“…In 2018, Venezuela was only able to import $11.7 billion in goods, according to Torino Capital. The impact on medicine imports was especially destructive. According to U.S. economist Mark Weisbrot, while its economy was still growing in 2013, Venezuela was importing about $2 billion per year in medicine. By 2018, that amount had fallen to an astonishing low of $140 million—an especially horrifying development because medicines are much more difficult to substitute with local production than food. It is impossible to deny that a collapse in medicine imports has killed thousands of people between 2017 and 2018, as Mark Weisbrot and U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs argued in a paper published in April 2019. Weisbrot and Sachs cite a 31 percent increase in general mortality in the 2017–2018 period, according to a survey by anti-Maduro Venezuelan academics. That increase works out to an extra forty thousand deaths….” | more…
“The new conception of nature was complete in its main features; all rigidity was dissolved, all fixity dissipated, all particularity that had been regarded as eternal became transient, the whole of nature shown as moving in eternal flux and cyclical course.” -Engels | more…
Never “underestimate the need to be extremely careful in assessing governments that the US government vilifies; and to never underestimate how convincing, formidable and dishonest the propaganda apparatus is that supports US imperialism….Moreover, we hope they realize that the allegations, even if true, can rarely justify war or the kinds of economic sanctions the US has imposed on Venezuela, which are essentially criminal acts of war….” | more…
“That to me is the lesson: The other side is not looking to sit in a room and come up with a powersharing arrangement, the other side is looking to kill you, massacre you, get as many of you in jail as possible, and destroy everything that you’ve accomplished… what I’m saying here is that if you look at what they did right, it has to do with not underestimating the depravity of the opposition….” | more…
Suddenly, the public image of Vietnam looked very different. The very real footage of brutalized Vietnamese bodies, wailing children, and napalmed villages was traded for a fantasy—all of the violence that had been done in Uncle Sam’s name was now being done to him…. | more…
In this interview, Horne goes so far as to argue for the migration of Black people from the U.S., abroad because, “given the dangerous turn” things have taken here, “we’re going to need people to mobilize on our behalf” from overseas, “in case things get more precarious”…. | more…
“When most people think of imperialism, they think of wars, and invasions to secure resources for the Global North, or they think of Lenin’s definition of it as a stage of capitalism. But you argue that imperialism is an essential part of capitalism.” Rania Khalek asks: “What do you mean when you say ‘Imperialism?’” And: “How did the Global North end up dominating the Global South?” These are perhaps the quintessential starting point for the next generation of activists and organizers, just as they had been for those that came before – and perhaps far longer than any of us would like… | more…
The book “Extraordinary Threat” will be here any minute! “Although the publication is not entirely a praise of the Bolivarian Revolution—the authors offer detailed critiques where criticism is deserved—overall the book stresses the importance for people of good conscience to defend the example of Venezuela. Through grassroots democracy and popular participation, Venezuela is trying to chart an independent course and overcome centuries of imperialist domination, a heroic resistance against the ‘extraordinary threat’ of the most powerful empire of modern times….” | more…
What can we do? “We must organize more picket lines and study groups. We must make more media appearances. We must launch more documentary projects. We must establish a presence at the African Union in Addis Ababa and CARICOM too. We must picket the OAS headquarters in Washington, DC, especially re: the crisis in Colombia. We must **organize.**” | more…
Rather than looking out for hi-tech solutions, Wallace insists that we should learn from the international peasants’ movements such as La Via Campesina in its call for food sovereignty and resistance against global corporate trade and food regime….. | more…
“…while these diabolical schemes were taking place, it was Haiti, through its diplomatic missions, particularly in London, that was plotting against the United States…” | more…
Throughout ‘Can the Working Class Change the World? ‘Yates demonstrates that “Capitalism is a system of stark individualism.” Only radical thinking and acting, he argues, “have any chance of staving off accelerating levels of barbarism.” Therefore, in the last part of the book, Yates offers suggestions about what organisations can do in the class struggle, pointing out that “the ‘I’ must be suppressed and the ‘We’ must come to the fore”… | more…
