Andahuaylas, arrested a plainclothes police officer suspected of being an agent provocateur, and exchanged him for detained protesters.
Agent provocateurs, French for provoking agents, are undercover individuals hired to provoke false-flag unlawful actions to justify a crackdown by the state.
At least two people have been killed during the anti-coup protests in Andahuaylas, a town in southern Peru with a majority indigenous population. Protesters stormed Andahuaylas airport, forcing it to shut down.
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2022-12-11 15:53:02+00:00
Today marks the anniversary of one of the worst massacres in modern Latin American history, the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador committed by U.S.-trained forces.
In 1981, between December 11 and 13, a U.S.-trained right-wing death squad massacred nearly all of the people of the Salvadoran village El Mozote. Over 1,000 people were brutally murdered, the majority of them women, children and the elderly.
Soldiers separated the men from the women and children, then they tortured and executed the men in several locations. They took the women and older girls, separated them from the children and executed them with machine guns after raping them. Girls as young as 10 were raped. They killed the children by slitting their throats and by hanging them from trees. After killing almost the entire population, the soldiers set fire to the houses.
El Salvador at the time was in a civil war between the left-wing guerillas of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) and a military dictatorship backed by Washington. El Mozote was suspected of supporting the FMLN and after the massacre became a symbol for the U.S. government’s support for atrocities against left-wing movements in Latin America.
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2022-12-11 13:55:02+00:00
On this day in 1964, Ernesto "Che" Guevara gave his historic "Homeland or Death!" speech at the United Nations General Assembly denouncing U.S. interventions around the world and calling for resistance against imperialism.
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2022-12-11 11:54:01+00:00
Listen to socialist historian Michael Parenti explain how anti-war perspectives are censored from the U.S. media.
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2022-12-14 20:05:45+00:00
And all Moroccans are with Palestine.
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2022-12-14 16:52:01+00:00
Despite the rising death-toll, protests in Peru against the right-wing coup that is keeping democratically elected left-wing President Pedro Castillo imprisoned continue to rage. Here are some pictures from the last few days.
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2022-12-14 14:53:02+00:00
“This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog.”
On this day in 2008, Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoe at U.S. President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad, in protest of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the countless atrocities committed against the Iraqi people.
Al-Zaidi’s act inspired many people around the world to raise their shoes at Bush in protest of his foreign policy.
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2022-12-14 12:57:01+00:00
Huge clashes kicked off in Thessaloniki, Greece, following the death of 16-year-old Roma boy, Kostas Fragoulis.
Thousands took to the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki chanting "murderers" at police, who shot Fragoulis in the head after he allegedly didn't pay a €20 gas bill.
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2022-12-14 10:55:51+00:00
Listen to this young Moroccan-Tunisian in Paris lay out why he’s backing 🇲🇦 over 🇫🇷 in the World Cup semi-final: “For Muslims, Africa, Morocco, Palestine” and because in France “we will always be discriminated against”.
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2022-12-13 16:58:02+00:00
Protesters are taking to the streets across Greece against the police murder of yet another teenager, 16-year-old Kostas Fragoulis from the Roma community in Thessaloniki. His death comes 1 year after the police killing of Roma teen, Nikos Sabanis, whose family is still fighting for justice.
Watch the full video on Odysee.
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2022-12-13 14:56:02+00:00
Happy 1312 day from around the world!
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2022-12-13 12:53:02+00:00
Peru's nationwide protests against the right-wing coup are intensifying despite a rising death toll at the hands of the national police. The Peruvian police have shot dead at least seven protesters so far, including two minors, according to government officials.
Imprisoned former President Pedro Castillo put out a statement on Twitter, saying he was "kidnapped, humiliated and mistreated." Castillo is being held in a high-security prison near the capital Lima on charges of "acts of rebellion and conspiracy."
Unions, peasants, and indigenous organizations announced a nationwide strike, beginning today, demanding the dissolution of Congress, the freedom of Castillo, and the initiation of a constitutional process.
The unelected new president, Dina Boluarte, declared a state of emergency in several provinces for 60 days, restricting several constitutional rights, such as freedom of movement and assembly.
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2022-12-13 10:08:39+00:00
16-year-old Kostas Fragoulis from the Roma community in Thessaloniki, Greece, has died. He was shot in the head by police over an allegedly unpaid 20 Euro gas bill.
His shooting eight days ago sparked angry protests in Athens and Thessaloniki. Protests are expected across Greece today.
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2022-12-12 16:53:02+00:00
In Havana, we spoke with Cuba’s deputy Foreign Minister, Carlos F. de Cossio, about how as the 200th anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine approaches, the U.S. still treats Latin America and the Caribbean as its “backyard”.
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2022-12-20 14:56:27+00:00
The hero of the year award goes to this Palestinian girl who stood up to a fully armed Israeli occupation soldier.
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2022-12-20 13:17:14+00:00
Listen to left MEP Clare Daly talk about how Western governments and corporations dominate the news business which is responsible for “the mass production of ignorance”.
And while the EU upholds itself as the defender of media freedom, its media is “anything but free”.
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2022-12-19 16:25:02+00:00
Extreme violence against civilians protesting the parliamentary coup and arrest of democratically elected Pedro Castillo, continues to rage across Peru.
Despite the repression, the protests continue to grow and have spread to all major cities across the country, calling for snap elections and a new constitution. In the city of Ayacucho, where a massacre was reportedly perpetrated by security forces against protesters with nine people shot to death, outraged and grieving residents came out on the streets to condemn the killings.
The de facto government, led by unelected Dina Boluarte who has been recognized by the U.S. and EU, announced a curfew last week and ordered a violent crackdown by security forces on protesters.
So far, at least 25 people have lost their lives, and more than 300 have been injured, according to the country’s health minister. Twelve of the protesters were between 15 and 18 years old.
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2022-12-19 14:30:25+00:00
The Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, has officially apologized for the Transatlantic Slave Trade, but here's why the apology will do little to address the legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade or bring an end to institutional racism in the Netherlands. ☝️
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2022-12-19 11:39:32+00:00
On her birthday, we commemorate Lepa Radić, the young Yugoslav partisan and communist who was executed at the age of 17 for shooting at the Nazis during World War II.
Radić was a Yugoslav partisan of Serb origin who fought in the resistance movement against the Axis powers.
As her captors tied the noose around her neck, they offered her a reprieve from the gallows if she agreed to reveal her comrades' identities. She responded that she “was not a traitor and that her comrades would reveal themselves when they avenged her death”.
Radić became the youngest recipient at the time of the Order of the People’s Hero in 1951. This was awarded to individuals who distinguished themselves by extraordinary heroic deeds during war and in peacetime.
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2022-12-18 14:52:01+00:00
Listen to socialist historian Michael Parenti talk about the revolving door between the U.S. government and media, and the hundreds of reporters who have been in the pocket of the CIA.
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2022-12-18 12:56:02+00:00
Today would've been South African anti-apartheid activist and socialist Steve Biko's 76th birthday.
Biko was an essential figure in the movement to end white racist rule in South Africa, instrumental in the formation of the radical South African Students’ Association and was a leader in the Black Consciousness Movement.
Influenced by Frantz Fanon, Paulo Freire, Malcolm X and the U.S. Black Power movement, Biko emphasized the importance of challenging Black people’s internalized sense of inferiority. Biko argued that Black liberation would only follow once psychological liberation from the internalized acceptance of racial oppression was achieved, arguing that "the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed".
This idea radically changed perceptions of the struggle against apartheid in a time where leaders like Nelson Mandela were locked up and repressed. Mandela said that Biko's work "inspired oppressed people to recognize their own worth, take joy in their own humanity, and recognize – as equals – the humanity of others."
Biko's thinking helped free minds, mobilized resistance and re-energized the declining movement against apartheid as militant young activists joined the exiled armed struggle, starting right after the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960, shaping the massive strikes in Durban in the early 1970s and inspiring the children of Soweto to protest against the imposition of Afrikaans in schools in 1976 which resulted in an uprising that caught the world’s attention.
As Mandela put it, the apartheid state was so fearful of Biko’s influence that “they had to kill him to prolong the life of apartheid”.
In 1977, Biko was killed in police custody after a brutal interrogation and torture. Despite a political cover-up, the circumstances of his death were exposed, laying bare the violence of the apartheid state. His death led to greater international pressure against white racist rule, which together with the South African movement he helped inspire would end apartheid.
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2022-12-17 14:54:02+00:00
As Palestinian support for resistance against Israeli occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing increases, listen to PFLP leader, Leila Khaled, as a young woman, talk about the necessity of armed struggle.
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2022-12-17 12:54:02+00:00
On this day in 1928, Indian socialist revolutionary Bhagat Singh and his comrades Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru killed British colonizer and police officer James Saunders in Lahore, Punjab, becoming folk heroes for the struggle against British imperialism.
They shot and killed Saunders to avenge nationalist leader Lala Lajpat Rai's death at the hands of the British colonial police. Singh had mistaken Saunders for the British police superintendent, James Scott, whom they had intended to assassinate, because they thought he was responsible for the death of Rai who led a march against British colonialism, which was heavily repressed by the British authorities. Rai reportedly died from a heart attack related to the injuries received from the repression.
After killing Saunders, Singh was on the run for many months. Surfacing again in April 1929, he and another comrade, Batukeshwar Dutt, set off two bombs inside the Imperial Legislative Assembly in Delhi. They showered leaflets from the gallery on the British colonial legislators below, shouted slogans, and then allowed the authorities to arrest them.
On March 23, 1931, the three revolutionaries were hanged; supposedly, they chanted "Down with British Imperialism" while marching towards the gallows. At the moment of their execution, Singh and Thapar were 23-years-old and Rajguru was only 22. They became the most revered figures in the Indian struggle for freedom against the British empire. Their actions and their execution by the colonial regime encouraged many to take up their revolutionary path. Today, the far-right in India has tried to co-opt him for their reactionary cause, and circulate a photo of him wearing a turban, the image is fake.
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2022-12-17 09:54:38+00:00
The founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), Jose Maria Sison, has passed away. The Marxist-Lenininst-Maoist revolutionary, thinker and leader dedicated his life to building the Philippines' communist movement, which more than 50 years after the CPP's founding is one of the strongest in the world.
"To die for the people is weightier than Mount Thai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather" - Mao Zedong.
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2022-12-16 15:55:35+00:00
Listen to Ghanaian socialist and Pan-Africanist leader Kwame Nkrumah talk about the need for a united African military to protect the continent from imperialist domination.
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2022-12-16 13:00:50+00:00
Listen to left MEP Clare Daly call into question the viability of a two-state solution for Palestine while Israeli annexation of Palestinian land continues and the EU rewards "Israel with deepening bilateral cooperation."
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2022-12-15 15:54:00+00:00
On this day in 1890, legendary Lakota Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, was killed by U.S. government agents.
Sitting Bull was the political and spiritual Native American leader who united the Sioux tribes against the white settlers taking their tribal land. In 1868, 25 tribal leaders signed the Fort Laramie Treaty with the U.S. government, which created the Great Sioux Reservation. But Sitting Bull refused to surrender. Sitting Bull’s anti-treaty stance won him many followers. Upon the discovery of gold within the boundaries of the Great Sioux Reservation in 1874, the U.S. government reneged on the treaty and began to remove native tribes from their land by force.
Sitting Bull was expected to move everyone in his village an impossible 240 miles in the bitter cold. Defiant, Sitting Bull refused to back down. The ensuing Great Sioux Wars culminated in the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn, when Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse led united tribes to victory against General George Armstrong Custer.
Sitting Bull was shot and killed by U.S.-hired Indian police officers on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 1890, but is still remembered as a leader who fought for his people’s dignity, identity and sacred land.
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2022-12-15 14:01:11+00:00
bell hooks, renowned author and pioneer of Black feminist theory, passed away a year ago today.
hooks was deeply critical of the mainstream feminism of her day, which centered white women while excluding the perspectives and struggles of Black and non-white people.
Through her many published works, including All About Love and Ain’t I a Woman, hooks powerfully criticized racist feminism, and examined Black womanhood, which is shaped by intersecting oppressions of racism and sexism.
hooks is celebrated around the world for providing a framework for Black and queer women to understand their own oppression and path to liberation.
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2022-12-15 11:53:01+00:00
What is happening in Peru? Listen to two Peruvian journalists from feminist media La Antigona break it down.
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2022-12-21 14:55:00+00:00
The Best Strikers of 2022 Award goes to workers across the UK who have been striking across sectors all year. Although general strikes are illegal in the UK, workers' relentless action for fair pay & conditions has brought large parts of the UK to a standstill. Today, 10,000 nurses are on strike for a 19% pay rise to cope with soaring living costs like food inflation which is at 16.5%, but the government is offering them a paltry 4.5% raise. They are joined 10,000 by ambulance workers who are also on picket lines today.
Here are just some of the strikes that have hit the UK this year, from left to right: Nurses, postal workers, teachers, dock workers, bus drivers, junior doctors, refuse workers, rail workers, university workers and criminal defense lawyers.
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2022-12-21 11:58:59+00:00
Today would've marked the 73rd birthday of Burkinabé socialist revolutionary Thomas Sankara.
Sankara became the President of Burkina Faso at the age of 33. He only lasted 4 years, because he was killed in a military coup, suspected to have had support from the US and France.
Sankara gained the love of his people because of his humble lifestyle, socialist programmes and economic prosperity, but also his confrontation with the national elite, as he stripped power away from them, and for challenging Western imperialism and neo-colonialism in the continent.
In those 4 short years he:
• Lowered his salary to $450 a month and limited his possessions to a car, 4 bikes, 3 guitars, a fridge and a broken freezer.
• Vaccinated 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles in a matter of weeks.
• Initiated a nation-wide literacy campaign, increasing the literacy rate from 13% in 1983 to 73% in 1987.
• Appointed women to senior positions, encouraged them to work and granted pregnancy leave during education.
• Opposed foreign aid, saying that “he who feeds you, controls you."
...and more.
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2022-12-22 18:01:11+00:00
2022 was the year Africans rose up against France ✊
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2022-12-22 12:01:52+00:00
On this day in 1988, Brazilian labor leader, Workers' Party activist, socialist and conservationist, Francisco "Chico" Mendes was assassinated. As a tireless fighter for the Amazon rainforest which is more in danger today than ever before, he knew deeply how environmentalism and class struggle are intricately connected.
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2022-12-23 16:05:21+00:00
An armed attack in broad daylight has targeted the Kurdish Cultural Center in the French capital Paris, killing at least three people and seriously injuring several others.
Locals overpowered the suspected 69-year-old gunman at the scene before French police took him into custody.
The attack occurred during a scheduled meeting at the Kurdish center on Friday. Eyewitnesses say the suspect was driven to the scene in a car and immediately opened fire on people in front of the building. A representative of the Kurdish Cultural Center has called it a “targeted attack on Kurds.”
In 2013, three Kurdish activists, including PKK co-founder, Sakine Cansız, were assassinated in Paris by Turkish citizen, Ömer Güney. French authorities have claimed Güney was an agent of the Turkish secret service.
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2022-12-23 14:50:04+00:00
The Scumbag Of The Year Award goes to this IDF soldier who threw a Palestinian kid's bike in the trash.
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2022-12-24 15:56:02+00:00
#ChristmasList 2022
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2022-12-24 12:53:02+00:00
2022 was the year Russia invaded Ukraine and the mainstream media took off its mask to expose the ugly racists underneath.
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2022-12-25 15:58:02+00:00
On this day 191 years ago, the eleven-day Christmas Rebellion began in Jamaica when up to 60,000 slaves revolted against the British Empire for their freedom.
While facing brutal and bloody repression, hundreds of slaves were killed, and the leader of the Christmas revolt, a Jamaican Baptist preacher known as Sam Sharpe was amongst those executed in its aftermath.
The rebellion played a major role in paving the way for freedom, and just two years later, the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act was passed, ending slavery in the British Empire.
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2022-12-25 12:55:30+00:00
The best protest anthem of the year award goes to protesters in Iran blaring the Red Army's Katyusha as the soundtrack to their struggle.
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2022-12-25 09:58:02+00:00
Merry Christmas!
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2022-12-26 16:00:33+00:00
On this day 160 years ago, the U.S. carried out the largest mass execution in its history when Abraham Lincoln ordered the killing of 38 Dakota Nation members, weeks after the Dakota had surrendered in the 1862 war.
The Dakota war was triggered at a time when the Dakota people were starving to death and under attack from white settlers. After repeated peace treaty violations by the U.S. and its failure to deliver food and supplies to the tribe as compensation for their land, some Dakota began to fiercely rebel.
After what many describe as unfair trials, 38 tribe members were hung in front of hundreds of white settlers. Following the execution, Congress passed legislation that prohibited Dakota from living in Minnesota and forced the tribe into exile.
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2022-12-26 12:52:02+00:00
The Badass Politician Of The Year Award goes to: Clare Daly! Here are some of her best bits.
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2022-12-27 14:52:01+00:00
The Most Racist EU Official of the Year Award goes to: Josep "the rest of the world is a jungle" Borrell.
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2022-12-28 16:07:00+00:00
2022 was the year U.S. President Joe Biden falsely claimed his son was killed in Iraq, twice; pledged to "keep alive the truth and honor of the Holocaust", and said the U.S. could be defined in a single word: "Asufutimaehaefutbw".
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2022-12-28 13:08:04+00:00
On this day, 11 years ago, the Turkish military killed 34 Kurdish civilians, including 19 children, in the airstrikes known as the Roboski massacre. No one has been held accountable for the massacre.
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2022-12-29 13:27:15+00:00
Today marks 132 years since the U.S. military shot dead up to 300 Native American men, women, and children during the Wounded Knee massacre.
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2022-12-30 16:51:27+00:00
The best ACAB moment of 2022 goes to this protester in Thailand.
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2022-12-30 11:55:05+00:00
The Best Chant Of The Year Award goes to Algerians’ protesting French President Emmanuel Macron's visit.
“Macron go F*ck yourself!”
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2022-12-31 12:50:05+00:00
Marx to Engels, 1861.