Exactly seven years to the day, hurricane Isaac charted the same path as Katrina, slamming into the U.S. Gulf Coast. While most levees in the New Orleans area have so far survived Isaac's Category One winds and 20 inches of rain, hundreds of thousands are without power, and thousands have had to be evacuated from flooded homes in surrounding communities. Memories of Katrina still haunt the region, which has still not recovered from the devastation. Seven years later, the poverty, racism, and exploitation continue to hammer the workers of Louisiana. On this occasion, we republish two articles written in the aftermath of Katrina, the storm which blew off the hypocritical façade

As this article is being written, defeated strike votes from Quebec’s universities and colleges are rolling in. The push to block the start of classes, imposed by the Liberal government, appears to be failing. Most of the strike votes have failed with a large majority voting to return to class. The movement is faltering as students are grudgingly voting to end the strike. However, while grim, all is not yet lost. This is a decisive turning point for the movement and it is vital that we learn the lessons going forward.

In the fall of 2008, as the financial crisis was just starting to impact the United States, the Harper government was lauding Canadian banks as the “soundest in the world.” This was to become a well-rehearsed and well-worn talking point for government and corporate mouthpieces throughout the duration of the 2008-10 recession. However, a recent study released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) reveals a staunchly different picture. Massive government bailouts were doled out to the country's largest banks to the tune of $114-billion of public money being pumped into the financial institutions.

Mass street protests have erupted against electoral fraud in Mexico. The official version of the results of the presidential election on 1 July gave Enrique Peña Nieto, the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) 38.21% of the vote, with 31.59% for leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), and 25.41% for Josefina Vázquez Mota of the conservative National Action Party (PAN). The small New Alliance party got 2.29%.

Over the past month, thousands of students across Canada have joined in massive displays of solidarity with the Quebec student movement.  This solidarity movement has not been limited to just students; it has also included the participation of trade unionists, young workers, teachers, and parents.  It has even caught the imagination of residents and onlookers who have joined in the casserole-inspired demonstrations marching through neighbourhoods in Toronto and other cities. There has been at least ten solidarity demonstrations organized in Toronto alone over the past six weeks. The largest of these demonstrations had 3,000 people marching on a single evening.

For them, it was over very soon. Less than a couple of hours after the polling stations were closed, the night of July 1, the main monopoly television stations were already declaring the victory of bourgeois candidate, Pena Nieto, of the hated Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The newspaper “El Universal” had already printed in advance its morning edition with Pena Nieto on the cover as the “winner” in the country’s presidential elections. They had in fact planned this months and years ahead and just couldn’t wait a few more hours for such niceties as an official declaration of results!

“It will be the biggest march of your life” a comrade of La Izquierda Socialista (Marxist wing of Morena) told me before Wednesday, 27th of June, when leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), like other candidates in the coming Mexican presidential elections, was to hold his final election rally or ‘cierre de campaña’ (campaign closing) as it is called here.

As part of their agenda of austerity and attacks on working-class people, the Conservative government is attempting to bring in major “reforms” to Canada’s system of immigration. During the last federal election campaign, Stephen Harper and his minister of immigration, Jason Kenney, tried hard to woo ethnic communities’ support to the Conservatives.  But now that the elections are over for a while, the Tories feel safe in attacking these same communities as part of the general war against workers.

The President of Paraguay, Lugo, has been impeached and replaced by his deputy Franco from the Liberal Party. The reason why the oligarchy has moved against him is that despite his shortcomings and his attempts to conciliate, the timid reforms he introduced and the way his election encouraged the workers' and peasants' movement, had become intolerable for the ruling class. 

The numerous arrests during the festivities associated with the Grand Prix in Montreal launch a new stage in the police repression of the Quebec student strike, which has lasted for more than 120 days (as of the writing of this article). For the four days of these festivities, more than 130 people were arrested. More important than the number of arrested was the way in which these arrests were carried out.

With the long-running Republican Party primaries finally winding down, it looks like millionaire front-runner Mitt Romney will face President Obama in the November elections. Not surprisingly, the topic that will likely dominate the elections is the economy. One area where Obama and Romney have already begun debating is over the auto industry. But are the two parties’ policies really that different?

It came like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky, but now that is here it is not going away, anytime soon. I am talking about the #Yosoy132 movement here, which has mobilised tens of thousands of youth (and not only youth) all over Mexico in opposition to Enrique Peña Nieto of the bourgeois authoritarian Party of Institutionalized Revolution (PRI), the lead bourgeois candidate in the coming Presidential Elections of July 1.

In what has become a May-long-weekend tradition, about 50 Marxist supporters travelled to Toronto for the 12th national conference of the Canadian Marxists of Fightback and La Riposte.  As in previous years, the Marxists met to discuss the world situation and how to best intervene in the increasing number of movements against capitalism; but, what made this conference different from that of years past was the fact that it was being held at the same time as the largest mass movement in Canadian history.

The information that has leaked regarding the NYPD and CIA’s secret monitoring of Muslim stores, student organizations, and mosques in New Jersey, New York, and Long Island has elicited feelings of outrage. The NYPD has even recorded conversations between Muslim individuals, making extensive reports of the activities of Muslim-related stores, businesses and organizations, and closely observed the operations of these groups/establishments. All of these covert operations are being conducted unbeknownst to the “subjects” of observation and without their consent.

In early 2011, the eyes of the world were focused on two very different places: hot and arid Egypt, and cold and snowy Wisconsin. What was it that linked these two places? Nothing more and nothing less than the class struggle which, like the capitalist crisis, is worldwide in nature.