There are so many wheels coming off that analysts and the business press is on coronavirus crisis overload. And unlike 2008, the Fed can’t save anyone from the Grim Reaper.
Archive | Newswire
Can Coronavirus force policy types to think clearly about intellectual property?
It will be hard to decide the most Trumpian moment in his dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, but my nomination is Trump’s meeting with executives from several pharmaceutical companies, where he discussed developing a vaccine. According to Trump, he asked them to “speed it up,” and they said that they would.
Letter from the great wound
These are miserable times. The statistics of deprivation and death are gruesome. Far too many people struggle with hunger; roughly nine million of them dying each year from complications due to malnutrition (a child dies somewhere in the world around every ten seconds because of this).
Can the U.S. learn from China’s determined response to Coronavirus?
Red Lines host Anya Parampil provides a global Coronavirus update, explaining how China suppressed the pandemic with a determined and centralized strategy that was heavily criticized in the West.
Chris Hedges: Americans face a one-choice Election—The Oligarchy
Pulitzer-winning author and host of “On Contact” Chris Hedges joins Rick Sanchez to discuss the influence of lobbyists on establishment media in their coverage of politics and that donors, bankers and billionaires have on the U.S. political process.
Julian Assange must be supported
If the U.S. government succeeds in extraditing Julian Assange, it will be a major victory for U.S. imperialism–a promise that anyone getting in its way will ultimately pay the price.
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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.”
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.
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.
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?
“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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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 […]
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 […]
