Archive | Commentary

In 1913, Lenin published an article in Pravda with a curious title, ‘Backward Europe and Advanced Asia’.[1] The opening of the article accepts the paradoxical nature of the title, for it is Europe–after all–that has advanced it forces of production and it is Asia that has had its forces of production stifled.

On August 4, 2020, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Venezuela. Appearing before the committee was U.S. State Department Special Representative Elliott Abrams.

On Saturday, crowds came to Berlin from all over Germany for a huge mass parade, estimated at 17,000 to 20,000. The big crowd in Berlin, after picking up steam for weeks with smaller rallies, insisted that the whole corona virus pandemic had ended or maybe hadn’t really existed at all!

Six months ago, on January 30, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). Ten days before this, the Chinese government had said—to great alarm—that the coronavirus could be transmitted from human to human.

Fueled by foreign capital, the new Philippines legislation intends to the revolt of dissenters at bay. But the need to hold power to account is growing.

Recent activity around solar geoengineering is sparking debate over its role in climate policy. Backed by billionaires, and with connections to the U.S. military, solar geoengineering offers nothing but an Earth engineered to fit the needs of capital. It is antithetical to a radical climate movement.

“Once the classic method of lynching was the rope. Now it is the policeman’s bullet.”

In modern times, China has been the ultimate challenge for imperialists: it’s independence being an enigma to Europeans and Americans. From Marco Polo to Mike Pompeo, China has been a mystery to Christian crusaders.

Radical Reviewer reviews the book Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges

For much of human history, most people—men and women—wore loose fitting robes of various types to cover their bodies. It is thought that trousers were invented relatively recently in human history, around 1000 BCE, so that people could be more comfortable riding horses.

“If the small economy of Cuba can improve the health of millions of the world’s people, imagine what could be accomplished if America’s enormous productive capacity changed from creating useless and destructive junk to producing what people throughout the world actually need.”

Unemployment insurance laws were developed prior to the widespread use of contingent faculty, and were designed to prevent K-12 teachers and full-time college professors from collecting unemployment during scheduled term breaks and summer vacations when they weren’t teaching. In nearly all states, these laws are being used to prevent adjuncts, who have since become the majority of professors, from collecting compensation when they are unemployed. This situation is exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Haftar, who was once an intimate of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is now prosecuting a seemingly endless and brutal war against the United Nation’s recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) based in Tripoli and led by President Fayez al-Sarraj.

The health of the 79-year-old poet has deteriorated alarmingly over the past few weeks. He has been in prison since late 2018 in the Elgar Parishad case which critics say is aimed at silencing dissent in India.

On June 11, Laos (Lao People’s Democratic Republic)—a country of 7 million in Southeast Asia—said it had temporarily prevailed over COVID-19.

Those still following international relations may have noticed an unusual tearing sound growing louder. Recent developments, not conclusive or complete and yet undeniable, suggest the painful ripping apart of that eternal brotherhood between the German Federal Republic and its great patron, provider and protector, the USA.

The unchecked growth of the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America is tearing apart the socio-economic fabric of the countrieslocated in that continent.

The Radical Reviewer and Mad Blender reviewing 17 Contradictions and the End of Capitalism by David Harvey.

On 30 June 2020, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the former Belgian Congo’s independence, the news went viral over the planet: Philippe, King of the Belgians, had conveyed regrets for the colonial past, and particularly for the time when Leopold II owned the Congo as a personal possession (1885-1908), to the Congolese head of state and to the Congolese people.

CoronaShock is a term that refers to how a virus struck the world with such gripping force; it refers to how the social order in the bourgeois state crumbled, while the social order in the socialist parts of the world appeared more resilient.