The governments now sanctioning Russian oligarchs forget to mention that it was the free-market policies of the ’90s that created them. In order to regain the initiative after misreading Russia’s aggression, the Left needs to point out how the war for democracy in Ukraine is part of its own struggle for global justice in the… Read More Eirik Leivestad: The war for democracy
To the motives for war in human history, capitalism added another: profit. That motive drove technological advancement and created a genuine world economy. It also built new capitalist empires such as the Spanish, Dutch, British, French, Belgian, Russian, German, Japanese, and American empires. Each of these countries built its empire by various means including wars… Read More Richard Wolffe: The Role of Capitalism in the War in Ukraine
The battle to get countries and companies to sign up to net zero is being won. Now let’s keep pushing for more ambitious targets. he climate crisis is often seen in binary terms. Precise temperature targets – limiting global heating to 1.5C or 2C – imply decisive moments of victory or loss. Headlines warn that… Read More Incredibly, current climate pledges could keep heating below 2C – but our work isn’t over
Even as Ukraine faces extraordinary devastation, a new world disorder is becoming apparent. The United States has to do the balancing act of providing a strong response to Russia. But it is also hemmed in by the fact that it is dealing with an armed nuclear power and needs to avoid direct confrontation. Whether this balancing act… Read More P.B. Mehta: Ukraine invasion has revealed a new world disorder
Chris Hedges: Worthy and Unworthy Victims Dividing the world into worthy and unworthy victims is a tactic used to justify our crimes and demonize our enemies. Conflicts will not be solved until all nations abide by international law and all victims are deemed worthy. Rulers divide the world into worthy and unworthy victims, those… Read More Chris Hedges: Worthy and Unworthy Victims / Noam Chomsky: US Military Escalation Against Russia Would Have No Victors
NB: An excellent and well-researched essay. The clinically neutral experts on mass media and academia might do themselves a favour by reading it. Beneath this essay is a comment I wrote yesterday to an article in Scheerpost by Michael Brenner, an American professor of international relations. Here is a far more humane essay on the… Read More Rohini Hensman: The Historical Background to Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine / Chris Hedges: The Greatest Evil Is War
Western conviction that this is not supposed to happen in Europe any more has not stopped it happening. The shock is producing dramatic policy changes across the continent. The past has invaded the present. Russia’s military aggression has burst over Ukraine like a storm cloud gathered from a different, darker time. It is raining terror… Read More Rafael Behr: The age of levity is over. The Russia-Ukraine war will shake politics into a new sobriety / Owen Jones: Putin’s aggression makes clear the case for an anti-war movement
This afternoon, when I walk down to the opticians, I will pass some large, unconvincingly spontaneous graffiti that recently appeared on someone else’s wall. It reads: “There is no Russian interference in elections.” (Kids, eh?) Next, I will pass two vast houses that I know to be owned by oligarchs – one of whom is Roman… Read More Marina Hyde: Putin’s tale of two cities–London for his oligarchs, Kyiv for his bombs / Oliver Bullough: Butler to the World
Concerns have been raised that unregulated pro-Moscow lobbyists at the heart of Westminster are using their links to Tory MPs to gain influence and respectability. A group formerly known as the Conservative Friends of Russia (CRF) is advertising its first in-person conference for two years next week, despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Thursday. Now called the Westminster… Read More Tory lobbying row over unregulated ‘Westminster Russia Forum’ / Donald Trump can't stop praising Vladimir Putin
Wokeness serves two functions for today’s ruling elites. The first is a kind of ideological control directed against Western working classes: wokeness covers over concrete class and economic injustices – massive wealth inequality, health precarity, stagnant wages and so on – with a thick fog of mystification. It creates an impression of furious change and even revolutionary activity. Yet… Read More The CIA and the New Dialect of Power. By River Page
