International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

Ukraine constitutes a test not only for democratic movements, or the unevenly matched imperialisms of the U.S./EU and Russia, but also for the global left. As with other “difficult” moments like the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, Iran 2009, or the Libyan uprising, our support for democracy and human rights has in some quarters come into conflict with the long held stance that neoliberal capitalism, led by the United States, is the main danger confronting humanity. The Maidan uprising that toppled the oligarchical kleptocracy of Viktor Yanukovich in Ukraine was not socialist or even social democratic. Moreover, Maidan was cheered on by the United States and the EU, which clearly sought advantage from it against Russia. This has led some on the left to lean toward Putin’s Russia and to shy away from supporting the Maidan uprising and Ukraine, even in the face of Russia’s takeover of Ukrainian territory and threats to dismember the country. This article takes a different stance. In the tradition of the anti-Stalinist left and particularly the Marxist-Humanist stream of which I have long been a part, I maintain that we can and should support progressive democratic and popular movements, even when they undermine regimes that the U.S. government opposes, and at the same time, work to oppose U.S. war and hegemony.

The government decided on Friday to stop a march through Paris planned for Saturday [19 July] in support of Gaza. Such bans are extremely rare and have angered those planning to demonstrate. The decision comes on top of French President François Hollande’s support for the Israeli military intervention as well as the increasing role of a small radical group called the ‘Ligue de défense juive’ (Jewish Defence League).

Welcome to our struggle, Brother.

This morning I read your first speech as the President of the Republic of Indonesia. Surely it was a more daring speech than we’re used to hear from SBY. I’m glad it was you who received the majority vote from the people, because the other one shouldn’t have made it as presidential candidate from the start. Unfortunately, he too received quite a lot of votes from the people.

In every war, one of the fronts is that of information and misinformation. In the crisis that Ukraine is going through at present there is a discourse of the Russian state, expressed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, relayed by the political world, broadcast by media that are increasingly under the orders of the state and by the pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine. Its purpose is to delegitimize the Ukrainian government and state and to legitimize Russian interference in the affairs of the country. This discourse has an impact on important sectors of the population is Eastern Ukraine, which are suspicious of Kiev and influenced by the Russian media. Sometimes it even finds an echo in the Western media and, what is much worse, in a part of the left in Europe. It seems important to challenge the Russian version of events in Ukraine.

This is part two of an interview with scholar-activist David McNally on the current economic crisis. The first part [1] focused on the crisis itself, its causes, the way in which working life has been reorganized, the perspective of ruling elites in managing the crisis and pursuing austerity policies, and how this should help inform our stance as movement activists.

In A left ‘exit strategy’ from fossil fuel capitalism? [2], Norwegian socialist Anders Ekeland urges ecosocialists to support the climate change program proposed by one of the world’s most-respected climate scientists, James Hansen, in many essays and speeches and in his book, Storms of my Grandchildren. In support of his argument, Ekeland particularly cites John Bellamy Fosters’ article James Hansen and the climate-change exit strategy [3], published in Monthly Review in February 2013.

James Hansen has long been recognised as the world’s foremost climate scientist. He recently retired from the directorship of the Goddard institute for Space Studies, as he put it, to spend more time campaigning against climate change.

The concept an “exit strategy” was coined by John Bellamy Foster in a review of the famous climate scientist — and climate activist — James Hansen’s proposal of a “fee and dividend” system in a 2013 Monthly Review article. [4] Foster introduces the exit strategy concept in the following way: