CONTENTS

1. CALLS TO ACTION
2. EVENTS
3. ARTICLES

Fix Long-Term Care

Send a message to Prime Minister Trudeau and ask him to fix long-term care, now.

Residents and workers deserve a long-term care system that puts their health, safety, security and dignity first. Join the call to replace our current patchwork, for-profit system with a well-funded, well-staffed public long-term care system.

fixlongtermcare.ca

Protect Communities when Schools Shutdown!

When: Saturday, January 2nd, 1pm
Meet at Hart House Circle

The Ford government has let the second wave of Covid-19 spiral out of control and is shutting the province down without providing the supports we need to make it work.

As education workers, we’ve been on the front lines of this pandemic and know who it’s hitting the hardest: those low-income and racialized students and families already abandoned by the government and its wealthy supporters. School closures will also result in mass layoffs of Occasional Teachers and other education workers who will need protection.

Join the Education Worker Car Caravan to demand the following:
– Barrier Free Benefits for anyone forced out of work due to closures,
– Immediate Rent Relief and a province-wide ban on evictions,
– Paid Sick Days for all.

Facebook event

An Army Like No Other

When: January 9th, 2pm

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) was established in 1948 by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, who believed that “the whole nation is the army.” In his mind, the IDF was to be an army like no other. It was the instrument that might transform a diverse population into a new people.

In an insightful new history of the IDF, An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defense Forces Made a Nation, Israeli author Haim Bresheeth-Zabner argues that the state of Israel has been formed out of its wars. He also gives an account of his own experiences as a young conscript during the 1967 war, and shows how the IDF has used its military and scientific advantage at the expense of indigenous Palestinians and other perceived enemies.

Bresheeth-Zabner will be joined in conversation with Judith Deutsch. Their conversation will be moderated by Lia Tarachansky.

This event is organized by the IJV Anti-militarism Working Group in collaboration with Independent Jewish Voices Canada | zoom.us

Leo Panitch’s Many Lessons on Living Under American Empire

By Alex Colas

Leo Panitch’s untimely death last weekend is a tragic loss for the international left. His intellectual and political contributions toward rebuilding working class movements in such diverse settings as North America, the UK and Greece were consistently lucid, incisive and trenchant – that is, indispensable. They reflect an internationalist commitment to concrete struggles for democratic socialism from a strategic standpoint, always mindful of capital’s pervasive power across the planet, particularly after the demise of the Soviet bloc.

Source: The Bullet No. 2270

Local Elections in Brazil: The Return of the Living Dead

By Jorg Nowak

Brazil held local elections this past November. These always take place midway through the legislative terms of the presidency and the national parliament, and hence, serve as an important temperature check on the general political mood. Usually, the party of the sitting president who was elected two years earlier receives a boost. Yet, since president Jair Bolsonaro is not a member of a political party, things are slightly more complicated this time.

Source: The Bullet No. 2271

Leo Panitch and the Socialist Project

By Stephen Maher

The death of Leo Panitch has made the world a darker place. His writings have carried us through some of the most difficult periods in the history of the socialist left, as wave after wave of the neoliberal onslaught broke workers’ organizations, serving up one defeat after the next. Leo’s work sustained so many of us during these years, pushing us on and pointing the way through the storm. This was not because he sowed illusions about just how bad things have been. Rather it was because, even as other erstwhile New Leftists lamented the “God That Failed,” he devoted himself to demonstrating the necessity of a democratic socialist society that would neither fall prey to the shortcomings of social democracy nor those of Soviet-style Communism.

Source: The Bullet No. 2272

Millions of India’s Farmers Are in a Fight for Their Economic Lives

By Sonali Kolhatkar

India’s farmers are revolting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in a mass movement that has drawn international attention. The world’s largest democracy is witnessing a collective groundswell of protest as hundreds of thousands of farmers, largely from the states of Punjab and Haryana, have laid siege to the outskirts of the capital of New Delhi, determined to occupy the edges of the city until Modi reverses unpopular new laws that they say are anti-farmer.

Source: The Bullet No. 2273

Vaccine Rollout

In this episode we discuss what is currently known about Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout plans, the privatization and closure of Canada’s own vaccine producer Connaught Labs, the potential for electoral blowback from a delayed vaccination schedule, and our general displeasure with the NDP.

Source: The Scarlet Standard Episode No. 6

Empire, Socialism and November /w Leo Panitch

Sanjiv Gupta interviewed Leo Panitch in early September 2020. They discussed two issues which Panitch has studied and written about for decades. First, whether the pandemic has fundamentally altered the geopolitical balance between the US and other great powers, specifically China. And second, how socialists in the US should approach the November elections. For Panitch, the two issues are intimately connected.

Source: LeftStreamed