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New Site, and a Preview

New Site, and a Preview

The Viewpoint website has been redesigned, thanks to the excellent work of Peter Rood, and the illustrations of Steven Zambrano Cascante. Our third issue, on the theme “Workers’ Inquiry,” is just around the corner. Until then, here’s a small taste of what’s to come.

Dear Comrades

Dear Comrades

At any major demonstration in Oakland, you will see police from all corners of the East Bay • I do clerical work at the University of Sussex • When I was attending Cypress Community College in Southern California, I worked at Labor Ready, a construction temp agency, so that I could pay for school • We are still finding lessons from the last cycle of California’s student struggle • I’ve been organizing with the California Student Union (CASU) project since its inception as a working group created during the first Southern California Education Organizing Coalition conference • Linnaeus is a city of lines straight and single.

The Facebook Rebels and the Brazilian Favelas

The Facebook Rebels and the Brazilian Favelas

On the sixteenth of April, 1984 the final demonstration of the Diretas Já campaign brought one and a half million Brazilians into the streets of São Paulo. The phrase “I want to vote for president” could be read on the protesters’ yellow t-shirts and posters. To understand the recent wave of demonstrations in Brazil, we will have to begin with the history of this reformist movement, animated by the protesters’ belief that their country had been degraded by the greed and incompetence of the politicians—a constant theme in the efforts to make our institutions more responsive to the “real Brazil.”

No Police, No Problem: Personal Testimony of a Protester from Turkey

No Police, No Problem: Personal Testimony of a Protester from Turkey

As I started writing from Tarlabasi, Istanbul, the police were fortifying Taksim Square to prevent peaceful protesters from entering. They were there to protest the release of the policeman who murdered one of our comrades in Ankara, Ethem Sarisuluk. He was shot in the head, and a video has been released clearly revealing the murder. Despite abundant evidence and witnesses to the contrary, courts released him on the basis of “self-defense” and will continue his trial without detention. With this decision, the partiality of the legal system in favor of the brutal police forces became obvious once again. 

Brazilian Revolt:  An Interview with Giuseppe Cocco

Brazilian Revolt: An Interview with Giuseppe Cocco

We can start by saying that what characterizes these protests is that they represent exactly nothing, while, for a longer or shorter time, they express and constitute everything. They have an untimely dynamic, fleeing from any model of political organization (not only the old political parties and unions, but also from the third sector, NGOs) and affirming a radical democracy articulated between networks and the streets: self-convoking and debating in social networks, massive participation in street protests, capacity and determination to confront repression, and even the capacity to construct and self-manage urban spaces, such as what happened in Tahrir Square, the Spanish encampments, the Occupy Wall Street attempts, and, finally, Taksim Square in Istanbul.

Dead Generations and Unknown Continents: Reflections on Left Unity

Dead Generations and Unknown Continents: Reflections on Left Unity

In his programmatic piece in Jacobin, Bhaskar Sunkara describes the shape of contemporary Left Unity: “the convergence of American socialists committed to non-sectarian organization under the auspices of an overarching democratic structure.” It would be glib to just dismiss this out of hand – alongside increased exposure of the Left in the mainstream media, such a structure could be a good sign. But the way this strategy is being pursued leaves many fundamental questions unanswered.

All Things Colonized: A Review of Jared Ball's I Mix What I Like

All Things Colonized: A Review of Jared Ball’s I Mix What I Like

What do Ira Glass and Jean-Marie Le Pen have in common? To follow the argument of Jared Ball’s recent book I Mix What I Like, they both represent a counter-insurgency against colonized populations. The allegedly progressive NPR, writes Ball, is the contemporary equivalent of Radio-Alger, operated by the colonial French government in Algeria. From post-war Algeria to the ghettos of the United States, colonial power requires propaganda in order to function.