Americas

Election night has come and gone and, as expected, there are no clear results. Trump has all but declared victory, while the Biden camp calls for patience. The general picture is one of utter polarization, and the threat of a descent into an unholy mess of bourgeois democracy. Socialist Revolution (USA) Editor John Peterson will provide an analysis of where things stand one day into the post-election chaos—coming up at around 5PM ET (10PM GMT)!

This year's US presidential elections are a repulsive demonstration of the utter bankruptcy of American bourgeois democracy, at a time of unprecedented crisis and polarisation. No matter who wins, American workers and youth lose. Given the nightmare US capitalism has foisted on the country and the entire world, what is needed above all is a mass socialist party that will fight for the interests of working people.

With the 50th anniversary of the October Crisis of 1970, debates about the Front de Libération du Quebec (FLQ) have resurfaced. Some denounce the “Felquistes” as vulgar “terrorists”. Others celebrate them as a model to be followed. Still others recognize the problems denounced by the FLQ, but feel that they should have used “democratic” means to achieve their ends. For Marxists, there is no doubt that the FLQ revolutionaries showed courage and tenacity rarely seen in the history of Quebec. But we must admit the failure of their methods.

A resounding majority have voted “approve” in the referendum on whether to change the Chilean constitution – which has its origins in the dictatorship – with a result of 78 percent against 22 percent who voted to “reject”. This is a victory that the working class is celebrating, and feels as its own. A year after the biggest-ever march in Chile, as part of a mass uprising, the people have been through a lot: repression, abuses, murder and maimings; as well as deception and media manipulations. Especially considering the pandemic, the

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The MAS (Movement for Socialism) has returned to power in Bolivia following a crushing victory in the recent elections. Rather than a programme of compromise and national unity, bold socialist measures are necessary to overcome this period of tremendous crisis, and carry society forward.

Fred Weston, editor for marxist.com, explains how the Italian left wrecked itself on the rocks of 'lesser-evilism', starting in the 1970s. With early voting for the US elections underway, and huge pressure on the left to vote for Joe Biden in order to kick out Donald Trump, there are valuable lessons to be learned from the Italian experience.

The following article explains the situation in Haiti, where President Jovenel Moïse is hurtling towards naked dictatorship. With parliament dissolved in January, he is ruling by decree (with the support of Haiti’s capitalist mafioso and foreign imperialism), murdering and terrorising all opponents to his authority. The workers, youth and poor must organise on a class basis to overthrow this rotten system! Please read, share and add your organisation’s name to this solidarity statement.

We ask worker and student activists and organisations around the world to show their solidarity with the struggle in Haiti by sharing this statement, taking pictures and making statements of their own on social media using the hashtags #SolidaritéAvecLaLutteEnHaïti and #ABasLeRégimeMoïse. To add the name of your organisation to the statement please contact webmaster@marxist.com.

The Colombian workers and youth are trapped in a nightmare. The parasitic bourgeoisie has totally failed to curb the coronavirus pandemic, and has used the economic crisis as an excuse to carry out further cuts and attacks on the working class. Socialist struggle is needed to free Colombia from its unbearable condition.

Alan Woods – editor of In Defence of Marxism – comments on the situation in the USA, where it was announced last week that President Donald Trump has contracted COVID-19, amidst a farcical presidential election and the greatest crisis in the history of US capitalism.

Below are some of the messages of solidarity our Brazilian comrades of Esquerda Marxista have received in the face of the attacks suffered by one of their leading activists, Johannes Halter. Earlier this month, a hacker threatened to disclose personal data about Halter and his family if he did not take down the Esquerda Marxista Instagram page, which he manages. For more details, read this article, originally published in ...

In March of this year, three Louisville police officers broke into Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend’s home after midnight. The cops fired 32 shots in the apartment, killing Taylor in a barrage of bullets. In its recent ruling, the capitalist courts did not indict a single officer for this extrajudicial murder. The announcement was met with outrage and brought tens of thousands back into the streets in at least a dozen cities across the country.

Last week, revelations from a nurse employed at an immigrant jail regarding the forced sterilization of women in US federal custody spread like wildfire. The nurse-turned-whistleblower revealed that immigrant women were receiving hysterectomies and other gynecological procedures without the proper informed consent, while imprisoned in a privately run Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) jail.

In the early hours of 9 September, the lawyer and taxi driver Jorge Humberto Ordoñez, father of two, was murdered by two National Police agents after 16 taser discharges and a beatdown, as he begged for his life. This crime, which was recorded by witnesses, was the straw that broke the camel’s back and pushed the masses into the streets against police brutality and in demand of effective action against massacres, unemployment and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The US is standing on a precipice overlooking an abyss of hitherto unimagined proportions. Since March, over 56 million workers have filed unemployment claims, and as of this writing, roughly half of them are currently receiving unemployment benefits.

The Brazilian section of the International Marxist Tendency has faced an online attack from an anonymous individual in an attempt to silence our revolutionary ideas. The IMT would like to send our full support and solidarity to the Brazilian comrades of Esquerda Marxista and comrade Johannes Halter, who has endured personal threats as well as threats towards his family. We ask all our readers to support the campaign by sending messages of solidarity to contato@marxismo.org.br.

After much delay due to COVID-19 restrictions, Julian Assange’s extradition hearing resumed on 7 September in the Old Bailey, London. Assange has remained in solitary confinement in the high security Belmarsh Prison since he was forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian embassy on 11 April 2019.

Swathes of the USA have been hit with devastating wildfires: a tragic consequence of climate change and capitalist negligence. With people on the West Coast having already faced COVID-19, multiple disasters are being piled one on top of another.