Marxist-Humanist Initiative is unflinchingly opposed to Trumpism and the far right in all their manifestations. We have dedicated ourselves to protesting the heel coming down on our necks, and also to calling out those segments of the so-called left that continue to seek accommodation with Trumpism in any way.
As part of this effort, we sponsored and participated in a panel–Confronting “Anti-Neoliberal Left” Collaboration with Trumpism and the Far Right–at the Left Forum this past Sunday. The Left Forum, held in New York City, is the largest conference of left academics and activists in the U.S.
To allow members of the public who did not attend the panel to benefit from the presentations given by MHI and invited panelists, and from the lively and informative discussion that followed, we decided to produce the following video and make it available free of charge. Given our organization’s limited resources, however, donations to help fund our efforts are urgently needed, now more than ever. As we wrote last August, “The left needs once again to stand for freedom and human rights for all.”
The video begins with a welcome and introduction by Anne Jaclard, Organizational Secretary of MHI. Her remarks are followed by five presentations, as listed below. The first talk was via Skype; your sound may need to be turned up to hear it well. We are also publishing the texts and slides that accompany some of the presentations, below the video.
Ravi Bali, London housing activist
- What to Avoid in our Criticism of Liberalism
Anne Jaclard, Marxist-Humanist Initiative, activist
- A New Feminism Infuses the Resistance
Bill Weinberg, journalist, author, activist, blogs world news at CounterVortex.org
- Is Trump Really a Fascist?
Brendan Cooney, blogs about Marx at http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/
- Should the Left Put Forward its Own Populism?
Andrew Kliman, author of The Failure of Capitalist Production and Reclaiming Marx’s “Capital”
- The “Anti-Neoliberal Left” Narrative: Politically Dangerous and Factually Flawed
Click on the links below for the texts and slides that accompany some of the presentations:
Please note that the video is missing part of Anne Jaclard’s remarks about MHI, which she made after the presentations and before the discussion. She read part of MHI’s “Who We Are” statement, which appears in full here.
Editor’s Note: This article was revised on July 2, 2017, in order to include texts and slides of some presentations. For the original article, click here.
“The election, often described as a revolution of the left-out and left-behind, was really nothing of the sort. It was merely a case of Trump motivating the traditional Republican base, and Hillary Clinton failing to motivate Democrats.”
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/ned-barnett/article155509549.html#storylink=cpy
Thanks to the panelists.
Lovely optics: Not a Paid Actor walks out; George Wallace is President.
Excellent heuristics.
Absolutely no to red-brown collaboration.
Tom
The update conveyed in your email of 6 July said this about the previous month’s annual Left Forum: “there were also protests over the exclusion from the conference of white nationalist and anti-Semitic speakers and conspiracy theorists—all claiming to be ‘the left.’”
Obviously being puzzled that the Left Forum would attract purveyors of such politics, two simple questions I hope you can answer to make all this more comprehensible:
1) who were these individuals; &
2) what is the evidence for these claims (hopefully with links so we can all read it)?
Thanks in advance.
This is a test.
A reader has emailed that he submitted a comment that did not come through to us. So you may want to email us your comment at the same time you submit it here, and if it doesn’t show up, we will post it for you, using whatever name you specify.
MHI
This comment comes from Bill Weinberg, http://countervortex.org/ MHI is posting it on his behalf due to technical problems (see above).
The worst of the offending personalities behind the three “banned” panels (all on 9-11 and “false flag” conspiracy theories) is Kevin Barrett, editor of the far-right, conspiranoid and openly anti-Semitic “Veterans Today” (which actually has nothing to do with veteran’s issues). You can read about him here….
https://twitter.com/transform6789/status/763274421855485952
http://forward.com/opinion/national/373577/leftists-must-root-out-anti-semitism-in-its-ranks/
https://vitamfracta.com/2016/08/15/how-to-be-a-left-wing-apologist-for-antisemitism/
https://rehmat1.com/2017/05/15/left-forum-911-discussion-is-anti-jewish/
http://countervortex.org/node/14955#comment-453680
Here’s the piece in Counterpunch (of course) where they gripe about being “banned”….
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/02/left-forum-bans-four-panels-under-zionist-pressure/
Unfortunately, the Left Forum did NOT ban the panel featuring Alison Weir of “If Americans Knew,” who is just as bad….
https://www.leftforum.org/sessions/deep-state-20-against-anti-semitism-critical-zionism
“Against Anti-Semitism,” my ass. Utterly Orwellian. The very name of the panel is anti-Semitic, since it implies the “Zionists” are behind the “Deep State.”
I have tangled with Weir directly….
http://countervortex.org/node/13413#comment-452393
Much more detail on her here….
http://www.politicalresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2014/06/CCC_May2014.pdf
Bill Weinberg
At the recent Left Forum, organizers of the rejected “Deep State” panels distributed a particularly noxious flier. A scan of it is available here:
http://docdro.id/c3yrKW4
The flier notes “a pattern of harassment by Zionist elements to shut down free speech.”
It frames the Left Forum’s decision as a “capitulation to shadowy pressure,” a “part of a brazen repression of thoughts” that reflects a “sophisticated, organized meta strategy to oppose any criticism of Israel.”
As well, the flier provides a list of “Key Resources,” which includes links to stuff like “Ex-Mossad agent…explains the ‘antisemitic’ trick.”