“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.

Public sector workers in New York State and City continue to be attacked by Governor Cuomo and Mayor “1%” Bloomberg. These attacks are part of a nationwide effort, in fact, as part of an international strategy, to make the workers both in the public and private sector pay for the continuing crisis of capitalism. The working class can stop these attacks and go on to the offensive, but for this to happen we need a different policy from the labor leaders.

On 23rd of March 2012, ‘Fundacion MEPI’, a NGO that dubs itself as a ‘regional investigative journalism project based in Mexico’ published a report on the participation of youth in the upcoming presidential elections on July 1. Reporting that there will be the decisive number of 24 million voters between the ages of 18 and 29, it however portrayed its own grim outlook on youth, claiming that most of them are not interested in the elections and are not participating. It suggested some gimmick solutions, such as the presidential candidates getting more active on Facebook and Twitter!

The Quebec student movement has provided a beacon of hope for working people and youth across the world. The attempt by the Charest government to nearly double tuition fees in the province has sparked massive resistance. After some 16-weeks of student strikes and mass demonstrations, the government is shaking. This experience displays that mass mobilization, not lobbying, is the most effective method of fighting for accessible and free education.

On the night of Wednesday, 23rd May, the police moved towards a “hard application” of “special law” 78. This is just one day after hundreds of thousands of students, workers, and their families flooded the streets of downtown Montreal in what was the biggest demonstration, and the biggest mass defiance of a law, in Canadian history.

Tuesday, May 22nd saw the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. Between 250,000 and 350,000 youth and workers came out onto the streets of Montreal and openly defied the emergency law that requires police approval of protest routes eight hours in advance. A widely publicized “official route” was broken; the crowd turned away, following an unannounced path.

Over the past two weeks, the student strike in Quebec has entered a new stage. What originally began as a strike against a 75% increase in tuition fees has rapidly progressed into a movement against the Liberal government itself. Premier Jean Charest’s government has clumsily fallen over itself, trying to suppress or divide the movement, with little success. Instead of killing the movement, every action by the government has only given the movement new life.