This article was first published on the English-Arabic blog ”Syria Freedom Forever” on 4 April 2013.
US Imperialism’s pivot to Asia
16 April 2013, byIn his second inaugural address, President Obama announced that after he withdraws combat troops from Afghanistan, the United States will be “ending a decade of wars.” On the very same day, the United States conducted three drone strikes in Yemen. In reality, Washington is now in a permanent state of “low-intensity” drone wars all around the world and is preparing, through what has been called the Pivot to Asia, to contain China. Obama is no pacifist. In his second term, he intends not to retreat from American imperial assertion but to strengthen it.
A critique of the ecosocialist manifesto of the Parti de Gauche
24 March 2013, byDaniel Tanuro is the author of L’impossible capitalisme vert (“the impossible green capitalism”) [1]. In this article, he presents an analysis of the Ecosocialist Manifesto of the French Left Party. Highlighting the real advances contained in this document, but also its limitations, he contributes to the crucial debate on the necessary ecosocialist strategy.
More Banks versus the People
26 February 2013, by“As the Economist put it at year-end 2006, ‘having grown at an annual rate of 3.2% per head since 2000, the world economy is over halfway towards notching up its best decade ever. If it keeps going at this clip, it will beat both the supposedly idyllic 1950s and the 1960s. Market capitalism, the engine that runs most of the world economy, seems to be doing its job well.’”
Rosa Parkes at 100
21 February 2013, byIn 1988, Rosa Parks attended a film screening of the first segment of the documentary “Eyes on the Prize” in Detroit. Afterward she spoke about her involvement in the civil rights struggle, and I was lucky enough to be in the audience. She was a small woman with a quiet but steel-sharp voice that made an ever lasting impression on her audience.
Banks versus the People: The Underside of a Rigged Game!
22 January 2013, bySince 2007-2008, the major central banks (the ECB, Bank of England, the “Fed” in the USA, and the Swiss National Bank) have been making it their absolute priority to attempt to avoid a collapse of the private banking system. Contrary to what has been said more or less everywhere, the principal risk threatening the banks is not that a government will suspend payment of sovereign debt. None of the bank failures since 2007 have been caused by that kind of payment default. None of the bank bailouts organized by the various governments has been made necessary by suspension of payment by an over-indebted State.
A Plea for an Ecological Reconstruction of Marxism
3 December 2012, byFor the first time in history, humanity has to conceive our emancipation under a global ecological constraint, unsurpassable by an increase in labor productivity.
Struggle for Self-Determination of the Bangsamoro Revolutionary Fronts: A Historical Perspective and Current Realities
22 October 2012, byThis paper from the RMP-M (Revolutionary Workers’ Party-Mindanao, Philippines section of the Fourth International), gives the background to the reported “framework” agreement between the Moro people on Mindanao and the Philippines’ government.
The significance of Occupy
29 August 2012, by , ,The Occupy Movement, the first such broad, national, multi-issue, mass movement in forty years, represented a test for the revolutionary socialist left in several senses. First, would the left recognize its important and immediately move to become an active part of it and work within it to help provide leadership? Second, would the left during Occupy be able to both appreciate its strengths and develop a critique of its weaknesses and limitations? Would it as the same time be able to conduct socialist propaganda and recruit to the socialist movement? Third, would the left in retrospect be able to analyze and learn from the Occupy experience in order to prepare itself for future movements?
Francis Fukuyama and the ‘absent left’
21 August 2012, byWhatever the (well deserved) derision heaped on the head of Francis Fukuyama for his ‘end of history’ thesis, he has the merit of posing the big questions. In his ‘The Future of History’ article (Foreign Affairs, Jan-Feb) he poses two big questions that are vital for Marxists: Is the neoliberal undermining of the social position of the employed working class and poorer sections of the middle class compatible with liberal democracy? and What explains what he calls the ‘absent left’ – the lack in theory or practice of a powerful left/populist alternative to neoliberalism in a period of such drastic economic collapse and moral bankruptcy of the dominant neoliberal model?
Footnotes
[1] Paris, La Découverte, 2010