Portside

Walden Bello on the Philippines election, Lula picks a running mate, and news on the left in Sudan, Sri Lanka, Russia and more

Political economy and new maps of power in 2022

How the war is changing thinking on the international left

Brazil Election: Landless Workers, Chomsky Meets Lula, French Left Leader, El Salvador Left vs Right, Transforming the UK, South Asia Women's Movements, Weekly Protest in Austria

There is no denying it: The last few months have been disastrous for the French left. As the gospel of neoliberalism goes up in flames across the Channel, French voters have handed over the republic to one of its true believers. These will be trying times for the French working class, and really anyone concerned with the country's collective well-being. Macron's electoral success does not equate with a broad democratic mandate for his policies.

Mélenchon’s election campaign has galvanized the Left by doing what Hamon couldn’t — making a clean break with the political center. In France, history is back. Here as elsewhere, the social tectonics of the great economic crisis of 2008 are doing their work. The routine presidential stables are recomposing at great speed. They are realigning political forces around the three options (Three Monsters) nestled within the infra-world of our political modernity.

[The people] are supposed to exercise power through parliamentary assemblies. But the financial oligarchy which rule our present situation have taken upon themselves the right to veto their decisions. This is why the system doesn’t fear the left, which it has been able to control … But it has a clear-headed fear of the people.

Currently the number one issue is to avoid war.