Geography Archives: Global

As we have pointed out since Media Lens began in 2001, a fundamental feature of corporate media is propaganda by omission. Over the past week, a stunning example has highlighted this core property once again.

Climate crisis is a disaster which impacts us all, but the culpability is not evenly distributed. The rich nations of North America, Europe, Japan and Australia have contributed 60% of global cumulative CO2 emissions, compared to 13% for the two largest developing economies, China and India, taken together.

The G-7 meeting that has just concluded has promised to donate one billion doses of anti-Covid vaccine to the rest of the world, consisting primarily of the so-called “developing” countries.

Upon reading Sohn-Rethel it becomes clear that his work is important for contemporary debates on ecology, the Marxist critique of science and debates on post-revolutionary societies such as the former Soviet Union.

The world needs safe, non-exploitive technologies. Nuclear doesn’t qualify.

I think Marx offers us blue and red for us to make purple, indubitably the most beautiful color keeping with Plato. In essence, both misunderstandings are partly correct–the economic foundation determines the superstructure, but the superstructure can also influence the economic foundation.

Julian Assange remains in a maximum security jail, despite never being sentenced for anything but a long ago served spell for bail-jumping, and despite the U.S. Government’s request for extradition having been refused.

The Red Deal is a revolutionary call to reject capitalism and restore a mutually beneficial relationship with our world. It deserves to be widely read, discussed, and built upon.

COVID-19 and other zoonotic outbreaks such as Ebola are illustrative of the complex interactions between deforestation, biodiversity loss, ecosystem destruction, and human health and safety.

Joe Biden took part in several key international meetings over the last week covering a wide range of issues but with one key goal in mind: intensify the new Cold War with China and construct a global front towards this end.

Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and such leaders across the world are malicious miscreants, convening necropolitical death cults. But the alternatives, also tied to capitalist sociopathy, are only a little bit better. Our “progressives” worship at the altar of the circuits of capital.

recent article in the New York Times takes aim at ‘How Big Tech Won the Pandemic’, highlighting how in the last year alone, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook posted a combined revenue of more than $1.2 trillion.

In a capitalist society, there is always a good explanation for your poverty, your meaningless job (if you have a job), your difficulties and your general unhappiness. You are to blame.

Last week, the largest rich countries, home to most major transnational corporations (TNCs), agreed to a global minimum corporate income tax (GMCIT) rate. But the low rate proposed and other features will deprive developing countries of their just due yet again.

Just hours ahead of the NATO summit in Brussels on June 14, the military bloc’s secretary general, Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg, told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble that NATO will continue to expand its military capabilities but will not “mirror” its arch-adversary Russia.

How and why did a hawkish young mandarin hothoused at elite universities and in the halls of state power end up an executive at an anarchic messageboard site with an anti-establishment reputation?

According to the World Bank, “The COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to push an additional 88 million to 115 million people into extreme poverty this year, with the total rising to as many as 150 million by 2021, depending on the severity of the economic contraction”.

Public health campaigners estimate that promised donations from rich countries would be enough to cover just 11% of the world’s unvaccinated population.

The impact of this food price rise will grievously hit developing countries, most of whom are major importers of food staples. 

Capitalism is the practice of exploitation of the self and others. The focus on Wall Street, Bezos/Musk or capitalism and its past history is ill placed.