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Each spring Left Forum convenes the largest gathering in North America of the US and international Left. Continuing a tradition begun in the 1960s, we bring together intellectuals and organizers to share new perspectives, strategies, experience and vision. Last March’s 2007 Left Forum, held at Cooper Union in New York City, included 98 panels and 350 speakers from over 40 countries. For the US and the world, revitalizing an American Left has never been more urgent; Left Forum has a critical role to play in that undertaking.
Assaults on civil liberties, the continuing decline of economic security, state-sanctioned torture, massive government incompetence from Baghdad to New Orleans, and a criminal war with no end in sight— these home-grown threats challenge American society. Yet as the gap between the powerful and powerless widens, as inequalities of wealth and income
become grotesque, the differences between the Democratic and Republican parties narrows. Millions of Americans are becoming spectators of rather than participants in politics of any kind.
Our work parallels and cross-fertilizes with the renewal of left strength elsewhere—from indigenous movements in Bolivia to the South Korean farmers to the electoral gains of European and Latin American left parties. Like many movements abroad, Left Forum seeks to link the critique of neo-liberalism to anti-capitalism, and to foster radical alternatives to the established order.
Left Forum provides a context for critical engagement by people of different persuasions on the Left who, nevertheless, seek common ground. Please join with us for Left Forum events throughout the year, and for the 2008 Left Forum conference, taking place March 14 through 16, at Cooper Union in New York City.