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If the United Nations Charter was put to a vote today, would it pass?: The Thirty-Ninth Newsletter (2021)
Each year in September, the heads of governments come to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City to inaugurate a new session of the General Assembly.
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The Struggle for Development
Collective struggles by labouring class communities–in and beyond the workplace–have the capacity to generate real human developmental gains for these communities. Consequently, these struggles and the labouring classes that pursue them, should be considered as developmental.
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Abstractions also Liberate with Anna Kornbluh
Anna Kornbluh joins Money on the Left to discuss the politics of form and literary realism as theorized in her provocative book, The Order of Forms: Realism, Formalism, and Social Space (University of Chicago Press, 2019). In The Order of Forms, Kornbluh lays bare the problematic “anarcho-vitalist” underpinnings of neoliberal discourse which, she argues, also inform much critical theory and left critique.
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The Global North isn’t ready for climate breakdown
European responses to extreme weather demonstrate post-industrial nations have much to learn from people in the Global South, writes Aranyo Aarjan.
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Censorship is ok when transphobes do it
An interview in the Guardian (9/7/21) made waves—not because of something it said, but because of something it didn’t say.
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China and the Left
A socialist forum on China and the Left, sponsored by the Qiao Collective, was held in New York City on September 18, 2021.
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Israel’s post-Gaza bombing assault on Black history and identities
To continue the marginalization of Black and, more recently, Muslim groups, you do not have to suddenly turn society upside down or challenge the dominant religious white or secular culture, or even, as in Nazi Germany, change citizenship and property ownership rules—in contrast to periodic historic assaults on certain white ethno-religious groups, who, by comparison, have sometimes enjoyed bourgeois, socioeconomic class power.
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Vouchers for Murder
In order to commit murder or mayhem under this program, vouchers must be submitted within one week prior to the actions contemplated or within a month afterward. Persons who commit violent acts without valid vouchers will be asked to enter into Voluntary Consent Agreements to desist from unauthorized murder or mayhem, and up to one tenth of any ill-gotten gains will be donated voluntarily to the charity of their choice, without any implication of admission of guilt.
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For our Nations to live, capitalism must die
What the recent actions of the Mi’kmaq land and water defenders at Elsipogtog demonstrate is that direct actions in the form of Indigenous blockades are both a negation and an affirmation.
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AUKUS makes workers pay for war with China
We are witnessing an aggressive build-up by the U.S. and its allies for a confrontation with China. The Biden administration is making massive upgrades to the US’s military capacity, and sharply reorienting it to focus on China.
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Out of the shadows: female Leninists and Russian socialism
In 1922, the great radical journalist Louise Bryant observed that Lenin drew great strength from the women close to him. Her observation contrasts sharply with the exploitative Lenin who has come to dominate historical studies and biographies.
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Rich countries prolong the pandemic: what Biden must do
Most rich countries have opposed most developing countries’ request to temporarily suspend World Trade Organization (WTO) intellectual property (IP) rules to more quickly contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Expectations were high as Biden had supported a patent waiver, albeit only for vaccines.
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Reactionary anti-China propaganda not in Canada’s self-interest
Engler: We must reject great-power rivalry and pursue an independent foreign policy
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Dismantling and transcending colonialism’s legacy
Nkrumah, Nyerere and Senghor were acutely aware of the need to displace the epistemic conditions of colonization in order to transcend it.
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China halts new coal-fired power plants abroad in boost for climate action
Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that China would stop building new coal-fired power plants abroad, marking a historic shift away from the fossil fuel before the United Nations climate summit in November.
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Taking to the streets to teach China’s gay migrants about safe sex
Grassroots organizations, many of them started and staffed by gay men, are doing the oft-neglected work of outreach in migrant communities.
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Labour members overwhelmingly back motion in solidarity with Palestine
The move comes as another grassroots rebuke to the party leadership and marks the first time a major British political party has aligned itself with the UN definition of Israel as an apartheid state.
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Chekhov’s Coin with Rohan Grey
In this special episode, Rohan Grey joins Billy Saas to discuss the latest episode in the #MinttheCoin saga.
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We Carry a New World in Our Riots
July is mid–winter in the Southern Hemisphere, where Billie Holiday singing “like a summer with a thousand Julys” rings somewhat oddly. Just the same, there was plenty of fire to keep people warm this winter.
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U.S. Congress outlines new phase of economic attacks and hybrid war on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government
A House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on September 21 set out plans for the next phase of the United States’ hybrid warfare on Nicaragua, which aims to destabilize and ultimately overthrow the Central American nation’s leftist Sandinista government.