Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Follow LeftTurn:

Special Offer from PM Press

Now more than ever there is a vital need for radical ideas. In the four years since its founding - and on a mere shoestring - PM Press has risen to the formidable challenge of publishing and distributing knowledge and entertainment for the struggles ahead. With over 200 releases to date, they have published an impressive and stimulating array of literature, art, music, politics, and culture.

PM Press is offering readers of Left Turn a 10% discount on every purchase. In addition, they'll donate 10% of each purchase back to Left Turn to support the crucial voices of independent journalism. Simply enter the coupon code: Left Turn when shopping online or mention it when ordering by phone or email.

Click here for their online catalog.

Activism

Sub Categories

    What Will the Budget Cuts Mean: A View from the Grassroots Sisters of the Road and Community Voices Heard July 30, 2011

    Funding for social services in the US has never been as popular among policymakers as, say, funding the military. Since the New Deal, social service programs have been defunded, under- funded and privatized—and the people who use social services demonized by elected officials in the media. Currently the US government, through privatization and spending cuts, is looking to further cuts in funding to social services including housing, mental health care, HIV/AIDS services, services to the elderly, heating fuel assistance, and child welfare. The latest Republican budget calls for $4 trillion in spending cuts—the bulk of which come from social spending.

     Read More
    Comments
    Housing on the Chopping Block Ben Terrall July 30, 2011

    On February 14 communities across the United States joined together in a collective day of action called by the National Alliance of HUD Tenants. From Washington, DC to Florida, from Maine to California, HUD tenants, foreclosure victims, homeless and poor people, and their supporters held press conferences and community forums to demand full funding of vital housing programs -- including poverty, homelessness, and health programs.

    The San Francisco Valentine’s Day protest was co-sponsored by the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) and a broad range of Bay Area housing and social justice groups.

    Read More
    Comments
    A People's History of the Egyptian Revolution Rami El-Amine and Mostafa Henaway July 7, 2011

    No matter how it unfolds, the Egyptian revolution will go down in the history books as a defining moment in the 21st century. Millions of Egyptians brought down one of the world’s most repressive regimes, that of the US-backed Hosni Mubarak, in just 18 days. Their bravery, perseverance, and tactfulness in the face of the regime’s brutal crackdown not only triggered uprisings across the Arab world but inspired and influenced protests against government austerity in the US, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. Despite the fact that it is only a few months old, it’s important to begin piecing together a people’s history of the revolution to convey what happened and how it happened so that the lessons from this critical struggle can be disseminated.

     Read More
    Comments
    Reclaiming Families: A Framework for the Movement Walidah Imarisha June 27, 2011

    For the last 40 years, the Right in this country has claimed ownership of the role of “protecting family values.” Along with that role came the privilege of shaping and defining what constitutes a family, both in mass culture and according to the law.

    But there is a radical initiative to take back the idea of supporting family and put it in a reproductive justice frame that lifts up the voices and leadership of parents and communities who are the most under threat. It’s called Strong Families.

     Read More
    Comments
    Moving the Movement: A Multigenerational Ideal of Revolutionary Work Cynthia Oka June 20, 2011

    On May 7, 2011, the Breakthrough Mamas, a grassroots collective of poor/single/disabled/ (im)migrant/teen mamas of color, led a Mother’s Day Liberation Rally in coalition with other activist mamas and allies in the Committee for Single Mothers on the Move. The rally brought together a wide range of political struggles in Vancouver, British Columbia—around housing, health, living wages, transportation, childcare, status, legal support, education, and cultural integrity. It also provided a platform to demand freedom from violence against women, sexual/reproductive self-determination, and gender liberation for all peoples.

    Read More
    Comments
    Direct Action & Elections: Wisconsin's Labor Struggle Lee M. Abbott June 20, 2011

    No one could say they'd seen it before. That’s what was so genuinely exhilarating about those first weeks of protests in Madison against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s effort to take away public workers’ right to collectively bargain. People had seen protest, confrontation, and direct action before, but now these were taking shape and combining in ways no one had ever expected. Rallies wouldn’t let up—protestors wouldn’t go home and more returned every day. An open-ended, intense confrontation between the people and the government grew day by day in the State Capitol.     

     Read More
    Comments
    Tadamon! 10 Years of Notes from the Global Intifada The Editors March 11, 2011

    Notes from the Global Intifada – Believe it or not, over the past year we at Left Turn had been discussing changing our tag line, it is as though a long time can go by without fundamental change happening, and then all of a sudden there is a week when everything takes off.

    Ten years ago when Left Turn emerged, momentum seemed to be on our side. In 1999 historic protests shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings in Seattle. A wave of anti-corporate globalization protests that had begun building in the movements of the Global South seemed to sweep into North America and finally caught the people of the US. A project that could document and project this global rebellion for a specifically US audience seemed necessary and full of possibilities.

     Read More
    Comments
    Childhood lost and found: Ten years gone Francesca Fiorentini September 11, 2011

    It always seemed like an absurd exercise to recount where one was on 9/11. Some way to personalize the moment or get closer to the action. Maybe it’s just a way to make something that has been so filtered and retold, so shadowy yet simultaneously sensationalized, feel real. Sadly, the task of remembering is difficult without images of some patriotic red, white, and blue CNN graphic coming to mind. We have been told how to feel about the event (and those that followed) for so long, we rarely get a moment to do so. I choose to remember the day, and the horrors that have happened since, with this brief recollection of the moment that I became an adult.

     Read More
    Comments
    Healing the trauma of post-9/11 racism one story (and melody) at a time Sonny Singh September 11, 2011

    photo by Renaud Philippephoto by Renaud PhilippeOnce the term terrorist attack was all over the headlines on September  11, 2001, something inside my 21-year-old, fresh-out-of-college self was dreadfully certain of what was coming next. Before I even had a chance to begin processing and mourning the horrific loss of thousands of lives in New York City, I was getting calls from even the most apolitical of my extended family members, urging me to be careful and “keep a low profile,” to not leave my house unless I absolutely had to.

     Read More
    Comments
    Giving Thanks Vasudha Desikan September 11, 2011

    Read More
    Comments