WHATEVER WAY one looks at it, the reality is that this crisis, and its four forms— environmental, health, economic, and political—will prove to be worse than 2008. The fact that China’s economy has slowed down, for the first time in decades, only shows that this crisis will be a global affair, rather than a Western financial crisis, as happened in 2008. The 2020 crash will be a
Imperialism
Venezuela blockaded
JUST AS the coronavirus is wreaking havoc in the United States, and has also begun to affect Venezuela, the Trump regime has decided to step up its aggression against Venezuela, which can only obstruct the country’s efforts to safeguard the health of its population from the threat of the pandemic.
António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, has appealed for an end to all economic sanctions on account of the pandemic.
Why the West hates Sandinista Nicaragua
NICARAGUA’S SUCCESS in containing the covid-19 virus makes the failure of the United States and its allies look pathetic. The country’s low numbers of nine confirmed cases to date and just two fatalities categorically vindicate the policies of its Sandinista government, led by President Daniel Ortega and Vice-President Rosario Murillo.
The same is true of other revolutionary and socialist governments around the world. Cuba has given a shining example of global leadership and solidarity. Most notably elsewhere, Venezuela, Viet Nam and India’s state of Kerala have also implemented diverse but successful policies containing the pandemic.
How can we defeat fascism?
The Communist International defined fascism as “the open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”
Fascism arose from capitalism’s need to solve the crises it itself created
The origins of the climate crisis
The origins of the climate crisis – Joe FlemingDownload Out of the green fields of southern England, in the same century in which Shakespeare penned his pastoral comedies and the Tudors initiated a new phase of Ireland’s conquest, a novel form of economics arose. A terrible force, only nascent, long […]
The crisis of late imperialism
Understanding imperialism is vital to our understanding of the world today, enabling us to chart a path forward to tackle the environmental crisis and to move humanity towards a system of equality and common ownership—socialism. Unfortunately, many on the left either reject the existence of imperialism in favour of a […]
The iron fist of capitalism
THE RISE of the right wing, of fascist ideology, is inextricably linked with the crises of capitalism, which are periodic and inevitable because of the internal contradictions within the capitalist system, which can never be overcome, because capitalism is an antagonistic class-based system in which differing class interests cannot be reconciled.
International Anti-Imperialist Conference in Caracas
2019 was a year of victories for Venezuela, President Maduro claimed at a ceremony on 23 January for the anniversary of the fall of the Jiménez dictatorship in 1958. This was also the date chosen last year by Juan Guaidó to proclaim himself “interim president” of Venezuela. His argument, prompted by Mike Pence, was that the office was vacant, because of their non-recognition of the election of President Maduro, and therefore should go to the chairperson of the National Assembly, the office he held.
The time has come
THE WORKING CLASS is under attack in a class war that we are losing. There was a time when one average worker could earn enough to provide a family with the basic necessities of food and shelter and a few luxuries. This, of course, did not
Rehearsing a possible war against Russia
Last month the US government announced that its military budget for 2020 will be a colossal $738 billion. The US military is one of the largest polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more climate-changing gases than most medium-sized countries. But only a minority of environmental campaigns or […]
Céad míle falsehood
Last month the ugly face of capitalism came into the public glare when thirty-nine people froze to death in the back of an Irish juggernaut, having been smuggled into Britain from Viet Nam.
Later on, as November came to a close and the Christmas shopping frenzy was in full swing in the streets, on television and radio and in the newspapers, sixteen people were discovered in the back of another juggernaut, on its way to Rosslare. Mercifully, they were alive.
Defend Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning!
In 2010 Chelsea Manning (then known as Bradley Manning) was working as a US military intelligence analyst when she came across a video of an American helicopter crew calmly massacring Iraqi civilians in Baghdad. So shocked was she that she sent the video to Wikileaks, which published it, thereby exposing the nature of the US military occupation of Iraq.
Tourism as a tool of displacement
LAST MONTH a talk was given in Berlin and other European cities by Grassroots Al-Quds, a Palestinian group that is organising civil-society resistance to Israeli occupation. It aims to build an economic base within East Jerusalem to try to liberate occupied Palestinians from their dependence on NGOs and settler-colonialism.
Capitalism is digging our graves
The world in which we live is finite. It does not possess infinite, everlasting resources. And it is fast approaching the point of no return as we face imminent climate catastrophe. If we are to save humanity and protect the world for future generations we have to radically change the […]
Imperialism declines—but can humanity survive?
In mid-July the British military detained an oil tanker, the Grace I, carrying crude oil from Iran as it was heading to Syria.
The new scramble for Africa
Failing to see the irony, the Government and Fianna Fáil voted—on World Refugee Day, of all days!—to send fourteen members of the army’s Ranger Wing (Ireland’s SAS) to war in Mali.
The minister for defence, Paul Kehoe, told the Dáil that the country was a victim of “terrorism,” and we must play our part.
Mali is not just some poor country plagued by “terrorism.” It’s worse: it’s a poor country plagued by imperialism.