The EU presents itself as a champion of press freedom and human rights, but that image is rapidly fraying. It is increasingly deploying its sanctions machinery against journalists and analysts who challenge establishment narratives – often with devastating consequences for their livelihoods, families and basic civil rights. Several recent cases […]
International
Faultlines in Capitalism
The rapid expansion of private credit over the past decade, previously discussed in October’s Socialist Voice (“IMF Fears Looming Capitalist Crisis”), has created a fragile pillar of global finance. Now estimated at roughly $2 trillion, the sector has grown by extending loans to riskier, often highly leveraged companies. As detailed in October, […]
International Progressive Forums
The Global Progressive Mobilization Conference was held in Barcelona on April 17–18, 2026, under the patronage of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and with the participation of Stefan Löfven, signalling a European effort to reposition the progressive current internationally. More than four thousand participants from around forty countries attended, including leaders […]
War, Inflation and Profit
The Iranian war exposes capitalism’s core logic: upward wealth transfer and economic instability driven by profit, speculation and debt. Rising energy prices, triggered by the war, are accelerating inflation and rippling through the economy, with knock on effects, either now, sooner or later, for transport, food and business costs. That […]
China’s Green Development is Both Anti-Imperialist and Socialist
Since the turn of the century, China has been undergoing its own green industrial revolution. In 2023, China was responsible for the production of over 80% of the world’s solar panels and 60% of the world’s electric vehicles.1 China’s domestic New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) — referring to battery/pure electric vehicles, plug-in […]
The Permanent War Economy and the Crisis of U.S. Hegemony
The escalating conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran is often presented as another regional crisis in the long history of Middle Eastern wars. In reality it reflects something far larger: the growing instability of the global order that has been dominated by the United States since the end […]
A Geography of Violence: How Settler Colonialism Is Reshaping the West Bank
Available data indicate that attacks in the West Bank are no longer merely a temporary escalation in the level of violence; rather, they have evolved into a systematic pattern reflecting the intersection of settler attacks with deeper structural transformations in the conflict. This escalation became particularly evident during the period […]
Neutrality for Sale: How the Ruling Class Subverts Irish Sovereignty
The Irish ruling class, its subservient media and academia, along with a well-funded global network of “think tanks” connected to the military-industrial complex, continue to subvert neutrality and push ahead for the removal of the Triple Lock. The grovelling antics of the Irish political class were best reflected in the […]
Shamrock and Shame: Ireland’s Kowtow to Imperialism
Press headlines in Washington on Patrick’s Day 2026 were carrying the news that Joe Kent, director of the US National Counterterrorism Centre, and once a staunch MAGA supporter, had resigned. What was really surprising, though, was his reason for quitting. Kent wrote on Twitter that he couldn’t continue because he […]
Fortress EU: Frontex, Pushbacks and the Criminalisation of Refuge
In 2004, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, known as Frontex, was set up. It is tasked with aiding EU member states with border control, specifically in the Schengen area, from its headquarters in Warsaw, Poland. However, in practice, this means stopping refugees and asylum seekers and has in […]
Cuba, a Beacon of Hope to Billions
“Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” were the progressive slogans of the bourgeois French Revolution. Capitalism cannot deliver on those promises, because it needs inequality as a fundamental condition for its existence, since it is based on exploitation. It needs inequality amongst the people within a country and inequality amongst nations, and […]
Why this Irishman is Standing in the Holyrood Election
My da always worked odd jobs. He never had much education past secondary school. For a while, he was a caretaker at a private school in Dublin, and we lived in a wee cottage on the grounds. The pay wasn’t amazing, but it was enough to support a family of […]
89th anniversary of the Battle of Jarama
For almost two decades, Friends of the International Brigades Ireland (FIBI) gather in Spain to mark important dates in the history of Spanish anti-fascist struggle with other Spanish and international groups maintaining the memory of the defense of the Spanish Republic. The 89th anniversary of the Battle of Jarama was […]
Enemies of the State: Resisting US Imperialism in Honduras
When US forces stormed Caracas earlier this year to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, pundits were quick to point out the brazen hypocrisy. Maduro now sits in a New York jail, awaiting trial on unsubstantiated charges of cocaine trafficking, while a bona fide narco-dictator, former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández […]
Imperialist Aggression and the Defence of Iranian Sovereignty
Once again, the spectre of another war haunts the Persian Gulf. The Biden—and now Trump—administration has orchestrated a massive military build-up in the region, amassing an armada of warships, stealth fighters, and bomber assets in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea. The stated pretext is Iran’s nuclear programme. The reality […]
Michael Parenti
In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx says: “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.” Let us compare two intellectuals—one who understood Marx’s words […]
