/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

Puerto Rico’s Old Military Wounds Are Being Reopened
The remilitarization of Puerto Rico has sparked divided reactions. Some, including the governor, frame it as a symbol of U.S. partnership and security. But for others, the ongoing buildup—including renewed presence of heavy equipment and reports that President Trump authorized covert CIA operations against Venezuela—raises fears that Puerto Rico could once again become a live-fire zone.
https://time.com/7332725/puerto-ricos-military-roosevelt-roads/
https://archive.ph/rlLDQ

‘Reckless and Irresponsible’: Trump Plans Deep Housing Cuts That Could Leave 200,000 Homeless
“By cutting aid for permanent housing by two-thirds next year, the plan risks a sudden end of support for most of the people the Continuum places in such housing nationwide, beginning as soon as January,” the Times added. “All are disabled—a condition of the aid—and many are 50 or older. The document does not explain how they would find housing.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-housing-cuts

‘Red cup rebellion’: striking Starbucks baristas urge customers to stay away
More than a thousand Starbucks workers across the US walked off the job on Thursday in over 40 cities, marking one of the largest coordinated actions yet by the rapidly growing union movement inside the world’s largest coffee chain. The strike, timed to coincide with the company’s lucrative “red cup day” festivities, is designed to pressure Starbucks back to the bargaining table after months of stalled contract negotiations.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/14/starbucks-strike-red-cup-rebellion

THC gummies and drinks face ban under provision in government spending bill
Hemp, a derivative of the cannabis plant, was legalized in the 2018 Farm Bill. It created a loophole for THC to be sold in low doses and explode in the mainstream consumer market. The new ban tucked into the spending bill prohibits products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/thc-gummies-drinks-face-ban-provision-government-spending/story?id=127509295

Texas professors arrested at campus protest sue university, alleging retaliation
History professors Ben Wright and Rosemary Admiral argue they should not have been arrested in the first place at the 1 May 2024 demonstration, where they were standing between their students and heavily armed law enforcement. Following the arrest, the professors say their university engaged in retaliation by severely restricting their access to campus, vaguely ordering that classroom instruction and “employment/research related activities” were the only permissible reasons for them to show up at work.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/14/texas-campus-dallas-lawsuit

Critics warn Florida’s new teaching standards rehabilitate aspects of the anti-communist Red Scare
Under the new standards, Florida teachers should instruct on efforts by “anti-communist politicians,” such as McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee, President Harry Truman and President Richard Nixon. Teachers also are instructed to identify “propaganda and defamation” used to “delegitimize” anti-communists. “Instruction includes using ‘McCarthyism’ as an insult and shorthand for all anti-communism,” the new standards said. “Instruction includes slander against anti-communists, such as red-baiter and Red Scare.”
https://apnews.com/article/florida-trumbo-mccarthyism-education-1caf1b9eb92821e9e199bfcb40732a68

21 arrested outside Broadview ICE detention center as protesters clash with police; 4 officers hurt
Twenty one people were arrested and four police officers were injured Friday as protesters clashed with police outside a Broadview U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. There was a large protest Friday morning outside the building.
https://abc7chicago.com/post/village-broadview-il-protest-several-detained-outside-ice-facility-protesters-push-designated-area-live/18154986/

Chile’s General Election Shows the Threat of the Far Right, the Limits of the Center-Left, and the Potential of a Revolutionary Alternative
On November 16, Chile will hold its general election and many are predicting that the country will be the next in the region to shift to the right. The leading candidates for the presidency are right-wing populist José Antonio Kast, who has formed international ties with the Far Right, and Jeannette Jara Román, a member of the Communist Party who is viewed as far-left by some, despite her strategy of working within the existing structures of the Chilean state. Other candidates include a traditional right-winger, Evelyn Matthei, and a far-right candidate, Johannes Kaiser, who promises to deregulate everything and unleash more police violence and repression. Polling suggests that Jara might come in first, leading to a runoff with Kast, but she has little chance of winning in a second round. A surprise victory by Kaiser is also possible. Right-wing candidates have focused their campaigns on fearmongering about migrants and blaming them for the country’s problems. They also target the Indigenous Mapuche community, which has long struggled against the Chilean state over land and resource extraction. The Right aims to further subordinate Chile to U.S. imperialism, much like other right-wing governments in Latin America, such as Javier Milei in Argentina, Luis Arce in Bolivia, and Daniel Noboa in Ecuador. And although a “communist” candidate is among the contenders, the electoral situation reflects a shift to the right for Chile. As noted in an editorial in La Izquierda Diario — Chile, "There are no two expanding poles. What exists is an asymmetrical polarization, where the Right advances and the institutional Left moderates. While the Right grows bolder, intensifies its rhetoric, and occupies political space, the Broad Front and the Communist Party moderate. They adopt the language of “order,” abandon their program, and embrace the priorities of the business sector under the guise of the “responsibility of governing.” Thus, the governing Left paradoxically becomes the guarantor of the neoliberal stability it claims to want to “overcome. " Even the Wall Street Journal suggests that both Kast and Jara would provide stability for capital and solidify Chile as “an example of how institutions can withstand the extremes of right and left wing populism.” Jara has moderated her limited reform program throughout the campaign.
https://www.leftvoice.org/chiles-general-election-shows-the-threat-of-the-far-right-the-limits-of-the-center-left-and-the-potential-of-a-revolutionary-alternative/

D. RAJA, General Secretary, CPI: IMPERIALISM TODAY STRUGGLE FORWARD
Imperialism today no longer requires colonies in the traditional sense. It governs through networks of finance, data, and technology — invisible chains binding nations to the logic of capital accumulation. The world that emerged from the ashes of the Cold War falsely promised unending prosperity under the banner of globalisation and neo-liberalism. What we have instead is what Lenin would recognise immediately: “a world dominated by monopolies and finance capital, a world divided among a handful of powers for whom profit is the only principle.” The United States, having reigned unchallenged for three decades, now faces an irreversible decline in hegemony. Yet, like every empire before it, it refuses to cede its power gracefully. The unipolar world order, which enforced obedience through the dollar, NATO, and the IMF, is collapsing under its contradictions. In its place rises a multipolar configuration, represented most clearly by the BRICS bloc — a historical necessity born out of the world’s exhaustion with American diktat. The desperation of U.S. imperialism is visible everywhere — in its sanctions, trade wars, and military encirclements.Donald Trump’s weaponisation of tariffs reveals that “free trade” was never a principle but a tactic. The U.S. now deploys economic coercion as openly as it once deployed gunboats. But while Washington can still threaten, it can no longer command. The growing cohesion of the BRICS group — now expanded to include West Asian and African powers — signals that the age of unipolarity is over. The world is moving towards a plural balance of forces, and this transition, though chaotic, carries revolutionary potential.
https://www.solidnet.org/article/CP-of-India-IMPERIALISM-TODAY-STRUGGLE-FORWARD/

Nestor Makhno: Our Organization
The times through which the working class world-wide is presently passing requires that revolutionary anarchists strain their imaginations and their energies to the fullest if they are to clarify the most important issues. Each comrade must be conscious of this requirement, think about it and come to the conclusion that only through a united organizational force can anarchists promptly identify and analyze the issues that concern the masses, and illustrate their responses successfully to them. Those of our comrades who played an active part in the Russian revolution and who have kept faith with their anarchist positions will be sensitive to the harmfulness that the absence of solid organization has brought to our anarchist movement. Those comrades are well-placed to play a particularly useful role in our current quest for union. It has not gone unnoticed by those comrades, I imagine, that anarchism was a factor for insurrection among the revolutionary working masses in Russia and Ukraine. It incited them to join in the struggle everywhere; but the absence of an organization, capable of marshaling its resources against the revolution's enemies, left it powerless to assume any organizational role. The cause of anarchism in the Revolution suffered the dire consequences of that. If they now realize this, the Russian and Ukrainian anarchists must not allow this to happen again in the future. The lesson of the past is too painful and, bearing that in mind, they must be the first to teach by example through the cohesiveness of their forces, by setting up an anarchist organization that can carry out anarchism's tasks, not just during the preparations for the Social Revolution, but also in its early days. Such an organization must unite all of anarchism's revolutionary forces and unhesitatingly set about preparing the masses for the social revolution and the struggle to achieve the anarchist society.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/makhno-nestor/works/1925/09/our-organisation.htm

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