‘Left Forum’ in NYC to discuss economic/ecological transformation

Organizers of the Left Forum announced on May 9 that Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera will address the conference’s closing plenary and participate in some panels. The theme of this year’s Forum is “Mobilizing for Economic/Ecological Transformation.”

The LF has been a center for the struggle of ideas by people within the left movement who at a minimum consider themselves socialist at some level. While the forum leans toward representing social democratic voices, academia and the arts — for example, Professor Noam Chomsky and filmmaker Oliver Stone are scheduled this year — it also presents a venue for ideas of organizations further to the left.

Nearly every political tendency, from just left of the openly capitalist Democratic Party to those defining themselves as Marxist-Leninist, tries to express its point of view at the conference.

There will be 1,000 speakers at this year’s Forum, which is scheduled for the weekend of June 7-9 at Pace University in downtown Manhattan, near the Brooklyn Bridge subway station. The schedule for all panels and full meetings is available at leftforum.org.

Workers World newspaper, which reflects a revolutionary communist point of view, has pulled together speakers for three panels. Contributors to Workers World are speaking on some of the other panels. WW will also have a literature table to introduce Marxist books, newspapers and pamphlets to participants.

As of now, the date and time for the panels have not been finalized. The three WW panels have the following titles and descriptions:

1. The People’s Republic of China and U.S. imperialism’s “turn” to Asia. China’s revolution was one of the greatest in the history of humanity. Now, 64 years after the victory of the Chinese Communist Party and 37 years after the death of Mao Zedong, is China headed toward capitalism? What role does Chinese trade and banking play in Africa and Latin America? Does the U.S. “turn” to Asia increase the danger of war?

2. People’s Power Assembly and other mass resistance to “austerity.” Attempts at mass organizing resist the unrelenting attack on the U.S. working class in the areas of the environment, the struggle for immigrant rights, housing rights and the People’s Power Assembly, which was a key organizer of the May 11-12 March for Jobs and Justice from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. How organizations of the working class independent of the Republican and Democratic Parties are needed to mobilize effective resistance.

3. The Fighting Youth Movement & the Ideology of Marxism-Leninism. Ideology must go together with action. Young activists explain how the ideology of Marxism-Leninism helps them evaluate what to do to take action regarding anti-war and anti-imperialist events, to fight racism and police brutality, to defend the environment and to participate on the side of the workers and oppressed peoples in the class struggle.

Other panels of interest, sponsored by the United National Antiwar Coalition, are “Aggression by another name — how the U.S. wages war on Syria” and “The War on Africa.”