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Freedom Rider: Corona Virus and the failed American State
The United States has none of the systems or infrastructure that would allow it to accomplish what China has done to fight mass infection.
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The uses of “populism”
CLASS struggle occurs in the realm of concepts too. The World Bank for instance systematically counters Left concepts by employing a novel tactic: it uses the very same concepts as are used by the Left, but gives them a wholly different meaning; as a result they either come to mean something entirely different from what the Left had originally meant by them, or, at the very least, they become fuzzy and hence useless to the Left. In either case the power of the Left concept is neutralised.
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Media malfunction as Sanders notes positive aspects of Latin American socialism
When 60 Minutes (2/24/20) asked Sen. Bernie Sanders about his past support for aspects of Cuba’s socialist revolution, as well as for Nicaragua’s 1979–90 leftist Sandinista government, Sanders responded by saying he opposes what he described as the “authoritarian” features of the Cuban government, while noting that after the 1959 revolution, Cuba launched “a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing?”
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Government austerity is costing lives in the fight to contain Covid-19
I am old enough to remember that shortly after the 1968 election of Richard Nixon to the presidency, his campaign manager (and future U.S. Attorney General) John Mitchell said, “Watch what we do not what we say.”
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Marx’s ‘Capital’ as a literary experience
Columbia University PhD candidate in English and Comparative Literature Tiana Reid finds that her students benefit from reading volume one of Karl Marx’s “Capital.” “There are so many literary wsys to read it, which I don’t think blunt the more radical political reading,” said Reid, who conducts research in Black Studies, Marxism and feminism.
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Big banks call for Wall Street deregulation to “fight Coronavirus”
As Naomi Klein laid out in her bestseller “Shock Doctrine,” the wealthy elite use the confusion caused by economic and other disasters to quickly force through pro-free-market legislation.
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Israel hits a brick wall
Elections are supposed to solve problems by reordering government, adopting new policies, and putting new people in control. But how many elections must Israel have before it realizes it can do none of those things because it’s caught in an intractable constitutional bind?
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“Absolute freedom of critique and discussion lies at the heart of the interests of the workers’ movement, and it must be pursued at all costs.”
On Rosa Luxemburg’s birthday, we present an extract from her 1906 essay “Critique in the Workers’ Movement,” available in English for the first time.
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Lebanon state prosecutor blocks order to freeze assets of 20 banks
Lebanon’s state prosecutor suspended an order on Thursday to freeze the assets of 20 local banks, warning it would plunge the country and its financial sector into chaos, according to a copy of the decision seen by Reuters.
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With help from U.S. media, Nicaragua’s coup-mongers aiming for western hearts and minds
With its support tanking at home, Nicaragua’s opposition is seeking to win over public opinion in the West. A factually-challenged, distortion laden article in Vox by a familiar anti-Sandinista activist exhibited the campaign’s strategy.
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Absolutely sickening—and scary’: Man unfurls Nazi flag at Bernie Sanders rally, heightening security concerns
“All people of conscience must condemn this anti-Semitism against the most visible Jewish politician in the country.”
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Fear pervades Black politics, and makes us agents of our own oppression
Black youth see the truth, and will act on it, we are certain.
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Money on the Left for COLA
We, the hosts of the Money on the Left podcast, write to express our solidarity with the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) graduate students participating in an ongoing wildcat strike for a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA). We extend our full support to not only the 82 UCSC graduate students who the UC administration […]
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From fossil capitalism to energy democracy?
As the 21st Century’s second decade opens, the increasingly severe symptoms of climate change comprise a pivot in the struggle for hegemony, globally and within national formations. With the highest per capital carbon emissions among the G20 states, Canada is a climate laggard and, in some respects, a first-world petro-state (Nikiforuk 2010), organized as a regime of obstruction (the title of an edited collection to be published this May, Carroll 2020d).
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We who were nothing and have become everything shall construct a new and better world
On 8 March 1917 (23 February by the old Julian calendar), a hundred women in the textile factories in Petrograd decided to go on strike; they went amongst the other factories and called their fellow workers onto the streets. Before long, around 200,000 workers–led by the women–marched through the streets.
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Mariátegui: A South American revolutionary
Hardly anyone in Australia has heard of José Carlos Mariátegui. Yet in South America he holds an important place in revolutionary history.
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MIT researchers confirm what we knew all along: Evo won and OAS lied
The report released by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology raises questions about why the Organization of American States lied and who benefited.
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Canadian media lies about Venezuela
Canada’s public media the CBC long-ago entered the ranks of yellow journalism when it comes to its reporting on Venezuela. However, two recent reports, in particular, one on CBC radio’s “The Current” and the other a CBC News article by reporter Evan Dyer, weigh heavy on the sensationalism and light on facts. Filled with unsubstantiated claims, right-wing pundits parading as “pro-democracy” advocates and unchallenged declarations by the government of Canada officials, once again, the CBC firmly establishes their role as the mouthpiece of the government Canada.
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Obamacare with a public option: fool me twice shame on me
There is an old saying “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.” That saying is relevant for the current healthcare debate in which former Vice-President Biden and elite Democrats are touting a reheated version of Obamacare with a public option. It is a case of trying to fool the American public twice.
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Coronavirus: a disaster of capitalism’s making
What to do if confronted with an extremely contagious virus that medical experts say they have not seen before and don’t understand, and which is fast spreading and killing hundreds of people? a) Take precautionary measures to stop the virus spreading and prepare the health system for a potential shock? Or b) Ignore it, blithely assert – without any evidence – that it is little different from the common flu, accuse your adversaries.