Business As Usual Triumphs in Greek Election (tags)
Greece
Greeks Without Choice in Sunday Election (tags)
Greece
Greece's SYRIZA Party Splits Ahead of Snap Elections (tags)
Greece
The humanity of resistance can’t be erased by a Pinochet or a Friedman (tags)
The Pinochet coup was the first application of “shock therapy.” The intellectual author of shock therapy, Milton Friedman, needed a dictator and unlimited violence to implement his ideas.
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.
Venezuela: Why Unlimited Re-election is Bad for the Revolution (tags)
A supporter of Hugo Chavez' anti-imperialist efforts explains why he is nevertheless opposed to Venezuela's recent constitutional amendment abolishing term limits.
( Note: In the Philippines during the 20 years reign of Marcos, September 11 is marked by ostentatious cerwemonies marking the birthday of the dictator most specially during his 14-years dictatorship from 1973-1986. But on Sept 11, 1973, when the coup de tat was launched in Chile it cast a giant shadow on the dictatorship and the primacy of armed struggle against the martial law was upheld. The AJLPP decided to print a version of this article that was first published in the September 2006 issue of Socialism and Liberation magazine. Let everyone remember and never forget the dark days of US-imposed dictatorships in Chile and the Philippines.) ********
Maoist China foreign policy: 1970s and 1980s (tags)
The Mandate of Heaven (Excerpt). A detailed account of Maoist Chinese foreign policy is beyond the scope of this article, but some examples will illustrate the central thesis: that China’s foreign policy is in no way different from that of other world powers. The Three-Worlds Theory was used to justify Chinese alliances with right-wing reactionary governments during the 1970s and 1980s. The Third World
Venezuela: The referendum defeat - What does it mean? (tags)
At about 1am, after a long delay, the Venezuelan National Electoral Commission announced the results of the referendum on constitutional reform. The proposals for constitutional change were defeated by the narrowest of margins, with 4,504,354 votes against, (50.70%) and 4,379,392, (49.29%) for the YES. Soon afterwards, president Chávez was on the television accepting the results. He said that the proposed reforms had not been approved "for now", but that he would continue to struggle to build socialism. The result, as could be expected, was greeted with jubilation by the right wing opposition and all the reactionary forces. For the first time in almost a decade they have secured a victory. There were scenes of jubilation in the well-off middle class areas of Caracas. "At last we have shown that Chavez can be defeated! At last the slide towards communism has been stopped! At last we have given the rabble a lesson!" The joy of the reactionaries is both premature and exaggerated. A glance at the results shows that the voting strength of the opposition has barely increased. If you compare these results (after 88% of the votes had been counted) with the 2006 presidential elections, the opposition has only increased about 100,000 votes, but Chávez lost 2.8 million. These votes did not go to the opposition but rather to abstention. This means that support for the counter-revolution has not significantly increased from its highest point one year ago. How the bourgeoisie "informs" public opinion
Venezuela: The economic tug of war between revolution and counter-revolution (tags)
A recent report from Datanalisis (1) [the Venezuelan statistical service] revealed what already many people knew and suffered from. Scarcity of basic foodstuff is becoming intolerable. This study established that milk, beef and sugar have become very difficult to find. Other products like chicken, cooking oil, cheese, sardines and black beans are also very scarce. The analysts who compiled the report interviewed 800 people in some 60 different shops, supermarkets and markets, both in the private sector and the public distribution network, Mercal. 73,3% of the places visited had no milk powder for sale. 51,7% no longer had refined sugar, 40% had no cooking oil, and 26,7% no black beans, a basic staple in Venezuela. Two thirds of the shoppers declared that they experienced food scarcity to one degree or another in the shops where they usually buy. Queues of a few hours, sometimes up to four hours, to buy some milk are no longer the exception. This is reminiscent of the situation in Chile when wholesale economic sabotage was used against the left-wing Popular Unity government of the 1970s. Without giving in to the panic stories and exaggerated reports of the right-wing media, we must understand that this is a serious situation. The bosses have even threatened to extend this situation into the first quarter of 2008, especially because of the uncertainties related to the questions of private property included in the new constitutional reform. They are grabbing the revolution by its throat.
Reviewing Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" (tags)
The human wreckage of disaster capitalism.
With Gladys – We’ll win a thousand times (tags)
SANTIAGO, Chile — It was with a heavy heart that I arrived in Chile. Compañera Gladys Marin, president of the Communist Party of Chile (CPC), had died March 6 of a brain tumor. She was 63. Communist and workers party representatives came from around the world to pay tribute to this revolutionary heroine. My party — the Communist Party USA — asked me to represent it at Marin’s funeral.
PLEASE REMEMBER VICTOR JARA! (tags)
"As every cell in Chile will tell The cries of the tortured men Remember Allende, and the days before, Before the army came Please remember Victor Jara, In the Santiago Stadium, Es verdad - those Washington Bullets again." - CLASH (from the song, Washington Bullets)
venezuala: gunman may havebeen hired by anti-chavez general (tags)
agent provaceteur?