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A hard loss and a triumph: Berlin Bulletin No. 196, September 30, 2021
The most important election result is hardly discussed in the media—and when it is, then with satisfaction or joy. It is, in fact, a truly sad result. The Left (DIE LINKE) missed the red line level of 5%—but was miraculously saved by a special rule; if three or more delegates of a party win out in their own districts—with those first crosses—then their parties and their proportionate lists are saved, just as if they had reached 5%.
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If the United Nations Charter was put to a vote today, would it pass?: The Thirty-Ninth Newsletter (2021)
Each year in September, the heads of governments come to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City to inaugurate a new session of the General Assembly.
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The Struggle for Development
Collective struggles by labouring class communities–in and beyond the workplace–have the capacity to generate real human developmental gains for these communities. Consequently, these struggles and the labouring classes that pursue them, should be considered as developmental.
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Censorship is ok when transphobes do it
An interview in the Guardian (9/7/21) made waves—not because of something it said, but because of something it didn’t say.
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Israel’s post-Gaza bombing assault on Black history and identities
To continue the marginalization of Black and, more recently, Muslim groups, you do not have to suddenly turn society upside down or challenge the dominant religious white or secular culture, or even, as in Nazi Germany, change citizenship and property ownership rules—in contrast to periodic historic assaults on certain white ethno-religious groups, who, by comparison, have sometimes enjoyed bourgeois, socioeconomic class power.
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For our Nations to live, capitalism must die
What the recent actions of the Mi’kmaq land and water defenders at Elsipogtog demonstrate is that direct actions in the form of Indigenous blockades are both a negation and an affirmation.
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AUKUS makes workers pay for war with China
We are witnessing an aggressive build-up by the U.S. and its allies for a confrontation with China. The Biden administration is making massive upgrades to the US’s military capacity, and sharply reorienting it to focus on China.
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Rich countries prolong the pandemic: what Biden must do
Most rich countries have opposed most developing countries’ request to temporarily suspend World Trade Organization (WTO) intellectual property (IP) rules to more quickly contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Expectations were high as Biden had supported a patent waiver, albeit only for vaccines.
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Reactionary anti-China propaganda not in Canada’s self-interest
Engler: We must reject great-power rivalry and pursue an independent foreign policy
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Labour members overwhelmingly back motion in solidarity with Palestine
The move comes as another grassroots rebuke to the party leadership and marks the first time a major British political party has aligned itself with the UN definition of Israel as an apartheid state.
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We Carry a New World in Our Riots
July is mid–winter in the Southern Hemisphere, where Billie Holiday singing “like a summer with a thousand Julys” rings somewhat oddly. Just the same, there was plenty of fire to keep people warm this winter.
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In the wake of the pandemic: the rebirth of climate mobilizations
One-hundred-thousand students strike. Fifteen-to-twenty thousand demonstrate in Quebec.
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Berlin locals vote to expropriate real estate giants
Berliners cast their referendum votes on whether to nationalize thousands of housing units owned by real estate giants. After counting all votes, over 56% voted in favor of the measure.
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Biden and Xi address UN, juggling differences amid calls for unity on climate and COVID-19
The leaders of the United States and China each pledged to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that they would help press the fight against virulent pandemics and global warming–even as they offered vastly different visions of the world order.
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Pandemic economic woes continue, but so do deep structural problems, especially the long-term growth in the share of low wage jobs
Many are understandably alarmed about what the September 4th termination of several special federal pandemic unemployment insurance programs will mean for millions of workers.
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How big corporations and Bill Gates took over the UN food Summit
Large corporations and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation took over the United Nations Food Systems Summit, abandoning small farmers on behalf of Big Ag companies, endangering food sovereignty.
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Brilliant exposé of Neoliberal doublespeak
The Museum of Neoliberalism, which this month welcomes back visitors, is a brave undertaking, full of ironic and hilarious twists and takes, deploying a wicked Orwellian double-think to mock and expose neoliberal marketing and branding.
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Vectors or value Chains?
While the framework of “vectoralism” proposed by McKenzie Wark in Capital is Dead: Is This Something Worse? proves inadequate for understanding contemporary political economy, the concept of value chains developed by Intan Suwandi (Value Chains: The New Economic Imperialism) offers a promising alternative.
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Where flowers find no peace enough to grow: The Thirty-Eighth Newsletter (2021)
On 13 July 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a landmark resolution on the prevalence of racism and for the creation of an independent mechanism made up of three experts to investigate the root cause of deeply embedded racism and intolerance.
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New York Times advises China on COVID-19: abandon success, try failure
Shielding the Western elite from justified rage.