-
The question of the civilizational state: an interview at Guancha with Vijay Prashad
Following the interviews with Zhang Weiwei, director of the China Institute at Fudan University, and Martin Jacques, former senior fellow of the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University, Guancha.cn (观察者网) invited Vijay Prashad, executive director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, to continue the discussion on the “civilizational state”.
-
Animal crackers: Berlin Bulletin 207, February 5 2023
“Hey”, squeaked one furry lemming to another (in lemming-lingo, of course). “I saw you trying to slip away from the crowd! Do you want to betray us good lemmings. Maybe you’re a fox-lover, even a wolf-lover. You’d better keep in line till we reach our proper goal.” As lemming-lovers sadly know, that goal could be over the cliff into the sea.
-
Venezuela urgently needs a feminist emergency plan
VA writer Andreína Chávez takes stock of Venezuela’s alarming reality of gender violence and the lack of a comprehensive response from the state.
-
Latin America refuses to send Ukraine weapons, despite Western pressure
Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia have refused to send weapons to Ukraine, despite pressure by the U.S. and EU. Latin American left-wing leaders have urged peace with Russia and called for neutrality in the West’s new cold war.
-
Red Traces, Part 1: Cave paintings and primitive communism
Sean Ledwith begins a new monthly series that explores how the Marxist tradition seeks to explain the cultural peaks of human history.
-
Australia’s profit story: How workers experience productivity
If we really want to reverse wage stagnation our unions must use productivity improvement as bargaining power, even withdrawing it, rather than problem-solving it in elite tripartite consultations. Here’s why.
-
NYT worries Big Brother is not watching you
You might think, Wow, I didn’t think the Times had it in it to take on Google, Meta and Amazon so directly. Well… you’d be right.
-
Indonesia’s new criminal code: An attack on human rights and marxism
In early December, last year, the Indonesian government legislated a new criminal code to replace the old code that the country inherited from its past colonial oppressor, the Dutch. The government has claimed that the legislation of the new criminal code was an effort to “decolonize” Indonesia’s criminal justice system from the legacy of the Dutch East Indies colonial era.
-
Labour leader finally appears on a picket line…
… in the form of a life-size cardboard cut-out.
-
A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak the climate
Make Sunsets is already attempting to earn revenue for geoengineering, a move likely to provoke widespread criticism.
-
Blunders – Splits – War
Today the Linke is tragically split, on both political approaches and personalities.… [M]ost worrisome is the split about the present war. Some in the Left downplay the role of NATO, call for total condemnation of Russian imperialism and total military support for the Ukraine, in agreement with most media positions.
-
Capitalism’s court jester: Slavoj Žižek
One of the most prominent intellectuals in the contemporary world was named to the list of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers” in Foreign Policy magazine in 2012. He shares this distinction with the likes of Dick Cheney, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Benjamin Netanyahu, and former Mossad director Meir Dagan.
-
The Dakar Declaration
Adopted in October 2022 at the Museum of Black Civilizations, Dakar, Senegal.
-
DADA NEW YEAR: Tristan Tzara’s Boom, Boom, Boom
I know I’m not the only one thinking that our world has lost its mind. It’s not easy being some relatively sane person nowadays. At the best of times, politics is bankrupt. At its worst, it’s toxic, dominated by demagogues, liars and cheats. Their falsehoods fly wholesale, rarely disgruntling masses of people, let alone damaging a demagogue’s political career.
-
Should private property be abolished? Dublin students vote yes
It was a packed room for the Trinity College Dublin Philosophical Society debate on whether private property should be abolished. I was the first speaker and spoke in an impassioned way for the motion. There was much expression of assent in the room.
-
Dismantling the cult of Churchill
Tariq Ali’s new book examines the disconnect between Churchill’s popular image and the larger context of his life and times.
-
Statement by Ana Belen Montes after her release from prison
Here is an update and current image of Ana Belen Montes, after her release from prison … we share with you the only authorized statement she wanted to share and make public, sent through her lawyer Linda Backiel on Sunday, January 8, 2023.
-
The right turns anti-LGBTQ hate up to 11
In the past few years, the right-wing media have become laser-focused on transgender issues, not always attacking trans people individually, but instead claiming that children are being “groomed” to adopt “radical gender ideology,” and that rights for the trans community are infringing on the rights of children, women and Christians.
-
Maduro: Venezuela produces 94% of its own food in 2022 after importing 80% for over 100 years
“Venezuela is experiencing the first stage of a long recovery cycle,” said President Maduro.
-
Honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King: Unite to fight racism, fascism and war
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said in 1967, “The bombs dropped on Vietnam explode at home.” Malcolm X expressed something similar when he said, “Chickens come home to roost.”