33rd Carnival of Socialism

Jim Jay blogs:

The 33rd Carnival of Socialism is out now over at Harpy Marx. A damn fine job it is too!

Carnival of Socialism 24

The Carnival of Socialism is up at The View from Steeltown:

The theme of this Carnival is Socialism in the Americas.

23rd Carnival of Socialism

The Red Mantis hosts the 23rd Carnival of Socialism:

The Red Mantis is proud to host the twenty-third edition of the Carnival of Socialism. After a much needed revival led mostly by Jim Jepps of The Daily (Maybe) and John Angliss of the Labor Left Forum, the Carnival has had a strong showing from all of its hosts. For May Day, the Carnival self-hosted a special edition to commemorate the big day. With all of this exciting activity, I humbly present the next edition of the Carnival of Socialism. Here’s hoping it measures up.

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22nd Carnival of Socialism

The latest Carnival of Socialism is up at Socialist Unity:

We have split the carnival into two parts, with a selection from Louise, and a selection from Andy

Louise looks at the issues on left feminist blogs:

…

Andy Newman’s selection on China:

Shiraz Socialist on Tibet

Jim writes:

Listen, you Stalinists!

You have been systematically spreading lies about the ’Free Tibet’ movement, and offering uncritical support to the vicious, red-in-tooth-and-claw capitalist ruling class in Beijing. Of course, you are no strangers to the art of grovelling to, and lying for,  a thoroughly reactionary, anti-working class regime in the name of “socialism”: you adopted that posture towards the so-called “Soviet Union” for sixty years, until the workers of Russia and Eastern Europe (literally) tore down the edifice of Stalinist totalitarianism.

20th Carnival of Socialism

The latest Carnival of Socialism is up at Leftwing Crimnologist:

Hi all, Welcome to Carnival of Socialsim 20 – focussing on crime, criminal justice and socialism. Just like Power to the People with the previous carnival attempt to open people’s eyes to internationalism and liberation, I’m intending on doing a similar thing with this topic, however, some of these posts are a little old, but i include them becuase I think they’re quite good.

So let’s begin.

Carnival of Socialism #19

The Carnival of Socialism #19 is up at Power to the People:

Solidarity,

This carnival i wanted to highlight posts in the left blogosphere which not only hardly receive coverage in the mainstream media, but independent and left press as well. My only hypothesis is that since what we know of as the revolutionary left is mostly made up of comrades from Western countries, their focus tends to be on,well, Western countries.

Is it because there is no class struggle in Africa, Latin America or Asia? As the following posts show, it is certainly not the case.

Carnival of Socialism #17

The 17th Carnival of Socialism is up at Stroppy Blog:

Better late than never…I hope. Here is the Carnival, the second of the relaunch.I have tried to capture a number of themes and posts that have caught my eye, and a few sent me. I would have liked to have had more from beyond the usual suspects, but time has been a bit short this week.

Here goes…

90th Anniversary of the Revolution Against Das Kapital

The blogger at A Reader’s Words writes:

On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, 17 leading academicians from Russia, among them Roy Medvedev and Mikhail Shatrov have issued an appeal reiterating the achievements of the Revolution and criticizing post- USSR attempts to whitewash that period of history.

The Death of Chandrashekhar and Indian Socialist Politics

Bhupinder writes:

Socialist politics, dominated now by such ‘bleeding heart socialists’ like Amar Singh and caste centered politicians like Mulayam, Laloo and BJP’s friends like Nitish Kumar and George Fernandes, has now come to practically a dead end. Acharya Narendra Dev is now a forgotten man altogether. Human Rights and civil liberties organizations that grew in the days of the Emergency are the only reminders of JP. Lohia’s ghost continues to haunt in the form of caste politics (not necessarily bad, but I don’t suppose even Lohia would have conceived of caste politics as an end in itself.)

Leaving Socialism

Fire Fly blogs about organizing and leaving the socialist movement:

…it’s always white men who lead these demonstrations, who are given the opportunity to speak, and who set the agendas.

These means of engaging can be really alienating for lots of people. Speaking at demonstrations involves loud, angry invective — talking at people, not to or with them. Inevitably they engage in every other conversation this way as well. Speaking to them is very one-sided (and that’s a criticism I’ve heard from people both within and outside the activist community), which makes it difficult to work with them or to get one’s priorities represented at organising meetings where the real decisions get made.

The reason they behave like this is because they get a sense of entitlement from their ideology. One of my interlocutors compared it to evangelical Christianity: aside from the need to evangelise (recruit), there’s also a single book/prophet (Marx, who has canonical interpreters), a teleological view of human history that will end in a single protracted moment where everything will be set right (in Christianity it’s the Second Coming, in socialism, it’s Revolution), inability to acknowledge any problems other than the ones they prescribe (e.g. patriarchy), and an inability to analyse with any other perspective (e.g. environmentalism).

Imperialism and Latin America

Phalcon, of the blog Guerrillas in the Matrix, writes about recent moves in Latin America by the U.S. and other elements:

In spite of massive protests during Bush’s recent tour of Latin America, it’s not what the people want that counts. It’s what the big money wants. And the big money is out to crush Chavez, the Bolivarian Revolution, and any other Leftist regime that rears its head in Latin America.

The conflict between capitalism and the exploited masses of people in Latin America is going to loom ever larger in the coming decades, and the struggle promises to be a very nasty affair. Chavez will discover, like Castro, that the big money powers will stop at nothing to crush him.