It is with this attentiveness to the historic shortcomings and duplicity of left organizations that Yates rejects so-called democratic socialism, which even in its heyday failed to fundamentally challenge capitalism. Setting our sights on the mere (and, as history shows, inevitably temporary) reform of a fundamentally exploitative system instead reflects a colossal failure of imagination akin to the prisoner who spends all his energy advocating for a larger window in his cell… | more…
“….it’s also striking to note that Haiti has all kinds of natural resources, including gold! They’re licking their lips on Wall Street, salivating, contemplating the possibility of descending en masse on Haiti to exploit Haiti’s vast natural resources.” | more…
It’s a set of loose propositions that fundamentally come down to this. If you look at the overrepresentation of black Americans in prisons or the overrepresentation in terms of being suspended from schools K through 12, you can come to one or two conclusions. You can come to the conclusion that there is something wrong with black people, or you can come to the conclusion that there’s something wrong with society…. | more…
After years of running opinion pieces about “legal” and “illegal” immigrants, media outlets now ignore the irony of government officials illegally blocking Central Americans from legally seeking asylum. | more…
“…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…
