Archive | August, 2017

When economic crisis grips a nation, when contradictions within the ruling class and the state create instability and social upheaval, fascists act as the foot soldiers of capitalism. Their function is to disrupt and destroy efforts on the part of the working-class and oppressed masses to organize against their miserable conditions.

We may be living through one of those moments in history that future historians will look back on as a watershed, a period of flux that marked a transition to quite different economic and social arrangements. Unfortunately, in human history a ‘moment’ can be a very long time.

“I believe that failure to recognize the positive aspects of the Maduro presidency undermines efforts at international solidarity, which is very much needed at this moment of such intense hostility and threats on the part of European, North American and South American governments.”

There is still an opportunity to get out of the crisis situation and bring about social justice and structural changes that would favour the majority of the population. However if the radical majorities do not seize that opportunity, be sure that the far right will.

During their storied careers, Magdoff and Sweezy edited the journal Monthly Review, which Sweezy co-founded in 1949, and which still stands as the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States.

Peace is possible on the Korean Peninsula. If the planet is to survive, there is no other choice.

As this tragedy unfolds let us hope that people do not forget who the enemies of antiracism are. They won’t be crashing cars into protestors, but their policies should be treated with the same rebuke that we have for Saturday’s driver.

As Republican politicians distance themselves from the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, the former chairman of Trump’s Virginia campaign blames the victims.

The hegemony of international finance capital, which led to economies “opening” themselves up to the vortex of global financial flows, demolished both Nehruvian dirigisme and East Asian neo-mercantilism. And the same hegemony has now brought the world capitalist economy to a crisis from which it is in no position to recover.

President Trump likes to talk up his success in promoting the reindustrialization of the United States and the return of good manufacturing jobs.  But there is little reason to take his talk seriously.

Noam Chomsky and John Pilger spoke with teleSUR, denouncing U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to Venezuela as irresponsible, but typical according to the president’s behavior and U.S. history.

Growing concerns about climate change and other environmental trends have set off the next round of old Malthusian diagnoses, raising the specter of overpopulation. In this context, it bears repeating that under capitalism the “population problem” is about ideological and social control and has nothing to do with demographics or ecology.

The Right-wing in Venezuela have stated publicly that their tactic is to produce more violence and more chaos, with the hope that wide international media coverage will provoke foreign intervention in the country.

To claim, as “liberals” do now, that such marches as in Charlottesville, “is not what and who we are”, is a lie. Ask people from outside the U.S. how the empire appears and acts towards them.

Once again Trump obscures reality. He either ignores the violence and terrorism carried out against traditionally oppressed groups, e.g., attacks on mosques, or he uses evasive language in order to avoid pointing the finger at the real perpetrators of racist violence.

Genocost asks that nations formally recognize August 2nd as Congo Genocide Commemoration Day.

After the deadly clash between hundreds of white supremacists and counter-protesters today in Charlottesville, Virginia, President Trump called for Americans to “come together.”

Understanding there is extreme income and wealth inequality that has been growing and having negative impacts on our society is one thing, but having the majority of the proposed solutions fail to address deeper systemic drivers isn’t going to help get us on a better track.

Portrayed by the media as a peaceful, democratic movement, it is clear that what Venezuela is experiencing is a right-wing destabilisation campaign that not only seeks to remove Maduro but to roll back the important gains of the country’s Bolivarian Revolution.

The Trump administration is determined to bust leakers, both in the White House and across U.S. intelligence agencies, who it feels continue to undermine and humiliate the president.