/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

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'You Are an Inspiration,' Sanders Tells LA Hotel Workers Fighting for Just Contracts
"You are an inspiration, because of your courage, to millions of working people throughout this country," Sanders (I-Vt.) told the crowd of workers gathered outside Hotel Figueroa. "You are working hard, you are what keeps these hotels going. You deserve decent wages, you deserve decent benefits, you deserve decent healthcare, you deserve decent schedules, you deserve decent pensions."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-hotel-workers-unite-here

Progressive Candidate Could Upend the San Francisco Mayor’s Race
Mr. Peskin said this week that he agrees with the other candidates that the San Francisco Police Department needs more officers, and he would try to create a program to seek recruits from local colleges. He said he also agrees that fentanyl dealers must be arrested and jailed.
Mr. Peskin sees that goal as unrealistic and believes San Francisco should retain local control over its housing development rather than have the state intervene.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/us/san-francisco-mayor-peskin.html
https://archive.is/6UqqA

US court rejects transfer of credit card fees rule case amid focus on 'judge shopping'
The ruling was a jurisdictional victory for business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Bankers Association amid a broader debate over how and whether to rein in "judge shopping" by litigants who sue over government policies in courts with one or two sympathetic judges.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-court-rejects-transfer-credit-card-fees-rule-case-amid-focus-judge-shopping-2024-04-06/

Arrests Expose Rift Between N.Y.P.D. and ‘Violence Interrupters
Over the past year, though, interrupters say officers have cursed at them; shoved them out of the way when they tried to break up fights; and arrested them for minor offenses. Then, on Feb. 9, two members of Save Our Streets, a longtime anti-violence group in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights section, said officers had handcuffed them after they tried to calm a man being detained for drug possession.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/nyregion/nypd-violence-interrupters-sos.html
https://archive.is/k8stF

Biden not backing demands for independent probe into World Central Kitchen strike
The Biden administration is not backing calls for an independent, third-party investigation into the Israeli strike that killed seven aid workers with the World Central Kitchen (WCK), bucking demands from the nongovernmental organization’s chief José Andrés and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).
https://thehill.com/homenews/4577089-biden-not-backing-independent-investigation-world-central-kitchen-strike/
https://archive.is/YBPSg

Outcry after Michigan university announces plan to restrict protest rights
The “disruptive activity policy”, announced last week in a campus-wide email from the university president, Santa J Ono, would create strict punishments for anyone who interrupts official university events, including speeches, classes, athletic events, field trips, performances, graduation and award ceremonies.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/06/university-michigan-restrict-campus-protests

Is the Golden Age of American Jews Ending? No, but Liberal Zionism Is Breaking Down.
Foer’s pained attempts at “both-sidesism” rest on a simple premise: He identifies with a version of “liberal” Zionism that supports U.S. imperialist hegemony, including its Zionist proxy that helps it to control the Middle East. This ideology, which was once very popular, claimed to defend human rights and democracy, while at the same time cheering for imperialist wars and ethnic cleansing. Foer incorrectly assumes that all Jews feel the same way, or at least they really should. So any criticism of U.S. imperialism is, in his view, anti-Jewish. The author recounts numerous anecdotes of Jewish students feeling threatened by pro-Palestine protests at their school. He does not delve into any of these stories — it is not clear why a protest against an ongoing genocide would be threatening to any individual not committing said genocide. Many young Jewish people in the U.S. are raised to identify with the Israeli state. But they don’t have to — and increasingly, this identity is breaking down. Many of the pro-Palestine protesters, who are supposedly threatening Jews, are themselves Jewish.
https://www.leftvoice.org/is-the-golden-age-of-american-jews-ending-no-but-liberal-zionism-is-breaking-down/

Sahra Wagenknecht Keeps Punching Down
Without a doubt, Sahra Wagenknecht’s new party fills a gap in Germany’s party-political spectrum. Her credo: yes, the rich should pay more taxes and working people should earn more, but socially everything should remain more or less the same, or return to the way it used to be. Her Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht party (literally, Sahra Wagenknecht Union, BSW) is a mixture of the traditional left and the working-class wing of Christian democracy. Does it have a raison d’être? Yes. You could even argue that the BSW strengthens democracy, if nonvoters or frustrated voters feel represented by it. However, the current political landscape means that Wagenknecht not only has to try to win over frustrated former social democrats, but also potential voters for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). After all, she wants her BSW to usurp AfD as a protest party — and from there go on to establish itself as a mainstream party of the center. Her strategy: populism. Sometimes left-wing populism, sometimes right-wing populism. Sometimes ranting against the rich, sometimes joining in on attacks against the unemployed and refugees. She wants to have her cake and eat it, too. This can also be seen in the choice of candidates: sometimes the likes of Fabio De Masi — formerly a member of the European Parliament for the left-wing Die Linke, and critic of EU finance — sometimes the likes of Thomas Geisel, responsible for mass privatizations in former East Germany. We could say that Wagenknecht is walking a fine line. Yet she also dangerously goes off course, legitimizing right-wing talking points by copying and inflating them.
https://jacobin.com/2024/04/sahra-wagenknecht-bsw-migrants-pensions-populism

Frederick Engels 1884: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State: Introduction
Engels wrote The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State in just two months – beginning toward the end of March 1884 and completing it by the end of May. It focuses on early human history, following the disintegration of the primitive community and the emergence of a class society based on private property. Engels looks into the origin and essence of the state, and concludes it is bound to wither away leaving a classless society. Engels: “Along with [the classes] the state will inevitably fall. Society, which will reorganise production on the basis of a free and equal association of the producers, will put the whole machinery of state where it will then belong: into the museum of antiquity, by the side of the spinning-wheel and the bronze axe.” In 1890, having gathered new material on the history of primitive society, Engels set about preparing a new edition of his book. He studied the latest books on the subject – including those of Russian historian Maxim Kovalevsky. (The fourth edition, Stuttgart, 1892, was dedicated to Kovalevsky.) As a result, he introduced a number of changes in his original text and also considerable insertions. In 1894, Engels’s book appeared in Russian translation. It was the first of Engels’s works published legally in Russia. Lenin would later describe it as “one of the fundamental works of modern socialism.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm#intro