Kategori: Engelske
“Chase those crazy baldheads out of town”
In Haiti, after decades of legal banditry, a new revolutionary project arises to ask where all the money has gone.
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After Defeat
Why Does Iran Hate America and Britain?
Rebecca Long-Bailey Is Being Smeared for Her Religion
Even before the official launch of Rebecca Long-Bailey’s campaign, Catholic and secular friends and fellow journalists had mentioned to me that they expected the smears against her to rely heavily on anti-Catholicism. Sexism and classism are easy, but also easy to see through. Attacking a politician’s religion is easier, especially when it remains a minority [...]
How the AFL-CIO Can Fight Imperialism and Climate Change
A few weeks into the new decade, international headlines were dominated by the catastrophic bushfires raging in Australia and Trump’s dangerous escalation of hostilities with Iran. Both stories are stark examples of the two most destructive forces facing the world in the 2020s — climate change and endless war. The blame for much of the [...]
How an Anti-Sexist Candidate Got Smeared as Sexist
If you’re paying attention to the Democratic presidential primary and you’re invested in a Bernie Sanders victory, you’ve had a rough few days. The drama started over the weekend with the revelation of a Sanders campaign volunteer script that was critical of other candidates, and ended mid-week with the New York Times claiming that Sanders [...]
Chicago’s little-known experiment in radical democracy
The Labor Movement Must Fight for Medicare for All — Not Employer-Based Plans
At the June 2019 House Ways and Means Committee Hearing on Medicare for All, Texas Republican Kevin Murphy lamented, “That great health care plan that your union negotiated for you? It’s gone. Banned under Medicare for All.” A right-wing congressman with a 7 percent lifetime voting score from the AFL-CIO crying crocodile tears for great [...]
Roaming Charges: No Woman, No Cry
The "No Woman, No Cry" spat between Sanders and Warren is pretty silly all around but it has dominated the press coverage for three days, even eclipsing the debut of the impeachment managers and Trump's audacious pledge to fix America's faucets and shower heads. This is, naturally, the exact outcome CNN and the DNC were hoping for. Just to be [...]
Why They Killed Patrice Lumumba
Born in 1925, Patrice Émery Lumumba was a radical anticolonial leader who became the first prime minister of the newly independent Congo at the age of thirty-five. Seven months into his term, on January 17, 1961, he was assassinated. Lumumba had become an opponent of Belgian racism after being jailed in 1957 on trumped-up charges [...]
Hijacking the Struggles of Others, Elizabeth Warren Style
To say Elizabeth Warren is a political opportunist is not giving her enough credit. She has taken the struggles, as well as the identities of others (women, school teachers, Native Americans, public school supporters, people who are able to tweet with humor, actual humans) and has weaponized these categories until the meaning of it all is lost. More
The post [...]
The Rumbling Methane Enigma
The northern continental shelves of Russia, inclusive of the Barents Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea (ESAS) are some of the least researched yet most controversial subjects in climate science today. It’s the one region that has the biggest potential to trigger runaway global warming because of sizeable subsea methane deposits, thereby More
Will the Constitution Fail Again?
Extreme worship of the Constitution is a feature of U.S. life. It’s been that way for a long time. Even so, the zeal with which it has been deployed throughout the current impeachment process is a wonder to behold. More
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Claims that the ‘NAFTA 2’ Agreement is Better are a Macabre Joke
Democratic Party House representatives have voted by a wide margin to approve version 2 of the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Even Rose DeLauro of Connecticut, in the past a strong leader within Congress in the fight against so-called “free trade” agreements, is on board with this one. Representative More
Biden Daze
Joe Biden was sent out to pasture three years ago when Donald Trump took over from Barack Obama; he ought to have remained there. Instead, he has become central to the two main dramas currently unfolding on the American political stage: the process of selecting a Democratic candidate to run against Trump in November, and More
Not an Inch: Indian Students Stand Against the Far Right
With her head bandaged and her arm in a sling, university student Aishe Ghosh went before the cameras to say that the students of the university she attends in New Delhi would move “not an inch back.” The students would continue to agitate to defend Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and its union, and to fight More
Sealed Off and Forgotten: What You Should Know about Israel’s ‘Firing Zones’ in the West Bank
A seemingly ordinary news story, published in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, on January 7, shed light on a long-forgotten, yet crucial, subject: Israel’s so-called “firing zones” in the West Bank. “Israel has impounded the only vehicle available to a medical team that provides assistance to 1,500 Palestinians living inside an Israeli military firing zone in More
Not Bernie, Us. Not Warren, Us. Their Clash Underscores the Need for Grassroots Wisdom
The dismal conflict that erupted this week between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren should never have happened. But now that it has, supporters must provide grassroots leadership to mitigate the dangerous mess. The argument that broke out between Warren and Sanders last weekend and escalated in recent days is already history that threatens to foreshadow More
America’s Long History of Meddling in Russia
Russia — OK, not the actual Russian government but a private click-farm company located in Russia — bought $100,000 worth of political ads on Facebook designed to change the outcome of the 2016 election. Except that only a small fraction of those ads were political. Also except that that small fraction was divvied up between More
The Irregulators vs. FCC: the Trial Begins
On January 17, 2020, the Irregulators will appear before the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, to argue that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has facilitated one of the largest accounting scandals in American history. The Irregulators is an “independent, expert Telecom Team comprised of senior telecom experts, analysts, forensic auditors, and lawyers …,” including former More
The Krown
You can always tell when the ruling class are committing a crime: They build an institution around it. The military, the banking system, the Monarchy, even Hollywood all have their hierarchies, costumes and rituals intended to inspire awe and insulate criminal class from the common rabble. Consigned to the wrong side of the velvet ropes, More
Resolutions and Obstacles/2020
In sociology and economics, the precariat (/prɪˈkɛəriət/) is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term is a portmanteau obtained by merging precarious with proletariat. – Wikipedia Here are some New Year resolutions, individual and on behalf of society and the More
War Profiteering is Real
The prospect of war with Iran is terrifying. Experts predict as many as a million people could die if the current tensions lead to a full-blown war. Millions more would become refugees across the Middle East, while working families across the U.S. would bear the brunt of our casualties. But there is one set of people who More
The Business Party Syndicate
Each year Leftist Democrats, Socialists and Radicals are asked to hold their noses and vote for the lesser-of-two-evils. This is a false choice because we live in a rigged One-Party state – a plutocracy run by the Business Party, a Syndicate with Democratic and Republican wings. “Syndicate” is the proper word for our corrupt One-Party More
Trump Prosecutors Make Move to Ensure that Embassy Protectors are Convicted
As the trial approaches, the lawyers for the Trump Administration’s prosecution of the four Venezuelan Embassy Protectors who were arrested last May are asking the court to make sure the jury is kept ignorant about the facts and circumstances surrounding the actions of the protectors. In a recently filed motion by government lawyers, state prosecutors More
CNN is Trash
Why has the hash tag #CNNisTrash been popular since this week’s presidential primary debate? There was nothing new about the corporate, militarist, anti-progressive slant of the debate “moderation.” What was new was the level of blatant bias so extreme that even viewers who knew nothing about the issues couldn’t miss it, plus the amount of More
Finally a Christian Call for Trump’s Removal
One would think that liberal faith-based groups would lead the way in calling for President Trump’s impeachment and removal from office. That is not the case. It took an evangelical Christian publication, Christianity Today, to speak such prophetic truth to power. CT editor-in-chief Mark Galli called President Trump’s attempted used of his “political power to More
The ERA Just Got Ratified by Virginia, the Needed 38th State!
Here’s a big deal that’s bound to become a lot bigger this year. Exactly 100 years after women finally won the vote with ratification of a 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, the state legislature of Virginia on January 15 finally became the needed 38th state of the Union to ratify the proposed Equal Rights More
Mexico Takes Action on Coup in Bolivia and on CELAC
Mexico’s government intervened recently in two difficult situations beyond its borders. One is turmoil in Bolivia following a U.S. – assisted coup. The other is about renewing the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). At issue there is regional integration and independence. Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced out of office on November More
How General Strike Rhetoric Became a Reality in Seattle
Calls for a general strike have long been a staple of “resolutionary activity” on the U.S. left. During moments of crisis and militancy—from the mass firing of air traffic controllers in 1981 to Occupy Wall Street and last winter’s federal government shutdown—rousing speeches are invariably made and motions duly adopted, which urge all workers to More
Learning From King’s Last Campaign
As we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., it’s natural to remember his courageous advocacy for racial equity. But before he was assassinated, King had also begun to broaden his efforts to unify the around economic justice. That’s worth remembering today. In December 1967, King, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and other conveners More
Saint Greta and the Dragon
Seated before a corner lamppost, at the foot of the J.P. Morgan Chase Tower, was a blind man with a Starbuck’s venti cup and a hand-lettered cardboard sign. Resting against his knees on the pavement, it read: “Please help the homeless.” Clothed in a gray sweatshirt, mangy coat and army surplus trousers, he was half-asleep, More
Reducing the Health Care Tax
One of most enduring, economically and socially damaging, downright frustrating facts about life in the United States is how expensive health care is here. Not only does U.S. health care cost far more than in other advanced economies, but compared with the nations that spend less, we have worse or equivalent health outcomes. In fact, More
Uniting “Progressives” Instead of Democrats
It seems that people who identify themselves as “progressive democrats” are hellbent on solidifying a tendency which I continue to resist – despite the seeming avalanche of proofs which they and their democratrepublican limiting mentalities continue to shove in my face. The most prominent message within – and as a result of – these unwanted More
Trump & Johnson: What a Contrast, Image-wise!
Is there an age for everything? Yes and No. Instant look at British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s images give the impression as if he isn’t too bothered about his hair appearing to be ruffled and almost rushing to his eyes. What if he had glasses on? But that’s another issue. Look carefully, it is a More
Abusing America’s Children—Free Market Policy
The United States is a hard place to raise children these days. Most parents, no matter what social and economic status they hold, discover just how difficult almost as soon as the woman’s pregnancy is confirmed. Because medical coverage in the United States is mostly privatized and its quality is often based on one’s income, More
Mills Are Being Closed by National Economic Trends, Not Environmental Regulations
The recent announcement of the Townsend RY Lumber Mill closure in Townsend, Montana continues a trend seen throughout the country. Although RY Lumber suggests this is due to environmental regulations or lawsuits, a broader context demonstrates this is a flawed argument. The timber industry has been going through a transition for decades. The bulk of More
Nearly All Americans Want Off of Fossil Fuels
Late last year, The Washington Post reported a remarkable poll finding: Nearly half of American adults — 46 percent — believe the U.S. needs to “drastically reduce” fossil fuel use in the near future to address the climate crisis. Another 41 percent favor a more gradual reduction. In short, almost 90 percent of us support More
Playing Geopolitical Whack-a-Mole: The Viet Nam Flag Issue Revisited
If a US educational institution enrolls Vietnamese students, chances are there’s a Vietnamese flag displayed somewhere, perhaps in the student center, along with the flags of the other countries represented in that school’s international student population. I’m referring to the red flag with a yellow star not the yellow one with three red stripes flag More
New Hope for One of America’s Poorest Communities
Across America, there are pockets of poverty, communities that have been left behind or deprived of the basics needed to develop, like Pembroke Township, a small community south of Chicago along the Indiana border. In this community, one-third of the families live below the poverty line. It is one of the poorest communities in the More
Harry and Meghan Exit: The Royal Family Propaganda Machine
Royal gossip is worth its weight in gold on the British media circuit. Buckingham Palace knows that, and seeks to control, as much as it can, the way that gold is distributed. Much of this was in evidence at the bungling, cringe-worthy performance of Prince Andrew, whose powers of recollection regarding the late Jeffrey Epstein More
Trump: Making America Dread Again!
President Donald Trump White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Trump: The disabling and dismantling of the federal health and safety agencies under your cruel command has been leaving a trail of American fatalities, injuries, and property destruction without precedent even among past Republican Administrations. Your criminal negligence toward federal agencies More
A Call to Men to join Women’s March
It’s not too late for a Men’s New Year’s Resolution: to show up in even greater numbers at this year’s Women’s March than ever before. Wherever they’re being held in Washington, DC or Anchorage, Alaska, let’s encourage men to march for gender equity, and to transform manhood. The struggle for women’s equality is a struggle More
We All Need to Be Tree Huggers Now
Nearly everything about contemporary human life needs to change if we are to seriously address the multiple environmental crises that are facing the planet, but today I will focus on just one topic: trees. Trees are amazing creatures. They are found throughout the world, in a wide range of habitats, from elevations below sea level More
The New York Times’ Delusions of Empire
On January 9, 2020 the New York Times Magazine ran a long, feature op-ed personality profile . This is the second profile of the same leader in the NYT since June 2019. Written by “security” and US foreign policy author Robert F. Worth, the piece augurs terrible things for the coming year and more. Facing More
Why Do We Have School Lunch Debt at All?
A Google search for “paying school lunch debt” reveals a long list of recent news stories about good Samaritans paying off the school lunch debt of children whose families cannot afford it. A Fredonia, New York man paid off $2,000 in school lunch debt in his area, helping 140 families. A Rigby, Idaho tattoo shop More
Fake-Green Zero Carbon Fraud
If the grand plan to ‘decarbonise the planet’ was based upon a human scale renewable energy supply and de-corporatised, decentralised, small scale environmentally friendly distribution patterns – I would have no argument with the initiators. On the contrary, I would applaud such a rare demonstration of holistic thinking. But the reality is very, very different. More
The Best Films of 2019
This is now the third “Best of” survey I have posted to CounterPunch. It might be subtitled “The anti-Oscar awards” since none of the films listed would have ever been nominated for an award in the Tinseltown-dominated ceremony. As was the case in my 2017 and 2018 “Best of” round-ups, these are all films that More
Education: Expanding Purpose
As the world stumbles from one crisis to another it is increasingly apparent that existing systems and institutions are incapable of responding to the challenges of the time and the growing demands of the people. Creative ways of thinking free from ideology are needed, allowing for a revolution of ideas to take place and new More
Across the Balkans: Into Kosovo
An account of a journey from Croatia to Kosovo, by way of Bosnia-Hercegovina and Serbia, and with a detour into Montenegro. This is part IX, and last installment, of a series. At 6:10 a.m. I found a taxi across the street from my hotel, and he took me to the Novi Pazar bus station. I More
Gone Fishing? No Fish but Plenty of Pesticides and a Public Health Crisis
There is mounting evidence that a healthy soil microbiome protects plants from pests and diseases. One of the greatest natural assets that humankind has is soil. But when you drench it with proprietary synthetic chemicals or continuously monocrop as part of a corporate-controlled industrial farming system, you can kill essential microbes, upset soil balance and end up feeding More
Can New Tech Replace In-Class Learning?
When Bette Midler asked last month on Twitter, “What’s wrong with this picture?” the responses across social media revealed the differences in generational approaches to both culture and technology. While Midler was slammed for her tweet, I sympathized with her intent which seemed not to judge per se the women in the picture, but rather More
Message to Trump Supporters: Sorry
I am a committed to peace, and this requires me to acknowledge the dignity and worth of all humans. I fiercely defend human rights and work to promote equality. But I have a confession to make, when it comes to the people defending Donald Trump I come up short, and I must eat my crow More
The Bench: the Life of Things
In times past, the German sculptor, Paul Schatz, related his experience at the woodcarving school in Warmbrunn in north-east Germany where accomplished students were finally allowed to copy a statue. Schatz chose a medieval Mater Dolorosa. After making the first cut, he said he worked in a mood of reverence. As he was working on More
Megafires in Australia: in the image of capitalist excess
Nuclear Hubris
One thing that becomes clear to me when I wander into the world, and the minds, of geopolitical professionals — government people — is how limited and linear their thinking seems to be. When I do so, an internal distress signal starts beeping and won’t stop, especially when the issue under discussion is war and More
Trannies with Guns: Because Enough is Enough!
I need to buy a gun. I can’t state it any simpler than that. It’s something I’ve needed for sometime and I seem to feel like I need it a little more each day. The gun doesn’t have to be fancy or high tech. I don’t need some AR hunting rifle in drag or one More
Baby Dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark
In violation of the separation of church and state, American tax dollars are funneled to fundamentalist private schools teaching crackpot absurdities – such as a claim that Noah probably took two baby dinosaurs onto his ark. To me, it’s a form of child abuse to teach such lies to youngsters. However, that’s what happens under More
Brecht in Berlin
Berlin. One of Brecht’s best-loved and most-performed works, The Caucasian Chalk Circle was written in Los Angeles in 1944 while the playwright was still in exile. He returned to Germany in 1947, but the play remained behind, a parting gift to the country that had offered him refuge from the Nazis, but which, with the More
How Big Tech Helped Cities Become an Incubator for the Greatest Currency of Our Age: Loneliness
If 20th century artist Edward Hopper had been alive today it’s likely the solitary figures in his realist oil paintings would have been lit by the LED light of their smartphone screens. Pop in a few laptops and his most famous piece, Nighthawks, could be a scene from a modern metropolis almost anywhere in the [...] Patti Smith: After the Gold Rush
Why College Should Be Free
In the United States, as in many countries, local governments often provide fire protection. In general — there are exceptions, but they’re still rare enough to make news — this is a free service, available to everyone who lives in whatever jurisdiction provides it. No one has to sign up or pay for coverage. To most people, [...]
The Schadenfreude of History
In Australia, and elsewhere, the future is unsettling.
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The Trump Administration Just Opened a New Immigrant Prison in Rural Michigan
From his office at the Cristo Rey Church in Lansing, Mich., Oscar Castañeda runs a campaign against a new federal immigrant prison, part of President Donald Trump’s escalation of immigration enforcement.
In May 2019, the Trump administration awarded a ten-year, $398 million contract to The GEO Group, the largest private prison corporation in the country, to reopen [...]
Why Trump Fears Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders has been in a tough fight with his fellow Democratic nomination contenders for nearly a year. But with polls showing him leading ahead of the Iowa caucuses next month, Sanders has become the target of a new round of attacks from none other than President Donald Trump. Repeatedly bringing him up during a [...]
Socialists Will Determine Labour’s Future
In late spring 2007 I sat in a small dark function room as three men — John McDonnell, Michael Meacher, and Gordon Brown — told the attendees why they should be the ones to succeed Tony Blair as Labour leader. The Fabian Society debate in London was short-tempered in several spots, with all three making [...]
Capitalism Is Killing Liberal Democracy
The Teamster Revolt Against the Hoffa Era
Willie Ford listened to the conference call in disbelief from the cab of his tractor trailer on I-95 as the Teamster election monitor announced the results of the contract vote covering 250,000 workers at UPS. Ford, a leader of Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), and rank-and-file activists like him, had spent months organizing the [...]
Bernie Sanders Believes in Mass Politics — Something the New York Times Can’t Wrap Their Minds Around
Earlier this week, the New York Times editorial board published the transcript of its questioning of Bernie Sanders, conducted in advance of its official endorsement. Nobody expects the famously establishment-friendly New York Times editorial board to endorse Bernie Sanders, so naturally the ride was a bit bumpy. One of the first questions the board asked [...]
The Wonders of Modern Life Briefly Explained: An Anthropology of the Industrial Revolution
Preamble In ‘Capital,’ Marx defined two ways of creating a surplus from exploiting the labor of others. The first is the extraction of ‘absolute surplus value.’ Extracting absolute surplus value means profiting from the labor of others by making them work longer or harder or getting more of them to work. This economic model comes More
Politics and Business in Seattle
I am in Seattle for an academic conference, having last been here about ten years ago. Seattle is a beguiling place, as most who have visited it will know. Since I was born with an aversion to sightseeing and what’s called “tourism”, it is the intertwining of politics and business (capitalism, really) that interests me More
Trump Dooms the Future by Gutting the National Environmental Policy Act
The National Environmental Policy Act, better known as NEPA, has served the nation well for 50 years. But last Friday the Trump administration decided to gut the law via administrative rules changes that will allow virtually unhindered development, resource extraction and pollution. It’s one thing for the Trump cultists to support certain policies, tariffs, sanctions and war-mongering. More
The Longue Durée: Commemorating RIC and Black & Tan Colonialism
Most histories of modern Ireland tend to marginalise or completely disregard questions of language and culture. This neglect occurs within various fields, be it the study of the conquests of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the rise to power of Ascendancy Ireland during the eighteenth century, the expansion of the modern technocratic state during the nineteenth century as well as [...]
False Profits and Anti-Christs™
[Planet Earth] is melting in the dark All the sweet green icing flowing down Someone left the cake out in the rain I don’t think that I can take it ‘Cause it took so long to bake it And I’ll never have the recipe again Oh, no – Richard “Abraham” Harris, “MacArthur Park” It doesn’t More
Climate Crisis: We Need Radical Change Now, Not in the Future
Reading Naomi Klein’s new book, On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal, is similar to watching a mega-disaster movie in a theater. Except, you can leave your fears behind when you exit the theater. Klein’s message is that our human induced climate change is devastating our livable earth, we are stuck here, it More
Short of Time: Julian Assange at the Westminster Magistrates Court
London. Another slot of judicial history, another notch to be added to the woeful record of legal proceedings being undertaken against Julian Assange. The ailing WikiLeaks founder was coping as well as he could, showing the resourcefulness of the desperate at his Monday hearing. At the Westminster Magistrates Court, Assange faced a 12-minute process, an More
Biden, Buttigieg and Corporate Media Are Eager for Sanders and Warren to Clash
Corporate Democrats got a jolt at the end of last week when the highly regarded Iowa Poll showed Bernie Sanders surging into first place among Iowans likely to vote in the state’s Feb. 3 caucuses. The other big change was a steep drop for the previous Iowa frontrunner, Pete Buttigieg, who — along with Elizabeth Warren and More
How Donald Trump Successfully Wagged the Dog, and More
Although I have never seen Donald Trump with a pet, I do believe that he wagged the dog when he ordered the assassination of the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. The expression “wag the dog” comes from a 1997 film satire in which a president, caught up in a sex scandal, uses a war to divert More
How the President Became a Drone Operator
We’re only a few days into the new decade and it’s somehow already a bigger dumpster fire than the last. On January 2nd, President Trump decided to order what one expert called “the most important decapitation strike America has ever launched.” This one took out not some nameless terrorist in a distant land or a More
Another Geithner Scandal
Tim Geithner might have left his job as Treasury Secretary seven years ago, but his legacy lives on. The Wall Street Journal reported that the financial firm Morningstar had reached a settlement with the SEC over marketing it had done for firms whose bonds it had rated. SEC rules prohibit rating agencies from doing promotional More
Death by Illogic, Lies and Stupidity
Donald Trump continues to be under fire. He has been impeached for a gross abuse of power: attempting to blackmail the Ukrainian government into libeling his likely 2020 Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, with allegations of corruption. To induce the Ukrainians to do this, Trump ordered the withholding of military aid. This was an illegal act. More
Remembering and Forgetting: No to War with Iran!
Keir Starmer’s Call to End Factionalism Must Not Mean a Return to the Status Quo
Keir Starmer promised to “end factionalism” in the Labour party at the launch of his leadership bid on 11 January. Starmer presumably believes this pitch will be popular given the fatigue felt by both Labour’s membership and the wider public at the party’s very public infighting. However, the former director of public prosecutions is yet [...] Amy Klobuchar Says She Wants to Protect Obamacare—But Has Worked to Undermine It
In the ongoing intra-Democratic Party debate over the way forward on healthcare, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has staked out a centrist position, conforming with her finely honed image as a practical pragmatist. Calling the Medicare for All bill championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) a “bad idea,” Klobuchar has refused to co-sponsor it, positioning herself as an opponent of [...]
Dem Debate Ding Dong
In His Lies, Joe Biden Is Sounding a Lot Like Trump
One running theme of the bipartisan outrage at Donald Trump and his administration has been the constant stream of falsehoods emanating from the White House since he took office.
Ever since Kellyanne Conway defended the Trump administration’s use of “alternative facts” following the president’s inauguration, nary a week has gone by without a string of stories criticizing the president for [...]
After the Climate Protests in Australia
Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, is famous for his asinine smirk and the lump of coal he brandished in parliament. His insincere and fumbling response to the bushfires crisis has given him cause to regret both — and it may have sealed his political fate. By contrast, a wave of demonstrations on January 10, 2020, [...]
Ballet Against Austerity
Behold, the anarchic magic of a mass strike: when physical resistance seizes the collective imagination, and the balance between destruction and creativity begins to shift. Cities split open, and new futures spill out. Striking workers cut Amazon’s power, but restore it for poor residents. Yachts of the rich burn in the harbor. And for a [...]
Settler Colonialism Is Behind Climate Denial
The Long Shot of Democratic Socialism Is Our Only Shot
There are few people that Jacobin is more indebted to than York University professor Leo Panitch and the group of thinkers around the journal that he co-edits, Socialist Register. The Register was founded in 1964, right as the New Left was emerging. Its early issues, naturally, display a warranted criticism of conservative social-democratic parties eager [...]
In Last Night’s Debate, Joe Biden Continued Rewriting His History on Foreign Policy
One of the stunning things about last night’s debate — aside from the outrageously biased moderating and Elizabeth Warren’s decision not to “de-escalate” her conflict with Bernie Sanders after all — is how far things have shifted on foreign policy. The previous two Democratic contests in 2008 and 2016 had no shortage of forceful hawkish [...]
From miners to ballerinas: France unites against Macron
The Lebanese October revolution against sectarian realism and neoliberal authoritarianism:
The Man Who Murdered Rosa Luxemburg
On January 15, 1919, the revolutionary leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered in cold blood by a gang of right-wing army officers. Their killings came after the crushing of the January Uprising in Berlin, and enjoyed the tacit approval of leading members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which had taken power only [...]
Where is the Reporting on PetroCaribe?
January 12 marks ten years since Haiti’s deadly earthquake. Usually, Haiti appears in international news when there’s a scandal, a disaster, violence. There was a flurry of coverage in October when daily protests, begun with a nine-week general strike – in Haitian Creole, peyi lòk - met with government repression, including the death of three journalists. The mobilization has been [...]
Australia on the Chasm of Climate Catastrophe
Australia has had a series of bad governments beholden to the coal industry and to the Rupert Murdoch propaganda machine. The media empire of Murdoch controls about 60 percent of the newspapers and television stations. The Murdoch message, just like the message of Fox TV in America, is in defense of the oligarchs and against environmental protection of any kind. This propaganda [...]
American Murder
Clausewitz said, “War is the continuation of politics by other means”, but American Presidents have modified his apothegm. No one knows when it was first judged–How to put it? Not legal, no; not moral, no, surely not. Conceiveable..? Permissible..?–politically safe, for a nation to assassinate a human being, a foreign enemy. There is no record More
City Problems: A Fairly True Barcalona Story
We won the elections. We won by an absolute minority and there’s some merit in that. When you win you have to do a lot of incomprehensible things and no one explains them to you, among them negotiating who’ll end up being mayor at the investiture. Since you’re the winning force (sic) you’ve got to More
France at a Crossroads
Montpellier, France. The nationwide general strike in France, now entering its record seventh week, seems to be approaching its crisis point. Despite savage police repression, about a million people are in the streets protesting President Macron’s proposed neo-liberal “reform” of France’s retirement system, established at the end of World War II and considered one of More
Missiles, Lies and Assassinations
“In war, truth is the first casualty.” – Aeschylus “Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.” – Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.” – Edward More
Biden’s Unexamined List of High-Powered Fundraisers
’Twas the Friday after Christmas, when all through the land, not a person was working, the computers unmanned. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while Joe Biden released the names of the wealthy and well-connected volunteers who are fundraising for his campaign. These fundraisers, otherwise known as bundlers, have all brought in More
Vague Imminence: US policy, Pre-emptive Force and Qasem Soleimani
International relations is typified by its vagueness of definition and its shallowness of justification. Be it protecting citizens of a state in another, launching a pre-emptive strike to prevent what another state might do, or simply understanding the application of a treaty provision, justifications can prove uneven and at odds. The pre-emptive jerk behind the More
Fifty Years and Still the Unrelenting Drumbeat of War
The night was cold with a strong wind blowing in from the northwest. The nearly full waxing moon seemed to ride easily over the tops of the pine forest. A jet, with its lights still on, within minutes of taking off from the airport at Windsor Locks, Connecticut, flew westward against the departing day of More
A Fine Republic, But Can We Keep It?
As Benjamin Franklyn was leaving Independence Hall on the final day of the Constitutional Convention, the story goes, a woman asked him, ‘Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” He is said to have replied without hesitation, “A republic, if you can keep it.”* A Skeptical Founder Scholars tend to focus More
Who Wins and Who Loses in the Iran Crisis?
In the latest phase of the US-Iran confrontation, who came out on top is not clear-cut; both countries made gains and losses from the crisis and some of its the results are still to come. By ordering the assassination on 3 January of general Qassem Soleimani, the head of Quds Force, the external arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, President Trump claims to More
Traversed by Tensions: Quebec’s Religious Symbols Law
Fatima Ahmad, 23, an Education student at McGill University in Montreal, says that Bill 21 prevents her from working as a public school teacher in Quebec. A fourth year student, graduating in April 2020, she is already making plans to move to the United Arab Emirates or Calgary once she graduates. She is photographed wearing More
Hey Los Angeles: More Public Restrooms, Please!
I have to pee. But I can hold it; thank you, God! I can hold it until I get there, and everything will be fine. It’s not like I urgently need to urinate at this very moment; in fact, it was only while exiting the freeway, navigating a rather large intestine-shaped loop, that I sensed More
Joe Biden Is Still Lying About His Role in Invading Iraq
In a somewhat unexpected turn of events, last night’s debate in Des Moines opened with an extended segment on the Trump administration’s recent attempt to start another war in the Middle East that saw most Democratic presidential hopefuls trying their hardest to sound like peaceniks. Given the disastrous bipartisan consensus on foreign policy that dominated [...]
Marxist Feminism of Rupture
The Marxist feminism of rupture is a method, a theoretical-political practice that reads Marx in order to channel him towards urgent political action, identifying the weaknesses of the Marxian analysis of the reproduction of the workforce.
The post Marxist Feminism of Rupture appeared first on Viewpoint [...]
Get Megxit Done
“Capitalism Won’t Save Black People”
In 2017, khalid kamau ran for City Council of South Fulton, Georgia, and won in a landslide. An organizer turned city leader, kamau sees elected office as a weapon in the fight against the myriad injustices facing his city, which is 89 percent black. In speeches, he ties racial justice to anti-capitalism. khalid’s city council campaign [...]
At Tonight’s Debate, They’re Coming for Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders is the front-runner in several Democratic primary polls for Iowa and New Hampshire, is within striking distance of first in Nevada, and has cut Joe Biden’s national lead to single digits. That’s a sentence I could have already written a few weeks ago — but since then, a lot has changed. First, Sanders [...]
Our Anger at Rising Housing Costs Is Not Misplaced
The law applies to everyone. Wall Street protesters should be held accountable if they engage in illegal activity — and so should Wall Street banks. There is no excuse for protesters to violate public safety laws — and no excuse for powerful financial institutions to defraud their customers or investors. This is how Elizabeth Warren [...]
Opera de Paris en Grève: The Ballet Company Striking Back Against Macron’s Pension Reforms
For over a month, swathes of workers across France have taken to the streets in response to Emmanuel Macron’s proposed welfare reforms. The wide-ranging measures include raising the full pension age from 62 to 64, introducing a universal pension system by consolidating 42 different plans with varying benefits and privileges for workers across sectors, and [...] The Deaths of Gig Workers Are Not Freak Incidents, but the Result of a Brutal Business Model
The gig economy has begun the new decade with yet another death. On Friday 3 January, an Uber Eats and Deliveroo rider was stabbed after an altercation with a car driver in what has become an all too familiar scenario over the last few years. Colleagues of the rider have since come forward as victims [...] Spain’s “Progressive Government” Is Already Under Siege
Amid rising tensions in a fragmented parliament, last week the Socialist Party (PSOE) leader Pedro Sánchez won a tight vote of confidence to be confirmed as the Spanish prime minister. Governing together with Pablo Iglesias’s Unidas Podemos (UP), Sánchez is to lead the first coalition government in Spain’s post-Franco democracy, which has until now rotated [...]
The Fascists’ Historian
From Below Podcast: Rebellion in Nicaragua, Part 2
Economic Update: Answering Our Critics
The Deadly Failures of Conservative Government in Australia in the Face of Ferocious Fires
The Morrison government is engaged in distorting and obscuring the causes of the bushfires raging across parts of Australia since October 2019. This is being done for ideological and political reasons by a conservative government with an established record of climate denial and coal addiction. The huge scale of the disaster is clear. More
The post The Deadly [...]
What a Bernie Sanders Presidency Would Look Like
We have a decade to transform the US economy to stave off climate catastrophe, and Bernie Sanders has the only agenda to do so and the only mobilization strategy to get it done. No plan for a better future is worthwhile if environmental crisis renders our future unimaginably bleak. As Naomi Klein notes, this planetary emergency [...]
Trump’s Latest Debacle: an Incompetent and Deceitful National Security Team
For the past three years, the conventional wisdom has been that the United States and the Trump administration have been fortunate in not having to face a national security crisis. The killing of Qassim Suleimani is Trump’s first (self-inflicted) crisis, and his national security team has failed in every aspect. More
An Interview with Embattled Catalan President Quim Torra
The Catalan conflict is generating a constitutional crisis in Madrid with far-reaching implications for the future of the European Union. In a stunning and legally questionable move on January 3, Spain’s Central Electoral Commission voted to remove Catalan President Joaquim Torra from office immediately. In a speech the same evening, Torra rejected the legitimacy of the ruling, saying he responds [...]
The 40 Year Cold War With Iran
The United States has been in a 40-year cold war with Iran. Just like the cold war with the Soviet Union, the conflict between Washington and Tehran has been fought largely through proxies: in Yemen, in Syria, in Iraq. Iranian-aligned organizations like Hezbollah have attacked U.S. targets, such as the 1984 embassy bombing in Beirut. More
Iranian Opposition—1970s to 2020
In the mid-1970s, I did a fair amount of organizing work with Maryland members of the Iranian Student Association. Our goal was to end the rule of the US-installed Shah of Iran. Some of my work involved helping the Iranian students write their leaflets in American English. In 1976, I attended some meetings in Washington, More
Zionism and ‘Anti-Semitism’: A Chronicle of a Smear Foretold
With the 2020 Presidential elections fast approaching, the progressive campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is gaining traction. Several interest groups have grown increasingly anxious of Sanders’ Democratic Socialist agenda, including ruling class Republicans, corporate Democrats and their joint ally – Zionists, both Christian and Jewish. Sanders and BDS The ongoing ‘anti-Semitism’ smear of Sanders and More
Demonizing the Shia: How the West Perpetuates False Claims About Iran’s Regional Influence
I was in Iraq in April 1991 when government security forces crushed the Shia uprising against Saddam Hussein’s regime, killing tens of thousands and burying their bodies in pits. I had been expelled from Iraq to Jordan at the start of the rebellion in March and then, to my surprise, allowed to return, because Saddam More
Iranian Opposition: 1970s to 2020
In the mid-1970s, I did a fair amount of organizing work with Maryland members of the Iranian Student Association. Our goal was to end the rule of the US-installed Shah of Iran. Some of my work involved helping the Iranian students write their leaflets in American English. In 1976, I attended some meetings in Washington, More
And We Allow This Madness to Continue
Try as I did, I found it impossible to send New Year’s greetings to friends in Iraq given the unthinkable and shameless actions of Trump and his regimein the last weeks. His decision to assassinate Iranian Major General Qasim Soleimani at the Baghdad airport led to the Iraqi Parliament voting to expel all foreign troops from More
Justice at Last? ‘Panic’ in Israel as the ICC Takes ‘Momentous Step’ in the Right Direction
At long last, Fatou Bensouda, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has uttered the long-anticipated conclusion that “all the statutory criteria under the Rome statute for the opening of an investigation (into alleged war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories) have been met”. Bensouda’s verdict has been in the making for a More
Biden’s Pack of Lies About the Iraq War
While Biden and his surrogates like John Kerry continue to falsely claim that he was not for the Iraq invasion, the Sanders camp has rightly highlighted more documentation, including video, of his support for the Iraq invasion after it happened, like his statement about Bush at the Brookings Institution in July 2003: ‘The president of the United States is More
10 Ways Trump’s Actions Against Iran Hurt Americans and the Region
The U.S. assassination of General Qassem Soleimani has not yet plunged us into a full-scale war with Iran thanks to the Iranian government’s measured response, which demonstrated its capabilities without actually harming U.S. troops or escalating the conflict. But the danger of a full-blown war still exists, and Donald Trump’s actions are already wreaking havoc. More
The Pretend Administration: Colorado Governor Polis and Fracking
As children, we liked to pretend to be adults, usually our parents, but sometimes great athletes and screen idols. My dad was a railroader. My brothers and I often played with his lantern, which was used as a signal light for communication between trainmen at the front and backend of the train. This was in More
The Fed Protects Gamblers at the Expense of the Economy
Although the repo market is little known to most people, it is a $1-trillion-a-day credit machine, in which not just banks but hedge funds and other “shadow banks” borrow to finance their trades. Under the Federal Reserve Act, the central bank’s lending window is open only to licensed depository banks; but the Fed is now More
Charlottesville City Council Passes Resolution Against War on Iran
Charlottesville Virginia’s City Council voted Monday evening to adopt a resolution opposing war on Iran and urging passage by Congress of Senator Tim Kaine’s privileged resolution. The City Council re-affirmed the position it had taken in 2012 in passing a resolution against war on Iran. The latest threat of war on Iran is particularly Trumpian, but it has More
If a Royal Couple Can’t Challenge Britain’s Sick Press, What Hope Does a Progressive Politician Have?
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced last week that they would be stepping back from their senior duties with the Royal Family. At the same time they published what they called a revised media approach befitting their lesser status. Within days Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, returned to Canada. The response from the press was as [...] A progressive government born under the gun in Spanish state
In Iowa, Rashida Tlaib and the Sunrise Movement Push the Green New Deal—and Bernie Sanders
IOWA CITY—National progressive leader and “Squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) barnstormed through Iowa over the weekend with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), just three weeks before the state’s first-in-the-nation caucus on February 3.
Together, Sanders and Tlaib turned out hundreds of people to a town hall meeting in Davenport on Saturday and 900 to a Sunday rally in Iowa City [...]
We Need Sanders and Warren to Cooperate in the Primary
Since the 2018 election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Queens, New York has stood on the cutting edge of left politics because the borough’s progressives have developed effective strategies to take on establishment institutions and win. When, in December 2019, activists who support Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren caught wind of backroom deals in the Queens County Democratic Party to back Joe [...]
Top Democrats Say They Support the Iran Deal—But Here’s How They’ve Undermined It
The U.S. government’s targeted assasination of Iranian General Qassim Suleimani, characterized by the Trump administration as a preemptive “defensive strike” after the death of a military contractor, was the latest U.S. military provocation against Iran. A gleeful John Bolton, former assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, congratulated “all involved in eliminating Qassem Soleimani,” calling the assassination [...]
Mapache – Life On Fire
A Primary Is a Competition. Bernie Should Play To Win.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have something in common: Both believe they are unique candidates with different politics and agendas—a point both have made clear in countless interviews and policy proposals. And both believe these differences are worth fighting for, which is why both are running for president.
I agree. Specifically, I support Bernie Sanders and his [...]
Social Security and Medicare Are Not Safe With Joe Biden
Earlier this week, Bernie Sanders’s senior campaign adviser David Sirota sent an email to Sanders supporters drawing attention to a speech in which Joe Biden spoke favorably of cuts to Social Security and Medicare. “Paul Ryan was correct when he did the tax code,” Biden said in 2018. “What’s the first thing he decided we [...]
Spain’s First Communist Minister Since 1939 Was Just Sworn In Today
As Spain’s new government was sworn into office on Monday, January 12, national media spoke of a major political realignment. The country’s most-read daily, El País, called the coalition between the center-left Socialist Party (PSOE) and Pablo Iglesias’s Unidas Podemos “the first progressive coalition” in “the current democratic period.” More than that, it is the [...]
The Rogue State Is on the Rampage Again
It would mock history to say that Donald Trump was the first US president to violate Iraqi national sovereignty. Save for a brief interlude between 2011 and 2014 the United States has been militarily intervening in Iraqi affairs since the end of the Gulf War in 1991. At times that intervention has come at the [...]
India’s Left University Is Fighting Back
The violent attack unleashed by the extreme right on the students and teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, on January 5 has brought the escalation of repression that is being deployed by India’s ruling party into sharp relief. The students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have been agitating against unprecedented fee hikes for more [...]
Unraveling India’s authoritarian nightmare
Brace Yourself Sanders Supporters, It’s Going to Get Ugly
It was always going to get ugly in the final weeks. With Sanders surging in the polls and racking up progressive endorsements leading up to the first primaries, and both rival candidates and the wider Democratic establishment openly admitting their nervousness about his very good chances of winning, the likelihood was high that Sanders was [...]
Understanding France’s General Strike in the Context of the Yellow Vests and Global Class Warfare
Labor and capital are at loggerheads in France. As the open-ended strike launched on December 5th against a neoliberal overhaul of the pension system continues to expand, the Macron regime has dug in its heels to defend the advantages this so-called reform would have for the wealthy. In order to fully understand the nature and importance of this battle, it [...]
Trump’s Escalation Imperils Innocents
While an eerie, surreal calm has fallen over US-Iranian relations, I wouldn’t assume we’re out of the woods yet. Trump had no reason to be confident that Iran’s response to his most recent escalation of violence would be little more than symbolic. Although he’s accepted that response more or less passively for now, with Trump, things can turn on a [...]
A Call to Catholics: Let Us End Our Complicity in War
Once again, information has surfaced regarding United States governmental efforts to mislead and misinform people about disgraceful, cruel destruction caused by a United States war of choice against people who meant the U.S. no harm. In the Afghanistan Papers, the United States government officials acknowledged, privately, their own uncertainty about why they were going to war against Afghanistan in 2001. [...]
Embracing Palestine: How to Combat Israel’s Misuse of “Antisemitism”
At a talk I delivered in Northern England in March 2018, I proposed that the best response to falsified accusations of antisemitism, which are often lobbed against pro-Palestinian communities and intellectuals everywhere, is to draw even closer to the Palestinian narrative. In fact, my proposal was not meant to be a sentimental response in any More
The Useless War Powers Act
Practically speaking, the Trump administration’s extrajudicial assassination of a top Iranian general was probably legal. The rationale is straightforward: Congress has steadily settled on a constitutionally dubious theory of handing the president near-limitless authority over how, when, and why the country goes to war. The 1973 War Powers Resolution, the often-cited check on this extraordinary More
Farewell to Two Cuban Revolutionaries: Faure Chomón and Harry (‘Pombo’) Villegas
In December 2019, Cuba bid farewell to two veterans of the struggle which overthrew the Batista dictatorship in January 1959. Both men remained committed revolutionaries and important figures in Cuba for the next 61 years. Faure Chomón Mediavilla died on 5 December, a few weeks before his 91st birthday. Harry Villegas Tamayo died on 29 More
Being History with Iran
We went to Iran because you have to see these places before the U.S. blows them up, and it’s very good to see you here today in downtown Chicago, that’s also precious, for a similar reason. Because we have reason to believe that when Iran goes, a lot of other places go as well. Every More
Will Boeing Survive as a Civilian Aircraft Maker in 2020?
The dismissal of Dennis Muilenburg as CEO of Boeing might have looked like an early Christmas present to the employees and shareholders of Boeing, but the company’s disease has gone way past the point where any single corporate surgeon can save the patient. For those who bothered to look (and this evidently did not include More
Our Country, the United States, is a Rogue Nation and Our Leaders are Criminals
For as long as I’ve been alive, my country has been a rogue state. Actually, the US became a rogue state four years before my birth in 1949 when, in 1945, Washington decided to bomb two militarily insignificant cities in Japan with its new super weapon, the atomic bomb, instantly incinerating several hundred thousand Japanese More
Incendiary Extinctions: Australian Fires and the Species Effect
Cocooned as it is from the world of science scepticism, the handling of the bush fire catastrophe unfolding in Australia is going to one of the more notable (non)achievements of the Morrison government. They were warned; they were chided; they were prodded. But the measures lagged and the flames came. To a certain extent, this More
Come Home America: Stop Policing the World and Waging Endless Wars
“Let us resolve that never again will we send the precious young blood of this country to die trying to prop up a corrupt military dictatorship abroad. This is also the time to turn away from excessive preoccupation overseas to the rebuilding of our own nation. America must be restored to a proper role in More
The USA’s System of Checks, Balances and Reality Crumbles as it Seeks War with Iran
Send in Pope Francis, Not the Marines “Any Muslim who denies #JesusChrist’s and #SaintMary’s infallibility is rejected by #Islam. This is how Islam respects Jesus and Mary (pbut).The honor #Muslims attribute to #JesusChrist (pbuh) is no less than his position and merit in the eyes of the Christian believers in Christianity. Today, many who claim More
GM in India: Faking it on the Astroturf
According to a recent report in The Hindu Business Line, India’s intelligence agencies are investigating the role of a global investment company and international seed companies in supporting farmers organisation Shetkari Sanghatana (SS) in the distribution of illegally procured genetically modified (GM) herbicide tolerant (HT) cotton seeds. The planting of such seeds is an offence under the More
The movement is holding on…but not spreading
The Scott Morrison Honeymoon Is Over
In 2006 the Australian tourism slogan “Where the bloody hell are you?” became synonymous with hackneyed colloquialisms and large-scale flops. Fourteen years later it’s become a neat metaphor for the leadership troubles of its creator, Prime Minister (and former Tourism Australia head) Scott Morrison. As the world watches the bushfire disaster unfold, they might be [...]
Daniel Bensaïd: 25 March 1946 – 12 January 2010
We Can’t Cede Transparency to Liberals
A long time ago, the leaders of the socialist organization I belonged to, the now-defunct International Socialists (IS), decided, with the approval of the group’s annual convention, to cease distributing to members the minutes of the political leadership body’s deliberations. This new policy was designed to prevent the revelation of political differences among national leaders, [...]
10 Years Ago, We Pledged To Help Haiti Rebuild. Then What Happened?
Globalization Isn’t the Problem — Capitalism Is
In Errol Morris’s new documentary, American Dharma, Morris asks Steve Bannon — former executive chairman of Breitbart News, mastermind of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, and subject of the film — if he could pinpoint a defining moment in the crystallization of his political worldview. Pondering the question, Bannon recalls a visit to West Point [...]
Elon Musk Is Planning for Climate Apocalypse
Elon Musk is often celebrated for daring to think and talk about the future in a neoliberal system that has deemed the subject off-limits. According to the neoliberal handbook, we were only supposed to manage the privatization of the status quo, not think about ways to change it. In all this, Musk has been one [...]
Why the Green New Deal Didn’t Get a Hearing
An area the size of Scotland burns in Australia. More than sixty lives have been lost to flooding in Jakarta; Zambia teeters on the brink of famine; and oil stocks soar as the president of the United States openly stokes war with Iran. A Green New Deal (GND) — and an internationalist GND in particular [...]
An open history: Blanqui and Bensaïd
Was Marx an ecosocialist? A reply to Kohei Saito.
Students as workers in the neoliberal university
The Limits of Hindutva
The seemingly unstoppable consolidation of the Hindutva project by the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has entered into a deadlock. With the passing of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Bill, a wave of mostly youth-led protests has gripped the country. Despite brutal and authoritarian repression by the Indian state, the demonstrations have been ongoing. The [...]
A Burning Analogy
How to Be a Partisan Professor
Wolfgang Abendroth was postwar Germany’s most important socialist intellectual. As one of the few socialist jurists and political scientists in his country in this period, he trained a generation of Marxist scholars — as well as cutting a singular figure on the West German public stage. Abendroth’s adventurous life took him from the ranks of [...]
“This Strike Is Uniting the Resistance Against Macron”
It’s over a month since French workers began their strike against planned pension reforms, in what is already the longest such action for several decades. Indeed, the agenda pushed by Emmanuel Macron’s government threatens a severe blow to the welfare state, promising a sharp drop in the value of workers’ pensions, an increase in the [...]
The Socialist Position on the Latest U.S. Attack on Iran: The Assassination of Suleimani
Nominations… Gotta Catch ‘Em All
How to Revive the Antiwar Movement
We haven’t had an antiwar movement in the United States for a long time. So, when Iranian general Qassem Soleimani was assassinated on orders from President Donald Trump on January 3, it immediately raised the prospect of a real shooting war between the United States and Iran. It also caught many of us flat-footed and [...]
A Socialist Response to Neoliberal Globalization
The Trump administration has brought tariffs to the forefront of political debate. By pinning the decline of US manufacturing on the shortcomings of trade deals such as NAFTA, Trump has promised working Americans that he would fight to protect and bring back their jobs, especially through protectionist measures. At no point, however, has Trump talked [...]
Viewing Taiwan From the Left
On Saturday, voters in Taiwan will go to the polls to elect the state’s next president. The autonomous territory — officially known as the Republic of China, but unrecognized diplomatically by most countries around the world — has long been cast in the shadow of China and subsumed under Washington-Beijing relations. In tomorrow’s contest, China [...]
In the Lead-Up to Iraq, Antiwar Dissent Was Silenced. Not This Time.
With a buffoonish Republican president seemingly determined to start a disastrous war in the Middle East, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s the halcyon days of the 2000s again. But if the history of the Bush years is bound to be repeated, let’s make sure the onslaught against anti-war dissent isn’t. Though it’s been [...]
The prison memoirs of Sakine Cansiz, Kurdish resistance leader
What a Socialist Approach to Gun Violence Should Look Like
Gun violence in the United States has long been a major crisis. Rates of firearm deaths are nine times greater here than they are in Canada and over seventy times the rate of Great Britain. (And with heavily armed soldiers operating in nearly 150 countries each year, Americans are disproportionately even more likely to kill [...]
Pensions: “We choose to give priority to human beings and the right to a dignified life”
Solidarity Against Despair
Drug overdoses in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Suicides in Montana and Alaska. Alcohol deaths in New Mexico and South Dakota. The rise in these types of mortality is so dramatic that the mainstream media has recently adopted a new term for them: “deaths of despair.” A recent report published by the Commonwealth Fund found that deaths [...]
Assassination, Lies and the Trump Difference
United States presidents have long lied about the pretexts for, and the nature of, their murderous and criminal foreign policy actions. Remember George W. Bush and Dick Cheney’s fraudulent claims that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq government possessed vast stocks of “weapons of mass destruction” that threatened the world and that Iraq had participated in the September 11, 2001 jetliner attacks?
Pulling Back From War: Trump and the Politics of De-Escalation
As “the loudest voice” in the room, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo successfully lobbied for President Trump to authorize the illegal assassination strike against Iranian General Qasem Soleimani. This “victory” proved fleeting, however, considering the risks to this administration’s reelection that accompanied all-out war. A full-blown conflict appeared increasingly likely following Iran’s missile strikes on American bases in Iraq’s Anbar [...]
Roaming Charges: All the Pretty Missiles Are Going to Hell
I feel fortunate to live in a country that takes freedom of speech so seriously that even the criminally insane have their own TV network: "This president will unleash holy hell on that regime...There will be retaliation and it will be disproportionate,” thundered Sebastian Gorka. “We are not a superpower anymore. We are a hyperpower.” More
The post Roaming [...]
“Trust Us Not to be Really Impartial”: Reflections on the Structure and Content of the BBC
As Iran responds to US war crimes and tensions escalate, we can expect the BBC to increase its anti-Iranian propaganda. The BBC’s Defence Correspondent, Jonathan Marcus, opines: “it was rocket attacks from Iran’s proxies – local Shia militia – against US bases [in Iraq] that formed the prelude to this recent crisis,” referring to Iranian More
On the Issue of “Electability”
The hardcore Trump base is vile in many of the ways that bona fide fascists were, and as is Trump himself. Even so, calling it “fascist,” though tempting, inasmuch as the word is still a term of abuse, is ahistorical and misleading. “Rightwing nationalist” or “rightwing populist” are more exact and to the point. Unlike true fascists, Trump’s supporters have [...]
What the US Wants in the Near East: an Interview With The Saker
The Saker: Trump has been accused of not thinking forward, of not having a long-term strategy regarding the consequences of assassinating General Suleimani. Does the United States in fact have a strategy in the Near East, or is it only ad hoc? Michael Hudson: Of course American strategists will deny that the recent actions do More
Haiti by the Numbers: 10 Years Later
Magnitude of earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010: 7.0 Years since an earthquake of that magnitude struck Haiti: 168 Number of aftershocks, over 4.5 magnitude, in the week after the initial tremor: 51 Total number of government ministry buildings, before the earthquake: 29 Number of government ministry buildings that stood after the earthquake: More
Mega Droughts Engulf Countries
Throughout the world, mega droughts are hitting hard with a ferocity not seen in decades and in some cases not seen in centuries. It’s not merely coincidental that as global warming accelerates droughts turn more vicious than ever before. All of which begs the logical question of when will world leaders wake up with a More
Was Soleimani a Monstrous Kingmaker or Simply an Enabler?
There’s an extremely grim moment in the 1967 movie version of A Man for All Seasons, the epic Robert Bolt screenplay about the chancellor Thomas More’s refusal to support Henry VIII’s divorce, when Thomas Cromwell recruits the young and ambitious schoolteacher Richard Rich to become a spy. Rich will later provide the tainted evidence that More
The Current U.S. Approach to Nuclear Weapons Can Only Lead to Armageddon
The decade ends with two major threats to humanity: global warming leading to a climate catastrophe and the threat of a nuclear war extinguishing our civilization. The U.S. has pulled out of the Paris Agreement and is wrecker-in-chief of the weak climate change agreement that all the countries had signed to limit the emission of More
Paradise Islands and Boris Johnson’s Hypocrisy
Picture heaven as a lovely island, Somewhere far away, Where there never comes a sunset, Life is just one long eternal day. How’d you like to spend eternity, On paradise island, How’d you like to live forever way beyond the starry skies, Song will fill the air with melody, On paradise island. – Paradise Island by Bill More
What Plutarchy Nurtures
Maybe you spend most of your time online or wish you could because cyberspace was here to greet you at birth, and it’s been family to you in a way that the analog world can’t compete.You like Nature, the video game. And so on. Or maybe you have a richer social life online than offline. More
Main Result of Soleimani Assassination: the Movement to Expel U.S. Forces
Donald Trump postures as an anti-war president, or at least one who opposes “stupid, endless wars in the Middle East.” (Emphasis here on stupidity—read: expense—rather than morality and the issue of human suffering. Trump is a singularly non-empathetic human being.) On the other hand he’s boasted that he’s the “most militaristic” president we’ve ever seen. More