Each case, in its own way, has demonstrated both the potential of electoral engagement and the limits of democratic control. The left is finally developing the strategic skills to gain office; it has yet to work out how to exercise power in the interests of those who put it there.
The word socialism is in the air these days. Socialism of many varieties has been enjoying a comeback in Latin America for some time. Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, Lula da Silva, the late Hugo Chavez have been the region's dominant leaders in this century. And now there is a remarkable resurgence of European socialism. And, and, the candidate everyone is talking about is...Bernie Sanders, democratic socialist.
Reader Comments: Refugee Crisis, Solidarity and Worker Rights; Radical Roots of Great Grape Strike and the United Farmworkers; Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders; Woman Held in Mental Health Facility Because Police Didn't Believe Her; Rhiannon Giddens and Old-Time Music's Black Roots;
Announcements - New York and Los Angeles - Greece,Spain, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Cuba
Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the British Labour Party on September 12. He gave his first major speech three days later, September 15, to delegate attending the UK's Trade Union Congress, annual gathering three days later on 15 September. He rejected a style of top down leadership, in favor of one that enables everybody, every union branch, every party branch and every union, so we organically develop their strengths, ideas, and imagination.
Corbyn, like Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, is part of the new popular resistance that is rising up from the ruins of neoliberalism and globalization to fight the international banking system and American imperialism. We have yet to mount this battle effectively in the United States. We too must work to build a socialist nation.
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