The Trump regime is ratcheting up its protectionist rhetoric vis-à-vis China. If this leads to new sanctions, it would worsen the COVID-induced trade crisis rather than help the U.S.
Subjects Archives: Imperialism
Imperialism, Globalization, and War
How to understand all this China stuff
The notion of “pre-crime” is the purview of dystopian horror fiction when applied to individual people, and there’s no reason we should find the prospect of attacking and destroying for hypothetical future offenses any less insane on an international scale.
American exceptionalism and the American Left’s China double standard
The threat that the American Left sees in China aligns with the white supremacist underpinnings of American exceptionalism.
What are the three concurrent crises of the coronavirus depression?
The Keynes crisis, the Minsky crisis and the Means crisis
Mercenaries, pandemic and riots in Venezuela: A grassroots perspective
Venezuela is confronting COVID-19 amid foreign sanctions and mercenary incursions. Complicating matters further is the explosive combination of deep recession and a nationwide lockdown, which has triggered incidents of looting and riots.
Venezuelan Army to escort Iranian tankers bringing gasoline to Venezuelans blockaded by U.S. sanctions
This was announced by the Minister for Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, this Wednesday. “We have established contact with the Minister of Defense of Iran. All these ships, when they enter our exclusive economic zone (370Km), will be escorted by ships and planes of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB), to welcome them and say to […]
The Bouficha appeal against the preparations for war
On 23 March, the UN Secretary General António Guterres called for a ceasefire. ‘The fury of the virus’, he said, ‘illustrates the folly of war’. In a recent report, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) wrote that the ‘call for a global ceasefire has not had the desired result’.
How the United States Government failed to prepare for the Global Pandemic
On March 20, just after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic on March 11, the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) sent a cable to U.S. State Department instructing officials how they should speak about China and the novel coronavirus, according to the Daily Beast, which obtained the cable.
The COVID-19 crisis and the end of the ‘low-skilled’ worker
IN A PANDEMIC, “ESSENTIAL” LABORERS ARE WORKING, BUT THE LABOR MARKET ISN’T.
How Russia is botching its alliance with Syria
Russia’s relationships with its client states have never been easy. Of course, managing client states is always a complicated exercise. The Kremlin’s cupboard is full of skeletons—Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968), Cuba (1962), Afghanistan (1980), Ukraine (2014) and so on.
U.S. Military planners advise expanded online psychological warfare against China
Just three years ago, Americans had a neutral view of China (and nine years ago it was strongly favorable). Today, the same polls show that 66 percent of Americans dislike the country.
Safe from the pitchforks?
OK, I’m done with all these trite catchphrases about all of us being in this mess together.
Vectors of vulnerability
In the age of COVID-19, poor and working-class people are susceptible not just to illness, but also to discrimination and disdain.
The pandemic has only exposed the suicidal tendencies of capitalism: Noam Chomsky
‘Another, probably more severe pandemic has been predicted. Scientists know how to prepare, but someone must act. If we choose not to learn the lessons that are right before our eyes, the consequences will be dire.”
Let evidence, not talk radio, determine whether the outbreak started in a lab
The president and his secretary of state made a startling claim last week: that there is enough evidence to suggest with a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is the source of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
Freedom Rider: New attacks on Venezuela
The Democratic Party’s “left” wing is mute on the latest US aggression against the people and government of Venezuela, thus giving assent to Trump by their silence.
Socialism, capitalism, and cholera in 19th-century Hamburg
I certainly didn’t expect to spend the start of 2020 wading through nearly 700 pages about the 1892 Hamburg cholera epidemic, but I’m glad I did. Death in Hamburg, British historian Richard J. Evans’ social history of the epidemic, is a page-turner, his passion for the topic nothing short of infectious.
U.S. blocks vote on UN’s bid for global ceasefire amid COVID-19
The U.S. veto trashes the UN’s efforts to convince armed factions in more than a dozen countries to call for temporary truces as the world battles the pandemic.
Leftists jump the Corporate Democratic ship, leaving Sanders behind
History may record that the corporate duopoly dike was finally broken in the Time of Plague, with the defection of Bernie’s former sheep from the Democratic Party.
Hunger gnaws at the edges of the World
On 21 April, the head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) David Beasley said that the world was experiencing a ‘hunger pandemic’. That day, the Global Network Against Food Crises and the Food Security Information Network released the 2020 Global Report on Food Crises.
