What's left in the USA? — In the belly of the beast, the left and progressive movement is alive and well on the Web. Here are just a few sites worth investigating: Z-Net (http://www.lbbs.org/), billed as "home of the US Left". Among its offerings is the Noam Chomsky Archive, which contains megabytes of articles, speeches and lectures by the United States' most thoughtful dissident. The Progress Pages (http://www.eskimo.com/~jmt/progress/) provide links to progressive groups, publications and causes. The NY Transfer News Collective (http://www.blythe.org) is an invaluable source of alternative news and views.
The long-running Detroit newspaper strike passed the 12-month mark recently. The strikers have been producing their own newspaper to counter the lies of the bosses, the Detroit Sunday Journal. It is available electronically at http://www.rust.net/~workers/strike.html. Events of the strikers are chronicled, and broader issues are also reported. One of particular interest is an account of the launch of the Labor Party, backed by several important unions.
The candidacy of Ralph Nader for president is creating a lot of interest. Find out more at http://www.rahul.net/cameron/nader/. The campaign is supported by the Green Parties of North America (http://www.greens.org/).
A range of US left publications are available on the Web and provide news about US and world politics. The respected and influential left weekly, the Nation, can be found at http://www.thenation.com. The largest left party in the US remains the unrepentantly Stalinist Communist Party of the United States; its newspaper, the Peoples Weekly World, is at http://www.hartford-hwp.com/cp-usa. The Boston Review (http://www-polisci.mit.edu/BostonReview/) describes itself as "a broadly progressive bimonthly journal of culture and politics"; contributors include Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader. The far-left Organiser, with a special edition on the new US Labor Party, can be found at http://www.labornet.org/workers/to. Left Business Observer (http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html) investigates trends in the US and world economy from a left perspective. Mother Jones, the famous left-liberal investigative magazine, is at http://www.mojones.com/.
Daniel De Leon was a militant Marxist who parted company with the anarchist wing of the IWW in the early part of this century and developed his own brand of socialism based on a society run by the trade unions. Since then a dedicated band of "De Leonists" have survived and have now surfaced on the Web. The New Union Party's web page (http://www1.minn.net/~nup) provides historical background and articles from its newspaper, New Unionist. Those who identify with the anarchist wing of the IWW can be found at http://www.iww.org/.
Left On-line welcomes information on new and interesting left and progressive Web sites. Send a short description to: glw@greenleft.org.au.