Photo credit: Tina Modotti
Liberation Road announces the launching of a new initiative, the Proyecto Izquierda Latina / Latin@ Left Project.
In collaboration with friends in México, such as from MORENA, this project will publish articles that offer information and left analysis in Spanish and English that speak to Latina/o progressives’ interest in and involvement with critical movements for liberation and self-determination in the US and in Latin America, particularly in México. Liberation Road believes that resistance to what some call “the New Confederacy” now in power – an extreme right-wing political formation that aims to enrich the few at the expense of the many, to dismantle democratic structures, and to use racism to divide the working class – is the first order of the day. Defending immigrants and their families, promoting unity of all the forces opposing white supremacy and imperialism, building united fronts, and rebuilding a strong Latina/o left in this new period are imperative.
In view of the racist, xenophobic and misogynistic agenda of President Donald Trump and the increasingly dangerous political climate, we hope that this project will contribute to discussion about strategies of resistance and mutual support. The onslaught of soon-to-be enacted repressive legislation and threats by Trump and his party has put poor and working people, as well as the middle-classes in the USA and the world, on both the defensive and the offensive. People are mounting defensive actions against Trump’s autocratic directives that destroy democratic and human rights. Neoliberal capitalism promoted by the Democratic Party increased poverty and inequality on the continent and beyond, but Trump is even more dangerous. He has given the green light to the social forces in this country that think that white makes right, and that God granted the US “Manifest Destiny” to exercise dominion over all of the Americas. The peoples of Latin American and those within the US must be in strategic unity as they exert pressure from within and without the US.
Trump’s victory has also unleashed massive offensive action as well. People of color and women are rising up. More than any other presence on the scene, the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) has given a sense of power and possibility to millions of African Americans, overwhelmingly Black youth. That Latina/o and other peoples of color take inspiration from the BLM is not a new phenomenon. In the sixties and seventies, Chicana/o, Puerto Rican and other Latina/o activists intersected with the Black Freedom Movement and considered it a model for building their own movements and organizations. Indeed, in that period, several socialist organizations whose membership was multinational or nationalist in form, modeled their programs on that of the Black Panther Party. As solidarity with Cuba and Vietnam was a hallmark for Latina/o revolutionaries, the socialist revolutions in Asia, Africa and Latin America were powerful inspirations for activists of all nationalities in the USA. Because Trump has the stated goal of “making America (white) again,” the leadership of radical, class conscious, people of color is central to the defeat of Trumpism, and to the end of capitalism.
In today’s period of crisis and opportunity, Liberation Road will work to build cross-border movements, led by working class Latinas/os, informed by socialist analysis, in alliance with other peoples of color and white progressives. As socialists and as internationalists, we say:
¡NO SE RAJE!
¡SI SE PUEDE!