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
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
NB: Let us salute Russia’s war resisters, who continue a glorious humanist tradition of international peace and solidarity. Let us never forget that the Russian Revolution that began on International Women’s Day in 1917 was a mass anti-war protest of workers and soldiers, which hastened the end of the bloodletting of the Great War of… Read More May the horror and shame unite us. A statement by the editors of the Russian journal ‘New Literary Observer’
‘The moral hypocrisy of the United States is staggering…’ Putin played into the hands of the war industry. He gave the warmongers what they wanted. He fulfilled their wildest fantasies. There will be no impediments now on the march to Armageddon. Military budgets will soar. The oil will gush from the ground. The climate crisis… Read More Chris Hedges: Permanent war and the merchants of death
Several protest movements announced anti-war rallies in Moscow on 6 March; the team of opposition figure Alexey Navalny announced a meeting on Manezhnaya Square, just opposite the Kremlin. A coalition of feminists and leftists called a rally at 3pm at another public space, the Square of Three Stations. In parallel, a separate group of protesters… Read More I was arrested at an anti-war protest in Moscow / Moscow police beat and torture women after anti-war protests / Interview with Stephen Kotkin: The Weakness of the Despot
Security forces in Russia have detained over 4,000 anti-war protesters across the country. The figure is from an independent protest monitor. Police have arrested people in several Russian cities including Moscow and St. Petersburg. They warned that organizers and participants in demonstrations will face charges. Authorities have imposed restrictions on protests citing the COVID-19 pandemic.… Read More What do anti-war protests in Russia mean for Putin? / Thousands arrested across Russia at anti-war protests
Russia’s war on Ukraine has seen it launch scores of rockets and drop countless bombs on cities, forcing pregnant woman to seek shelter and give birth in hospital basements. While unsuited for such purposes, such places are much safer than delivery rooms that could be hit by Russian fire. Many Ukrainian hospitals have been damaged… Read More Ukraine: Women giving birth in basements and bunkers / Russian bombing of maternity hospital ‘genocide’
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
Amid Russia’s shelling of Kharkiv, the limits to what we can learn from you are clear. Your knowledge was produced under the conditions of American hegemony, which has reached its limits at Russia’s blood-red lines. The US has lost its ability to represent its interests as common interests for Russia and China. It cannot enforce… Read More Volodymyr Artiukh: The Western Left doesn’t understand Putin or the world outside the US / Tatyana Margolin & Yelena Litvinov: Putin is trying to silence his critics
NB: Beneath this link are two comments I made in response to articles published in Scheerpost about the Russo-Ukraine war. One comment has appeared, the second not yet. DS Wars aren’t civilized. The very definition of war includes death and cruelty, and everyone who dies has loved ones who mourn them. But some wars are… Read More Jason Fields: Putin's brutal record in Chechnya and Syria is ominous for Ukraine / My comments on Vladimir Putin's apologists
After the truth-shower 