Archive | August, 2020

Announcing a Solidarity Statement from Anarchist Agency

In the month following the May 25th death of George Floyd, the largest technology companies collectively pledged more than a billion dollars in support of racial justice. Sounds like a lot of money, but for these companies it is pocket change.

The “Information Has Value” frame provides a welcome opening to discuss information capitalism, including the commodification of information, information labor, concentration of ownership, and audience data extraction/surveillance.

The IPCC Report’s warning in October 2018 that the world has twelve years to avoid climate disaster was undoubtedly a major factor in galvanising a global wave of climate change activism, especially in the form of Greta Thunberg and mass school strikes and the Extinction Rebellion movement.

U.S. allies in Latin America, such as Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador, expelled the Cuban medical missions. This would become a catastrophic decision for these countries as the COVID-19 pandemic developed across Latin America.

My maternal grandfather was born in 1914 and served in the Army during World War II. When he returned from the war in 1944, he took a job with the U.S. Postal Service as a “mailman.” He worked as a letter carrier, eventually becoming a supervisor, and was an active member of the Association of Letter Carriers for his entire 30+ year career.

A 12-day national Bolivian blockade led by massive social movements, students, elders, unions and farmworkers ended on Aug. 13. It had paralyzed the entire country, resulting in food/fuel shortages and in the complete instability of the Andean nation itself.

On Aug. 20, just ahead of programming about the start of clinical trials for Cuba’s COVID-19 vaccine, Soberana-01, YouTube management disabled Mesa Redonda’s channel. Mesa Redonda (Roundtable) airs Monday through Friday evenings on Cuban national television.

Cuba’s vaccine candidate is the first from the Latin America and the Caribbean region and marks a continuation of its pioneering work in combating COVID-19 across the world.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall…” Nearly every German knows the story of Snow White. Currently, the question of who is “fairest of them all” faces nearly every German political party or, in modern terms, who can attract more votes in next year’s election.

On 7 May 2018, Professor Samir Amin gave a lecture entitled “Marx and Living Marxism are More Relevant Today Than Ever” at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

Social media addiction short film 2017

Its two major sources of foreign exchange, tourism and remittances from the Gulf and elsewhere, have virtually dried up owing to the pandemic, causing its currency to depreciate massively, its external debt to be impossible to service, and its ability to import essential commodities which are the lifeline of the population to be severely curtailed.

When the Democratic Party ends its charade of a primary process and spits out the person most closely aligned with neo-liberal policies, the gas lighting begins.

At the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) convention in 2017, the group endorsed the BDS movement by an overwhelming majority. That resolution asserted that “socialists have a responsibility to side with the oppressed and are committed to their unconditional liberation.”

And the Digital Censorship to Come.

In some ways, it is true that we are in this together. We are all facing a global pandemic. We are keeping the most vulnerable among us safe by trying to follow the advice of public health experts. But, when it comes to looking out for one another’s best interests, we are not in this together, and this, at core, is the problem.

The revolutionary wave of 1848 began with a joyous struggle for democracy. But it ended with violent struggles between workers and capitalists, liberals and socialists, revolutionaries and reformers. The experience was a decisive influence on the development of Marx’s theory of revolution.

Young children marvel at an obvious contradiction in capitalist societies: why do we have shops filled with food, and yet see hungry people on the streets? It is a question of enormous significance; but in time the question dissipates into the fog of moral ambivalence, as various explanations are used to obfuscate the clarity of the youthful mind.

Those who took part in the protests against the postponement of the elections are accused of terrorism and sedition.