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 […]
International
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 […]
The Struggle to Maintain and Build Our Neutrality Heats Up
The attacks and machinations against Irish neutrality by the coalition government, arms companies, security think tanks and the military establishment continue to gather momentum. Barely a day passes that there is not another attack and attempt to undermine neutrality—newspaper articles, discussion on radio and television spreading rumours of imminent threat […]
Is International Law Progressive, Reactionary or Neutral?
Is international law progressive, reactionary or neutral? Before answering, one needs a Marxist understanding of law. Marx claimed that “the totality of [society’s] relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure.”[1] Following the October Socialist Revolution, the RSFSR […]
The Fracture in American Power: Empire in Transition
The United States has entered what can fairly be described as a new Cold War with China. The language has changed, but the methods are familiar. Containment, economic isolation, alliance discipline, and pressure on third countries have returned as the organising principles of strategy. This reorientation is no longer speculative. […]
The Strategy of Imperialism: From Ukraine to the Americas
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter and a key strategist for imperialism during and after the Cold War, said in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard that the biggest threat to US unipolarity would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran—an “antihegemonic” coalition united not by […]
Cuba Remains Unbowed and Fighting for Its Future
Cuba has transformed its electricity system in just 12 months, increasing solar power from 5.8 per cent to over 20 per cent of total generation as the country races to escape dependence on oil imports now blocked by US sanctions. The Caribbean nation connected 49 new solar parks to its […]
From the Rebel County to the People’s Republic: “In China, Things Get Done”
Pundits estimate there are somewhere between 50 and 80 million Irish people around the world. Our 17th-century ancestors rebelled against plantation owners in the Caribbean, only to then shape racialist police departments across the USA. We spread the fiddle, the Pope and the craic as far as the Guinness family’s […]
Attack on Venezuela: Statement of the Communist Party of Ireland
The Irish Government’s response to the US attack on Venezuela is hypocritical and exposes the extent to which the 26-County State’s membership of the EU and dependence on foreign, mostly US, capital has undermined Irish neutrality. Micheál Martin, while refusing to condemn the illegal US actions in kidnapping President Nicolás […]
The Transatlantic Alliance Is Alive and Kicking
Again, there is a lot of noise about the imminent end of the transatlantic alliance. ‘NATO may not survive the Trump era,’ reads a recent Time Magazine piece. ‘US intentions towards Greenland threaten NATO’s future. But European countries are not helpless,’ we are told in an expert comment for Chatham […]
The Limits of Charity
The unprecedented real-time broadcast of genocide we witnessed on our phones for two years brought many new faces out onto the streets in protest against the extermination of Palestinians. “Politics aside”, some would say, “the suffering of civilians, of women and children, is heartbreaking, and it needs to stop.” This […]
“Trump’s Terrorism” in Minnesota is Radicalising American Liberals, Says Union Organiser
On Friday, January 23rd, several thousand people braved below-freezing temperatures in Minneapolis for the first Statewide Economic Shutdown of Minnesota, a political strike and day of protests against the ongoing crackdowns by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The next morning, tensions surged again with the ICE killing of ICU […]
The Financial Blockade: How OFAC Enforces Cuba’s Isolation
Société Générale was fined $1.34 billion for processing $5.5 billion in Cuba-related payments. ING bank was fined $619 million for Cuba wire transfers. European banks have been hit with 83% of all US sanctions fines. If a foreign bank defies OFAC, the US Treasury can cut off its access to […]
The Caracas Crisis: Imperial Aggression and the Lessons for the Left
Events surrounding the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro on 3 January by the US continue to cause confusion and division on the Left worldwide as people try to understand what happened. Many questions have certainly been raised by the events that unfolded on […]
