Left Forum: Global Resistance Movements

The annual Left Forum will occur May 29th to the 31st at John Jay College in New York City. Each year, thousands of people from across the United States and the world converge in Manhattan to learn, debate, share skills, and change the world at the Left Forum.

http://www.leftforum.org/

Brooklyn-based independent journalist Peter Rugh spoke to some of the people who will be taking part in Left Forum this year, as well as those who make the Forum possible, including activists and intellectuals from ongoing resistance movements.

He spoke with Seth Adler, Left Forum’s conference coordinator, housing-rights activist Rob Robinson and labor journalist Sarah Jaffe.

The first Left Forum, formerly the Socialist Scholars Conference, was held in New York City in 1965. In the half century since, Left Forum has grown from a small meeting of academic Marxists into the largest gathering of progressives in North America.

This year, the Left Forum is bringing together makers and shakers on the cusp of social transformations, at a time of profound social upheavals.

A series of black civilian deaths at the hands of police from Ferguson, Missouri to Baltimore, Maryland has jump-started a new racial justice movement.

Workers in fast food and other low-wage industries are fighting for union recognition, respect, and higher wages with strikes and protests.

In Greece, a radical left government has ascended to power – a significant victory over austerity that could spread.

Credits:

Produced by Peter Rugh
Production Assistant:Theresa Eddins 


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