Tag: poverty

US Anti-Intelectualism: Washington’s Rules-Based World Order a Myth! (9.5.2023)

In fact, the U.S. government has a tradition of putting its domestic law above international law and selectively applies international rules as it sees fit. For example, Washington has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act to target and sanction specific countries, entities or individuals.

The ambiguous rules contained in these acts and executive orders, such as the “minimum contacts” rule and the “effects doctrine,” are a willful expansion of the jurisdiction of America’s domestic laws.

And for more than six decades, despite dozens of UN General Assembly resolutions, the United States has pressed ahead with its comprehensive blockade against Cuba, the longest and cruelest systemic trade embargo and financial sanctions in modern history, based on its embargo policies and domestic laws such as the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton Act. The blockade has led to over 100 billion U.S. dollars of direct losses to Cuba’s economy.

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Panama: Kris Kremers & Lisanne Froon – ‘White’ Privilege – Even in Death! (3.5.2023) 

I do not necessarily believe that Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon were murdered by locals – at least not deliberately. As to whether they were the victims of criminal gangs is another matter – who knows? I suspect they became lost, disorientated and disorganised. This spiralling of events cost them their lives. As tragic as this undoubtedly was – people go missing and die all the time in Panama – people of all ethnic backgrounds and cultural affiliations. Why, then, are these two women treated as if they are something ‘special’? The fawning over Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon – as if they were both Super Models – is as laughable as it is disturbing. It is as if the White community is attempting to deify these two young women – who did nothing for humanity and achieved little with their lives. This harsh assessment is dialectically required not as an attack on Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon – but rather as a ‘corrective’ to the incessant muddle-headed approach this case attracts throughout social media. It is the presence of Eurocentric racism which pushes us into this cul-de-sac of reality – from which we must collectively escape. The Panamanian victims of (historical) Eurocentric racism did not murder these two young women.

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Palestine: Workers Demand Restructuring of the Trade Union Movement to Strengthen Unity for the Struggle on May Day! (1.5.2023)

After seventeen years of division in the Palestinian arena at the political and geographical levels, and what has multiplied it in terms of the costs, burdens, and requirements of life and living – the phenomenon of unemployment and the unemployed has increased! This has been seen especially among the youth and graduates with poverty and extreme poverty becoming a generalized phenomenon – in addition to the increase in the rate of taxes, customs and fees on Goods, the decline in the level of domestic production, the decline in the level and value of exports and the increase in dependence on importing food and industrial goods! This impoverishment has lead to the failure of granting poor families their entitlements from Social Security! In the absence of changing the existing model of power – this situation has harmed all aspects of economic development, social development and healthcare.

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Gun Violence – COVID-19 Deaths Ignored as Self-Interest Rules US: The Hill! (25.4.2023)

The article quoted Hubert Humphrey, an American pharmacist and politician who served as the 38th vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969, as saying that “the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children, those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly, those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.”

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, firearms take the lives of 5.6 out of every 100,000 American children between ages 3 and 18. “No other developed nation is even close,” said the report.

“Our record on COVID response is similarly dismal. Ranked first among 177 nations in our capacity to respond to a pandemic in November 2019, on the eve of the pandemic, the United States ranks last among wealthy nations and close to last among all nations in our infection and fatality rates,” it added.

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Ian MacDonald: Revolution in the Head – Extracts Featuring Marx & Mao! (18.4.2023) 

Imperial Japan initiated military violence against the people of China between 1931-1945. This was a fascist expansion that spread throughout Asia and even threatened the US! I am told that around 60 million men, women and children were killed and wounded during these terrible years throughout China – a number that includes Europeans. A fact often ignored is the part that Yoko Ono’s family played in this era. Her family were ardent ultra-nationalists who supported this racist war. Yoko Ono defied the ‘racist’ attitudes of her family by entering into a relationship with a ‘White’ foreigner. Indeed, when touring Japan during 1966 (and before meeting Yoko Oni) – The Beatles would encounter this evil face of Japanese racism when they played the Budokan! Ultra-Nationalists in Japan threatened the life of The Beatles if they played in a sacred arena – as their ‘Whiteness’ threatened to spiritually ‘pollute’ the arena usually reserved for the devout practice of Japanese martial arts! Yoko Ono may have defied her parent’s anti-Western racism – but she definitely retained their attitudes pertaining to anti-China racism! All the evidence points to Yoko Ono attempting to ‘cure’ John Lennon of his infatuation with ‘Maoism’ (and of course, ‘May Pang’)!

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The Beatles: What John Lennon Never Quite Managed to ‘Imagine’! (17.4.2023) 

The difference is that whereas Marx and Engels stood by the message inherent within their Revolutionary work – The Beatles steadfastly ‘stood apart’ from the Revolutionary message that is at the heart of their music! The capitalist system brought them off – but that is the nature of the music business and the entire point of all its machinations! The music industry generates very good capitalists but generally very poor Revolutionaries! It is as if the music itself, that is the collaborative effort, transcended the individuality of the four men who comprised The Beatles – and the general (limiting) attitudes of EMI! The interesting point is that The Beatles music remains dialectically forceful despite Paul McCartney’s Knighthood and all the other nonsense the Bourgeois State has draped around the historical image of The Beatles! Whether The Beatles like it or not, the music they produced in search of profit possesses a quality that ‘pierces’ through the very same ‘search for profit’! The music is itself a form of Revolutionary ‘force’ that John Lennon never quite managed to comprehend. Imagine that!  

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