War poker and Imperial moralism (tags)
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the "war on terrorism" began, which, according to George W. Bush, would end "tyranny in the world." Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq - the U.S. democratic crusades not only cost several million lives, they also brought the restriction of freedoms.
Haiti Earthquake: Capitalism, Occupation and Revolution (tags)
The earthquake that wrecked the capital of Haiti and surrounding areas on January 12 produced human tragedy of almost unfathomable proportions. It has been termed “the most destructive natural disaster in modern times.” Five months later, Haiti is no longer in the headlines or on the nightly TV news, but for the hard-hit Haitian population the scene has hardly changed. Now a new disaster is in the making as the hurricane season begins. This was a calamity made by capitalism: the earthquake was predictable and was predicted; the inferior construction methods are the result of Haiti’s poverty, and the swollen slums were the result of U.S. policies that have destroyed Haitian agriculture, forcing peasants off the land. On top of everything, Haiti is under imperialist occupation: Washington makes sure it has ultimate control of the strategically placed island, as it has throughout the Cold War and since. Haiti's devastation is not the result of “natural” causes or even “neo-liberal” policies – it is the product of the oppression of this semi-colonial country by the imperial masters ever since black slaves rose up to abolish slavery and throw out the colonialists two centuries ago. No new “economic model” can resolve this: what’s required is a new Haitian Revolution, a workers revolution overthrowing capitalism throughout the Caribbean and extending into the heart of imperialism.
The War on Free Expression (tags)
The struggle to save our First Amendment rights
The Democrats don’t deserve our support (tags)
There is no reason to assume, as many do, that a Gore presidency would have avoided war after September 11. Clinton oversaw UN-sponsored sanctions against Iraq that led to the deaths of more than 1 million Iraqis, and U.S. warplanes dropped bombs on Iraq almost daily during his time in office. And Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, calling for the U.S. "to seek to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein." Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright admits in a recent Foreign Affairs article, "I personally felt [Bush’s new Iraq] war was justified on the basis of Saddam’s decade-long refusal to comply with UN Security Council resolutions on weapons of mass destruction."