Chile: Approval for A New Constitution Wins Massive Mandate

VICTORY OF CHILE’S PEOPLE

teleSUR | October 25, 2020

Chileans go to the National Stadium, where voting tables were set up, to cast their vote in the plebiscite in Santiago, Chile, Oct. 25, 2020 | Photo: EFE/ Alberto Valdes

Chileans today overwhelmingly approved, at the polls, the doing away of the Constitution drafted and approved under the military regime of Augusto Pinochet and gave the green light to the creation of a Constitutional Assembly.

Evo Morales Will Return to Bolivia On November 9

EVO MORALES

Evo Morales will return to Bolivia on November 9th, the day after Luis Arce is sworn in as President. He’ll then arrive to the Trópico of Cochabamba on the 11th, where he’ll be based. | Photo: Twitter/@Kawsachun News

In a television interview Tuesday, Senator Andrónico Rodríguez of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party said that former president Evo Morales would return to Bolivia on November 9, just after Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca of the MAS are sworn in as president and vice president of the Andean nation.

Rodríguez said that two days later, on November 11, Morales will go to the Tropic of Cochabamba, where he would stay.

In Stunning Display of Popular Will, Protests in Bolivia to Chile Force Public Reckoning of “Chicago Boy” Economics

STRUGGLE OF THE LATIN AMERICAN PEOPLE

Alan Macleod

MintPress News | October 26, 2020

With almost all votes counted, the people of Chile have overwhelmingly chosen to discard their old constitution, written and implemented under the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. 78 percent of Chileans voted “Sí” yesterday for a new constitution, paving the way for a new era in the country’s history and a possible break from the structures enshrined by the fascist dictator.

Indonesian Protests Mark Re-emergence of Social Movements, Civil Society

WORKERS’ MOVEMENT

People’s Dispatch | October 29, 2020

Robertus Robet, lecturer of sociology at the State University of Jakarta and a human rights activist, talks about the recent protests in Indonesia against the Omnibus Law. The law, in the name of job creation, seeks to weaken labor rights and environmental safeguards. Robertus talks about the resurgence of social movements, the key role played by trade unions and the fight for democracy in the country.

China Imposes Sanctions on US Arms Companies over Taiwan Arms Deals

CHINA-U.S. AFFAIRS

People’s Dispatch | October 29, 2020

China has announced it is going to sanction major US weapons corporations over the multi-billion dollar arms deals being made with the de facto government based in Taiwan. In a press statement released on Tuesday, October 27 by the Chinese foreign ministry the government said it has decided to sanction Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Space & Security, along with “US individuals and entities who acted egregiously played a role” in the arms deals.

In the statement, foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian, said that recent arms deals undermine Chinese sovereignty and national interests. Zhao condemned the deal and called on the US government to stop arms deals with the disputed government in Taiwan.

Díaz-Canel: Today We can Tell Our People and the World that Cuba has Grown

CUBA PERSISTS

Gladys Leydis Ramos López

Granma | October 29, 2020

With Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee, and President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez on hand, the V Ordinary Period of Sessions of the National Assembly of People’s Power in its IX Legislature was held yesterday, October 28.

Cuba Withstands Most Costly Year in the Blockade’s History

IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION AGAINST CUBA

Nuria Barbosa León and Dilbert Reyes Rodríguez

Granma | October 29, 2020

Photo: Falco

For the first time in the history of the genocidal U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, the damages and losses caused surpassed a total of five billion dollars in a year’s time, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla reported, October 22.

In the annual report prepared by the Ministry describing the magnitude of damage suffered as a result of this extraterritorial policy, to current and future prospects for development o the island, the Foreign Minister denounced, in an online press conference, the increasing aggressiveness of the U.S. government, which, showing no concern for the COVID-19 pandemic, imposed more sanctions on Cuba, in a flagrant violation of all norms governing foreign trade and investment.

No Excuses: Historic New Zealand Election Challenges Labor Movement

LABOUR MOVEMENT IN NEW ZEALAND

Ian Hoffmann and Justine Sachs

Labour Notes | October 28, 2020

The results of New Zealand’s October 17 election reflect a real appetite for progressive change in the country. But activists don’t expect the victorious Labour Party to make that change without a serious push from below on issues ranging from raising the minimum wage to enacting climate legislation with strong enforcement mechanisms. Photo: 350.org, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

“No Excuses!”

That’s the phrase union activists in New Zealand have been repeating since the Labour Party’s landslide victory in our national election on October 17.

Led by charismatic and media-savvy Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Labour took over 49 percent of the popular vote. The party will now have 64 of 120 seats in parliament. This is unheard of in New Zealand, where since 1996 we have had a mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system that has always led to multi-party coalition governments.

Nietzsche in His Time: The Struggle Against Socratism and Socialism

DISCUSSIONS ON BOOKS

Daniel Tutt

historical materialism

Daniel Tutt

George Washington University

tutt@gwu.edu

The recent English translation of Domenico Losurdo’s The Aristocratic Rebel: Intellectual Biography and Critical Balance-Sheet1 represents a watershed moment for philosophical studies of Nietzsche across the wider Anglo-American scholarly community. Originally published in Italian in 2002, this in-depth biographical portrait offers up an entirely new way of reading the legacy of Nietzsche’s impact on social and political thought. Losurdo presents an argument often neglected, if not outright ignored by philosophers, literary theorists and general readers of Nietzsche; namely that he is best read as a deeply political and reactionary thinker who, over the course of four key stages of his career, develops a reactionary political agenda that is inseparable from the development of his moral and metaphysical thought.

A Resistance Writer Reflects On His Life: Variations of poems by Bertolt Brecht

DISCUSSIONS ON POETRY

Culture Matters | October 24, 2020

Author’s note: Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was one of the most influential playwrights of the twentieth century, blending an aspirational communism with anti-fascist politics, while developing a satirical, “epic style” of drama that broke new theatrical ground. Famously, in The Threepenny Opera (1928), Brecht posed the question: “Who is the bigger criminal: he who robs a bank or he who founds one?”

Brecht, who identified as a Marxist and revolutionary writer, produced a rich and wide-spanning body of poetic work, including lyrics of love, landscape and personal memory, anthems of proletarian solidarity, and deep-delving poems of social and civilisational critique.