Subject Areas

Left-wing Treachery and the Power of Money

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

For those of us possessing some sense of history and the narrow limitations of the two-party system, Obama has not been a disappointment. I have written on several occasions of his career, his financing, and his team (see my Let Obama be Obama http://mltoday.com/en/let-obama-be-obama-530.html), showing that, at best, he hews to a centrist neo-liberal, soft imperialist line. Is he a step away from Bush? Of course, he is, but in the same way that Carter and Clinton were steps away from the ragin ...

They Said

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

A Concert in Havana: an Unfinished Dialogue with the Furies

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

But nothing unusual occurred in the air terminal that day or any following day. The postponement of the Philharmonic's trip to Cuba grounded not only New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, and dozens of senators, governors, artists like Alec Baldwin, and social communicators from various states, but also the hopes that Barack Obama's new administration would take the steps - long awaited on both sides of the Straits of Florida - to begin to lift the ...

UN vote condemns US embargo on Cuba

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez ticked off a long list of grievances in his speech before the world body, saying the embargo which the Cubans refer to as a blockade had cost the island's fragile economy tens of billions of dollars over the years and prevented Cuban children from getting needed medical care. "The blockade is an uncultured act of arrogance," Rodriguez said. He likened the policy to "an act of genocide" that is "ethically unacceptable." I ...

The Predator War

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Democracy, East Germany and the Berlin Wall

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

While East Germany (the German Democratic Republic, or GDR) wasnt a workers paradise, it was in many respects a highly attractive model that was responsive to the basic needs of the mass of people and therefore was democratic in the substantive and original sense of the word. It offered generous pensions, guaranteed employment, equality of the sexes and substantial wage equality, free healthcare and education, and a growing array of other free and virtually free goods and services. It was ...

Declaration of Solidarity With The People of Honduras

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Liquidationism and the Termination of the CPUSA's Newspaper

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Gus Hall stated in his keynote address to the Party's Ideological Conference in 1989 that "the influence of the People's Daily World is much greater than its subscriptions alone." The Party's newspaper during the repressions of the McCarthy period served as "the only means for the CPUSA to reach outside of its own ranks." (Zoltan Zigedy, "The Demise of an Old Friend, the PWW"). To this day, the newspaper remains the single most effective way for the Party to commu ...

Cuba Appeals for UN Condemnation of the Blockade

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Woman Faces 15 Years for Cutting Line at Walmart, KKK Involved

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Ellis was charged with disturbing the peace, trespassing, resisting arrest and two counts of assaulting a police officer. She was then offered a plea deal by Dunklin County Prosecutor Stephen Sokoloff. The prosecutor offered to drop the felony counts to one misdemeanor of disturbing the peace, as long as Ellis signed the plea deal. Her aunt claims that the deal was offered so their family wouldn't file a lawsuit. Ellis refused to take the plea deal, claiming that she wasn't willing to admit ...

Solidarity with the Palestinian People

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Comrades, distinguished delegates of the communist and worker's parties, We hail you on behalf of the Communist Party of Turkey; we salute all our comrades, and Turkish and Kurdish workers of our country. We wish to thank the Communist Party of Syria, which provided us the opportunity to have this important meeting, and all comrades who contributed to the holding of this meeting. This is an extraordinary meeting, and indeed we are meeting in one of the most significant centers of t ...

Declaration of the Second Trade Union Meeting of "Our America"

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The platform for unity of action agreed at this meeting set out three main themes: 1.Protection of labor and social rights Full employment The State should assume its role as a promoter of economic and social development Reduction of worked hours without decrease of wages Against precarious work Against privatization Universality of public policy: education, health, welfare, housing and transport. This labor meeting Nuestra America adheres to the campaign: "Education is not a commodity&q ...

Brazilian Parliamentarians: 'Freeze Israel - Mercosur Free Trade Pact'

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:31:46 +0100

Israel has invested heavily in pushing for the agreement, focusing particularly on Brazil, the Mercosur's largest economy and most powerful political player. Brazil alone, even without an FTA, is Israel's third largest export destination. In 2005, Ehud Olmert, the trade minister at the time, visited Brazil to get President Lula's support for the agreement. A little over a month ago, Israeli minister of foreign affairs, Avigdor Liberman traveled to Brazil to urge the ratification of the ag ...

Some Reflections on the G-20

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The Pittsburgh elites saw this circus as an opportunity to show case the "new" Pittsburgh a glitzy Potemkin village hiding the devastated, neglected neighborhoods and towns of this once industrial giant. Today's Pittsburgh out-of-sight of the world's leaders is a depopulated, low income, aging city weighted down by decades of debt accumulated from ill-conceived, but highly profitably development schemes. The tax base has been scooped out to retain extortionate corporate giants ...

On the Results of the General Elections

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The results now obtained by the CDU and especially the current of support for our proposals and activity - although not fully reflected in electoral terms - and, in particular the many thousands of new voters who have given their support to the CDU, are a solid element of confidence for the struggle against social injustice and for the necessary construction of a new policy, as well as for the future political and electoral battles that we will continue to wage for a more just, equal and sover ...

A Second Look At Some Marxist-Leninist Concepts

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Shadow Boxing with Iran

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Needless to say, the package of proposals by the Islamic Republic of Iran did not include Iran's nuclear activities, about which the western powers, but the U.S. in particular, have expressed their "concern". This should not have surprised the six world powers, as Iran has all along emphasized that its nuclear facilities and their relevant files are open to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for inspection and compliance, but not subject to negotiation with t ...

The Hypocrisy of Mrs. Clinton

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Revolutionary Giant: Juan Almeida Bosque

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The U.S. Health Care System - Values, Priorities, and Rankings

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Below are charts from the World Health Organization ranking health care systems and life expectacies from around the World. The World Health Organization's ranking of the world's health systems  was last produced in 2000, and the WHO no longer produces such  a ranking table, because of the complexity of the task.  World Health Organization's (WHO) Ranking of the World's Health Systems. 1 France 65 Uruguay 129 Peru ...

Remembering Antonio Agostinho Neto, Angolan Patriot

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Seven days later, on September 17, Neto would have turned 57 years old. His was a life of passion, heroism, and intelligence dedicated to the liberation of his country from colonial oppression and the building of a just society for all Angolans, which would also be a bulwark of solidarity for the sister nations who were victims of the shameful apartheid regi me Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. Antonio Agostinho Neto was an independence fighter, a poet, doctor, guerrilla and statesman, ...

With a Clear Conscience

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

In our country, cardiopathies account for the first cause of death; in Venezuela the situation is more or less the same. Defibrillators are the instruments par excellence that allow patients to recover from a cardiac arrest, from which they could die if they dont receive urgent assistance. Of the 3 553 pieces of equipment bought from Philips, 2 000 were of this type, and were being used in the Cuban polyclinics as well as in the Venezuelan Barrio Adentro Diagnostic Centers. The 12 differ ...

Farewell to History

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

In 2004, to deflect rising global protests against the US military occupation of Iraq, on the 50th anniversary of the landing of the Allied troops at Normandy, all North Atlantic Treaty Organisation leaders assembled to project themselves as the champions of the victory over fascism liberating Western Europe. They deliberately concealed the fact that for every allied soldier who laid down his life, fighting fascism, there were 40 Soviet soldiers who laid down their lives. Over 20 million ...

Italian American Identity: To Be or Not To Be

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Acculturation and Assimilation In 1967, I published an article in the American Political Science Review arguing that assimilation would not wipe out ethnic politics and ethnic identities in the foreseeable future because assimilation was not happening. I suggested that we needed to distinguish between culture and social systems. A culture is a system of beliefs, values, images, lifestyles, and customary practices including language, law, arts, and the like. A social system consists ...

Philips' Double Betrayal

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

No one should think this was an easy task. The United States did everything within its power to prevent it. All along these years the US has done its best to sabotage that effort. It applied against Cuba every possible variant of its criminal economic blockade which further on, by virtue of the Helms-Burton Act, acquired an extraterritorial character under the Bill Clintons administration. At the time when the socialist block collapsed, and some months later its main bastion, the ...

Who's Blocking Health Care Reform Now?

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The president's timetable called for passage of a health care bill in the summer of 2009, but it didn't happen. The White House blames almost everybody --- Blue Dog (fiscally conservative) Democrats, a handful of right wing Democratic senators, Republican birthers and teapartyers, even the large number of Democrats who want single payer health care or its shadowy stand-in, the public option. But the games are wearing thin. Democrats are running out of time, room, and excuses. ...

Boycotting Israel Without Cutting off Dialogue

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0100

After initially opposing the tactic, he became convinced, he wrote, that outside pressure "is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself." He was braced for a backlash, but nothing like what he has faced over the past few weeks -- members of the Israeli Knesset from a range of political parties called for his immediate sacking, the education minister called his article "repugnant," and his university president threw him under the bus saying, "Academic p ...

US Bases in Colombia: It is a Time for Mobilization, for Marching Together

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

In the early morning hours of March 1, 2008, the Colombian Armed Forces trained and equipped by the United States had used precision bombs to attack a guerrilla group which had entered a remote area of Ecuadorian territory. At dawn, airborne elite Colombian troops occupied the small camp, killed the wounded and carried with them the dead body of guerrilla leader Raul Reyes. Apparently, in those days he had been meeting with young visitors from other countries who were interested in the exper ...

Uribe and the High Price of Being a US Puppet

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Regarding the first problem, UNASUR ought to demand consistency from Barack Obama in his statements of support for a new era of inter-American relations. As has been pointed out on numerous occasions, the coup is a trial balloon intended to test the reactions of the peoples and governments of the region. And that it happened in Honduras is precisely because that is the country most intensely subjected to the ideological influence and political dominance of Washington. With OAS negotiations ...

General Giap Celebrates 99th Birthday

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

California AFT Local Passes Resolution in Support of the Five

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The Crisis of the CPUSA Part 2

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

A New Landscape? Because of the new political landscape, the Left has an opportunity to step from the edges into the mainstream of U.S. politics. Sam Webb This is not the place for a full analysis of the politics of the Obama Administration. Rather, these notes are concerned with the CPUSA analysis of Obama, and why it assumes the disingenuous form it does. One can hear supporters of the line say, "he [Obama] never promised us he would be an anti-imperialist." The last p ...

US Corporate Power Undermining National Democracy in Europe

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The Middle East "Peace Industry"

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

An Exchange on Iran

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:44:05 +0100

The Crisis of the CPUSA Part 1

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Together, these writings and a closer look at what the June 2009 NC meeting actually did -- not what it claimed to be doing -- shine a light on the real meaning of the new Party course. Moreover, the transformation of the CPUSA into something other than a communist party is accelerating. Elsewhere the present writer has discussed the history of opportunism in the US Communist movement[4] and the debilitating changes Sam Webb and his closest allies have been arguing for.[5] Alas, gloomy fore ...

Chavez: US Military Involved in Zelaya Kidnapping

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Health Care Reform: Fighting to Win

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Domestically, the administration and its congressional allies have done a fine job of stabilizing the capitalist economy by encouraging the jacking up of the rate of exploitation of working people and by flooding the coffers of monopoly capital with public funds. The peoples economy, however, continues to sink with rising unemployment (the media shamefully hail the exit of thousands from the official count - workers who have exhausted their benefits - as an improvement), increased foreclosure ...

Boycott Movement Takes Hold in British Unions

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Tom Hickey, a member of the University and College Union's (UCU) national executive committee, said, "The question of the moral rightness or wrongness [of BDS against Israel] has effectively already been decided." Although the Trade Union Congress (the British union federation) has not yet passed a BDS motion, affiliated unions have begun taking up the Palestinian call themselves. So far this summer, the public sector union PCS, the UCU and the Fire Brigades Union have all passed st ...

The Fidel Castro That I Know

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Invincible patience. Strict discipline. He's drawn toward the unexpected by the force of his imagination. Learning to work is as important as learning to rest.    Fatigued by talking, he rests by talking. He writes well and likes to do it. His greatest motivation in life is the emotion of risk. The rostrum of an improviser seems to be his perfect ecological element. When he starts speaking, his voice is always hard to hear and his course is uncertain, but he takes advantage of ...

Climate Change? U.S. Military to the Rescue

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

There is the suggestion that climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions. Training exercises last year at the National Defense University featured a simulated U. S. military response to flooding in Bangladesh and movement of migrants into India. What line of reasoning extends from assumptions of traditional military scripts like invasions or defending the homeland to an understanding of why such wildly expanded and ill-def ...

Peaceniks for Imperialism

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The Ackerman-Helvey-Sharp destabilization school Peter Ackerman, an immensely wealthy investor and member of the premier US establishment think-tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, and Robert Helvey, a thirty year veteran of the US Army, are the major proponents of a method developed by Gene Sharp for destabilizing foreign governments. While the name NVR gives the technique a fresh look, it is nothing more than CIA-style destabilization, with a twist: it rejects overt CIA sponsorship to ...

Thugs at Health Care "Town Halls" and in the Workplace

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:00:00 +0100

This contrived hooliganism and its violence must be exposed and condemned for what it is; a brazen attempt by Republican Party operatives, their phony front groups, and the corporate health care and insurance industry to kill off the Obama health care reform push. Working people and UE members are urged to push back against this disgraceful assault on the health care reform effort currently underway. UE members are asked to attend a town hall meeting in-person if possible, or call lawmakers at ...

A View from Cuba: Fifty Years of Transition to Socialism

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Nonetheless, Raúl is open to dialogue with the Obama government so long as Cuba's national sovereignty is respected. He has offered to exchange all imprisoned Cuban (US-funded) "dissidents" for the "Cuban 5" five Cuban patriots unjustly imprisoned in 1998 for having infiltrated Florida-based terrorist groups to protect Cuba from terrorist acts like the bombing of a Havana hotel that took the life of an Italian tourist in 1997. Self-confessed CIA-trained terrorist Luis Pos ...

Maurice Dobb's The Development of Socialist Economic Thought

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The Myth of Withdrawal from Iraq

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The timeline in the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) says that US "combat troops" were to withdraw from Iraqi cities and villages no later than June 30, 2009, and all troops are to be out by December 31, 2011. Yet on November 17, 2008, in the wake of Iraq's cabinet approving the SOFA, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest-ranking member of the US military, immediately began inferring loopholes and possible grey areas, saying the deadline for with ...

How to Take Down a Communist Party in 10 Easy Steps

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

It will help if you point to the Soviet Union and make up stuff as you go along about how "the reason it's not here anymore is because the Soviets tried to actually get to socialism (and got there!) instead of taking the road of never-ending piecemeal reforms." You could call the goal "market socialism," or "the socialist market economy," or "socialism with American characteristics" (or Chinese or -- fill in the blank). You get the idea. 2. "I once ...

Appeal for a Communist Leader

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 19:21:21 +0100

Llamamiento a la solidaridad ante la persecución contra el secretario general del Partido Comunista

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

No sólo rechazamos este burdo montaje político que pretende cobrar cuentas a la inclaudicable acción pública de Jaime Caicedo, sino que respaldamos plenamente su derecho al disentimiento y a la formulación de salidas distintas a la grave encrucijada colombiana. Esta parece ser una nueva amenaza contra él y contra las libertades públicas, como tantas otras ocurridas contra innumerables dirigentes políticos y populares, artistas, sindicalistas, periodistas e intelectuales que se han mostrado con ...

ILWU President Sends Letter to Clinton Demanding a Visa for Adriana Perez

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Statement from Clinton Gives Blank Check To Honduran Military

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Financial and Corporate Interests Mobilize the Left

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The Pace of Exploitation Quickens

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Is the Obama Health Care Plan Really Better Than Nothing?

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Within the bubble of fake reality blown by corporate media and bipartisan political establishment, the health care news is that the Obama Plan [1] is at last making its way through Congress. It's being fought by greedy private insurance companies, by chambers of commerce, by Republican and some Democratic lawmakers. Under the Obama plan, we're told, employers will have to insure their employees or pay into a fund that does it for them. Individuals will be required under penalty of law to ...

Recovery: A Question of Class

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Had I been supremely confident which I wasnt that capitalism would experience a crisis of the dimensions we are now suffering, I might also have warned readers not to take this crisis, or any crisis, as the death throes of capitalism. While one can argue persuasively that private accumulation in a market economy will inevitably lead to crisis, it does not follow that crisis leads inevitably to the collapse of a capitalist system. Indeed, collapse is extremely unlikely. Many academic Marxi ...

Oscar Arias- Fox Guarding the Hen House

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

  Could anyone have thought of a worse mediator? Yes, in Otto Reich and other disciples of the deceased United States senator Jesse Helms, but they are all occupied giving advice and support to the coup plotters. Also, the "Honduran mediation" is a "role play" in which a "bad cop" is neededto adopt an intransigent posture (as Micheletti is doing, Reich's protege) and a "good cop"who treats the aggressor and aggrieved parties "as ...

How Cynthia McKinney Honored America on the 4th of July from an Israeli Jail

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The students understood that those illegally arrested while in international waters had been offered a get out of jail free pass if they confessed in writing to violating Israels territorial waters. The Spirit of Humanity boat, trying to bring emergency humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, was the topic of a lively discussion during a Sabra Shatila Foundation summer school civics lesson on International law and the Question of Palestine. The students were interested in the plig ...

They Said

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Why a Revolutionary Working Class Newspaper?

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:24:56 +0100

On the one hand, the "Economist" trend, far from being dead, is endeavoring to clip and narrow the work of political organization and agitation. On the other, unprincipled eclecticism is again rearing its head, aping every new "trend," and is incapable of distinguishing immediate demands from the main tasks and permanent needs of the movement as a whole. This trend, as we know, has ensconced itself in Rabocheye Dyelo.[3] This journal's latest statement of "progra ...

The Honduras Coup: Is Obama Innocent? Parenti Interview

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Michel Collon:  Is President Obama innocent of the events occurring in Honduras, specifically the coup launched by the Honduran military resulting in the abduction and forced deportation of democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya? Michael Parenti: Obama has denounced the coup and demanded that the rules of democracy be honored. Still, several troubling questions remain.   First, almost all the senior Honduran military officers active in the coup are graduates o ...

Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life Better under Communism

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

And yet Birger is sitting in a Hamburg cafe, defending the former communist country. "Most East German citizens had a nice life," he says. "I certainly don't think that it's better here." By "here," he means reunified Germany, which he subjects to questionable comparisons. "In the past there was the Stasi, and today (German Interior Minister Wolfgang) Schäuble or the GEZ (the fee collection center of Germany's public broadcasting institutions) are collect ...

A Sober View of Iran

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:00:00 +0100

First, we should be clear that there is not a whit of evidence that the main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, won the election or that the outcome was fraudulently manipulated. On the contrary, an opinion poll carried out three weeks before the election, and paid for by the Rockefeller Foundation (hardly an organization inclined to back the president, Mohammed Ahmadinejad), predicted a clear victory for the incumbent. [1] Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty, who conducted the poll, wrote that ...

The Demise of an Old Friend, the PWW

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

From the nineteen thirties, The Daily Worker and its offspring were the public face of labor radicalism and socialist advocacy. Through the twists and turns of the US political landscape, the paper remained a place to find ideas that would be expressed no where else. Writers from Theodore Dreiser to Herbert Aptheker used the pages of the paper to express views denied in the capitalist media. For most of this period, the Communist press was the leading "alternative" mouthpiece fo ...

North Korea: "Sanity" at the Brink

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

To be sure, there are things about the DPRK that one might wonder about, including its dynastic leadership system, its highly dictatorial one-party rule, and the chaos that seems implanted in the heart of its "planned" economy. But in its much advertised effort to become a nuclear power, North Korea is actually displaying more sanity than first meets the eye. The Pyongyang leadership seems to know something about US global policy that our own policymakers and pundits have overlooked ...

On Obama's Policy Toward Cuba

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Dear Friends, With time pressing I will come directly to the point. On Thursday June 4 speaking at the Islamic University Al-Azhar in Cairo, President Barack Obama affirmed, "No system of government can or should be imposed by one nation on another one. The United States does not pretend to know what s best for all." What I just cited represents, simply speaking, an elemental obligation of all states. Nevertheless that approach is identified as part of efforts by the pres ...

Obama y la Politica Hacia Cuba

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Estimados amigos: Como el tiempo apremia iré directamente al grano. El jueves 4 de junio hablando en la Universidad islámica Al-Azhar en El Cairo el Presidente Barack Obama afirmó: ningún sistema de gobierno puede o debe ser impuesto por una nación a ninguna otra. Estados Unidos no pretende saber lo que es mejor para todos. Lo antes citado, es, sencillamente, una obligación elemental de todos los estados y sin embargo forma parte de los esfuerzos de la actual administración estado ...

ILWU Longshore vote to commend Durban dockers for Gaza Massacre Protest Action

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Proof of Israeli Effort to Destabilize Iran Via Twitter

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Anyone using Twitter over the past few days knows that the topic of the Iranian election has been the most popular. Thousands of tweets and retweets alleging that the election was a fraud, calling for protests in Iran, and even urging followers to hack various Iranian news websites (which they did successfully). The Twitter popularity caught the eye of various blogs such as Mashable and TechCrunch and even made its way to mainstream news media sites. Were these legitimate Iranian people ...

The Fog Machine: Iran, Social Media and the Rise of Genetically Modified Grassroots Organizations

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Let me say upfront that: 1) I'm not interested in supporting Ahmadinejad's regime or the theocracy that would be preserved whether he or Mousavi were elected. These internecine battles within a religious state, resulting in a palace coup at best, are not my concern. 2) I don't disagree that there are democratic aspirations circulating on the streets and in the air from Iran. Any mass mobilization of opposition will contain these and a variety of other impulses, including patient Shah-era ...

Hold Out for Single-Payer

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Many progressives accept that the public option is inferior to a single-payer system, yet support it because of its perceived political expedience. It is my aim today to convince you that the public option program currently being developed is not only bad health policy, but bad health politics. On two separate occasions last month, physicians and nurses were dragged from the Senate Finance Committee in handcuffs for demanding that single-payer be considered in our nations health reform ...

In 2008 War Spending Breaks Records

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Other regional powersparticularly India, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Israel, Brazil, South Korea, Algeria and the UKalso made substantial contributions to the total increase. 'The idea of the "war on terror" has encouraged many countries to see their problems through a highly militarized lens, using this to justify high military spending,' comments Dr Sam Perlo-Freeman, Head of the Military Expenditure Project at SIPRI. 'Meanwhile, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost $903 billion in ...

Consolidating the Revolution and Opening Roads to Socialism

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Political Declaration: 1. The capitalist class is maximally sharpening class contradictions at the international level. The multi-polar character of the present political reality in the world is clearly evident. Thus is emphasized the main contradiction of the present historical moment of our planet, that the hegemonic interests of imperialism, headed up by North American power, confronts the interests of the working classes and the peoples. Imperialism acts by entering into the crisis i ...

Consolidar la Revolución y Abrir Caminos al Socialismo

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Declaracion Politica: 1. La crisis capitalista agudiza al máximo las contradicciones de clases a nivel internacional y evidencia con nitidez el carácter multipolar de la actual realidad política del mundo. Se acentúa la contradicción principal del momento histórico de nuestro planeta: entre los intereses hegemónicos del imperialismo, encabezado por la potencia norteamericana, frente a los intereses de las clases trabajadoras y los pueblos. El imperialismo actúa para enfrentar la crisis ...

The Trouble with the Democrats

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

I am relying on private judgments from Washington players regarded as the "white hats" on this subject consumer lobbyists and other public-interest reformers, who for years have labored in frustration to enact laws that would restore equity and honest relationships to the out-of-control financial system. These organizations mostly endorse the Democrats' efforts and celebrate their "victories." But a few minutes of private conversation reveals their doubt and disappo ...

The Attack on Affirmative Action

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Now all of the protected groups under Title VII, such as the Age Discrimination Act and Americans with Disabilities Act, are protected from biased testing in addition to African Americans. So, any change in the law that seeks to invalidate Title VII for blacks would also affect others in these categories. Yet, activist conservatives on the Court seem poised to do so. My suspicion however, is that the Supreme Court conservatives see red meat in the charge that white firefighter Ricci makes ...

Shadow Wars: Where Will They Strike Next?

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Pakistan: a group of villagers were sipping tea in a courtyard when the world exploded. The Hellfire missiles seemed to come out of nowhere, scattering pieces of their victims across the village and demolishing several houses. Between Jan. 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, 60 such attacks took place, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda members along with 687 civilians. In each of the above incidents, no country took responsibility or claimed credit. There were no sharp exchanges of diplomatic notes befo ...

Grand Theft Auto

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning. When a company goes bankrupt, everyone takes a hit: fair or not, workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get fragments of what's left. That's the law. What workers don't lose are their pensions (including old-age health funds) already taken from their wages and held in their name. But not this time. Stevie the ...

US Now Has 250,000 "Contractors" in Iraq and Afghanistan

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:00:00 +0100

According to new statistics released by the Pentagon, with Barack Obama as commander in chief, there has been a 23% increase in the number of "Private Security Contractors" working for the Department of Defense in Iraq in the second quarter of 2009 and a 29% increase in Afghanistan, which "correlates to the build up of forces" in the country. In Iraq, the Pentagon attributes the increase to better accounting. But, these numbers relate explicitly to DoD security contractors. C ...

For a Serious Conversation on Socialism

Sat, 23 May 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Their rusty, diffuse musings demonstrated that socialism had not occupied their thinking for some time. To its credit The Nation, regularly a source of splendid progressive journalism, pushed the discussion beyond the corporate media. And we were not offended when the cuddly left -- some housed at The Nation, some elsewhere -- came out with their fluffy recipes for a better world. But The Nation's discussion has rippled out. It has become more serious. For us, it is a problem when th ...

Foreclosure: Economic Disaster for Black America

Wed, 20 May 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Obamas foreclosure prevention plan is woefully inadequate. Obama not only ignored the crux of the question but replied in some sort of odd, indecipherable double speak. Well, keep in mind that every step we're taking is designed to help all people. But folks who are most vulnerable are most likely to be helped because they need the most help. He made reference to black and Latino unemployment when BET reporter Andre Showell specifically asked about African Americans. Obama then went i ...

Changing Obama's Mindset

Sun, 17 May 2009 01:00:00 +0100

If you're a citizen, you have to know the difference between them and you -t he difference between what they have to do and what you have to do. And there are things they don't have to do, if you make it clear to them they don't have to do it. From the beginning, I liked Obama. But the first time it suddenly struck me that he was a politician was early on, when Joe Lieberman was running for the Democratic nomination for his Senate seat in 2006. Lieberman - who, as you know, was and is a ...

Obama's Health Care Charade

Wed, 13 May 2009 01:00:00 +0100

"We're doing some stuff on health care because I think the country is geared up, businesses are geared up, families are geared up to go ahead and start solving some our extraordinary health care system problems," Obama fairly gushed [1], as if his own corporate-friendly proposals accurately reflect the public will. In reality, the administration is engaged in an elaborate charade designed to sidetrack, possibly for decades, the most broadly supported idea in American politics, ...

The Unsung Guantanamera of Pete Seeger and Silvio Rodriguez

Tue, 12 May 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Cubadebate, which had talked about the aborted trip and about Silvio's letter, wanted to know more about the episode, especially because in the current context of "no relations" between Cuba and the United States, it was a sad realization to see that the change of administration in the U.S. had left unaltered the policy towards Cubans living on the island. The short and revealing dialog that follows next took place at the small Ojalá Studios, where Silvio records his albums: Did t ...

The New US Commander in Afghanistan

Tue, 12 May 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Since 9/11, the activities of the Joint Special Operations Command have been hidden, and appropriately so, from the perspective of the government. The Bush Administration declassified the existence of one elite unit, "Grey Fox," for the benefit of Bob Woodward's book about the war in Afghanistan. A few commanders of Delta Force, the Army's top counterterrorist/direct action unit, have written books about the failure to capture Osama Bin Laden. McChrystal and theater commander David P ...

Paris, France on May Day 2009

Sun, 03 May 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Misunderstanding Marx: Brad Delong and the Collapse of Neoliberalism

Fri, 01 May 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Take the opening sentence of the article: "In the beginning was Karl Marx, with his vision of how the Industrial Revolution would transform everything and be followed by a Great Communist Social Revolution greater than the political French Revolution that would wash us up on the shores of Utopia." Already we can see Delong's understanding is based more on Tom Stoppard than Das Kapital. Anyone familiar with Marx realizes that he was not the "beginning" of the theory ...

Creating A Third Force In American Politics

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

I believe progressives need something akin to the National Rainbow Coalition as a unifying vehicle to advance the progressive cause. I continue to believe that the election of President Barack Obama provides a major opening for progressives to make significant gains towards shaping a more just and humane society in the U.S. The repudiation of George Bush and company and their greed driven, "free market" economic policies have opened the door for progressives to advance a progressive ...

Obama and the Blockade

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Obamas advisors published in the Internet their version - in English - of the interview the US president granted to some journalists in Port of Spain. At one point, he asserted that there was something he found interesting and added that he had known of it in a more abstract way but that he found it interesting in more specific terms - which was listening to these leaders who, when speaking about Cuba, did so referring specifically to the thousands of doctors Cuba is disseminatin ...

Evo Morales At ALBA

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

He recalled that once when he was in the United States he found out that candidates who do not win more than 50 per cent of the votes cannot be sworn in, and the vote has to occur again. "The United States has no right or authority to speak of democracy, because they are the ones that foster coups, military coups, just as they are now arming a civic coup in Bolivia." He drew attention to the fact that in Cuba, on the other hand, they exercise full democracy, where bribes or million-dol ...

Taking A Stand Against Israel

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

During lunch with foreign affairs officials, delegates were chilled and discomfited when one of them attempted to demonstrate Israel's integrity during its attacks on Gaza. We were shown colour-coded maps of buildings in Gaza that housed civilians. The military, we were told, when attacking those buildings aimed first at a corner, thus warning civilians inside to flee. Everyone we met in Israel told us that Israel had been misunderstood. There was a sense of defensiveness and sadness that I ...

CPI and CPB Joint Statement

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Both parties recognise that the return to military methods of struggle is and can only be a retreat into a cul-de-sac, inevitably resulting in death, suffering and further division and hinders the necessary political struggles that are required to secure and advance the social, economic and national-democratic aspirations of the Irish people. Both parties support the demand for the decommissioning of all Loyalist paramilitary weapons. The two parties share the belief that there is a need for f ...

Ready to Discuss Everything

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

I don't want to talk about the OAS, I already spoke in Sauípe, at the Rio Summit, right? And furthermore, our friend Zelaya will meet with all the delegates at the end of May and the beginning of June; I don't want to answer what Mr. Insulza recently said, because Fidel already did it some hours ago. We can talk about many other things besides the OAS. The OAS, it might be said, has oozed blood since its very creation; Cuba is one example, but before Cuba there were plenty more. Venezuela, ...

A Lexicon of Disappointment

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Hopeover. Like a hangover, a hopeover comes from having overindulged in something that felt good at the time but wasn't really all that healthy, leading to feelings of remorse, even shame. It's the political equivalent of the crash after a sugar high. Sample sentence: "When I listened to Obama's economic speech my heart soared. But then, when I tried to tell a friend about his plans for the millions of layoffs and foreclosures, I found myself saying nothing at all. I've got a seriou ...

Crisis Not An Anomaly Of Capitalism

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Which sectors have been worst affected? Martinez: The explosion of the financial bubble has caused the collapse of stock markets and the bankruptcy of important corporate speculators (the so-called investment banks, which in fact are not productive investors but speculative investors). Large banks have become bankrupt, credit has been affected at a global level, since it has become scarce and expensive. There has been a decrease in the prices of raw materials and oil. Sectors of the real econ ...

News From Bolivia

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

The cable news issued yesterday reported the activities that, at the request of the President of China, Hugo Chavez attended on that day before beginning his return trip. Cable news agencies gave a wide coverage to all his activities in China. They reported that the Venezuelan President, Hugo Chávez, said he had reached an agreement today with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to increase cooperation so that China could receive one million barrels of oil per day by the year 2010. I ...

Obama's War Budget

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

In a statement, Pelosi said Congress would carefully review Obama's request and "engage in a dialogue with the administration on appropriate benchmarks to measure the success of our investments." Last June, Congress approved $66 billion in advance 2009 funding for military operations; all told, the Pentagon would receive $142 billion in war funding for the 2009 budget year ending Sept. 30. The request is likely to win easy passage despite frustration among some liberals over the ...

NATO, the Malvinas Islands, and US 4th Fleet

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Comrades, there is no doubt that the current crisis will bring consequences to the struggle for peace, for it has an impact on the political outlook. As usually, the governments of imperialist countries try to place its effects on the shoulders of the workers from poor and dependent countries. The crisis will inevitably lead to the eruption of social struggles and political conflicts. The international order found itself threatened by the grave crimes against humankind committed by Israel a ...

CP of Turkey, Protests against Obama in Istanbul and Ankara

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

"Our people should not delegate her own problems to imperialism" After the protestors arrive at Taksim Trolley Station, a press statement was made. At the statement, Erkan Baş, the Chairman of TKP, reminded that all bourgeois forces, foremost the government, made their best to present the arrival of Barack Obama to Ankara yesterday as a "feast and a gospel of salvation". Emphasizing that TKP primarily warns the people against this lie, Erkan Baş said, "Non ...

"Cowboy Capitalism" and the Demise of "Globalization"

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

US Cowboy Capitalism is the ultimate source of the frictions that are growing dramatically between the US and the EU. Ostensibly, the disputes are about policy: the US favors drastic economic stimulus, while the EU is urging regulation of the financial sector. But EU insistence upon regulation actually expresses the Union's rejection of US Cowboy Capitalism. While EU countries, to a greater or lesser extent, adhere to the neo-liberal ideology, most stop short of US extremism, maintaining a great ...

Working Group Statement on NATO

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Its action was based, and still is based, on anticommunism and all types of fabrications and provocations against the revolutionary communist movement and peoples' struggle for peace, social justice, socialism. NATO's history in its role as world "sheriff" of imperialism is linked to violations of international law. It is marked with the blood of the victims of its direct or indirect interventions throughout the world. Especially nowadays the character of NA ...

A French Communist at the KKE Congress

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Athens is bedecked with the colors of the KKE, and thousands of KKE billboards, which are left unmolested. The bourgeois press is content with speculation. Aleka Papariga, (General Secretary) is she going to pass the torch? Is X or Y best positioned to replace Aleka? It is in this framework, sketched in broad strokes, that the Eighteenth Congress of KKE finds itself in the immense hall of the Congress of Central Committee. War and peace... Far from the speculation, the work of t ...

Amicus Curiae Briefs Filed on Behalf of the Cuban Five

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:57:26 +0100

Ten Nobel Laureates signed the amicus, among them Timor Leste President Jose Ramos Horta, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Rigoberta Menchu, Jose Saramago, Wole Soyinka, Zhores Alferov, Nadine Gordimer, Gunter Grass, Dario Fo and Mairead Maguire, as well as the Mexican Senate, the National Assembly of Panama, and Mary Robinson, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of Ireland (1992-97). In addition were hund ...

US Cities Deal With a Surge in Shanty Towns

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

The surging number of homeless people in Fresno, a city of 500,000 people, has been a surprise. City officials say they have three major encampments near downtown and smaller settlements along two highways. All told, as many 2,000 people are homeless here, according to Gregory Barfield, the city's homeless prevention and policy manager, who said that drug use, prostitution and violence were all too common in the encampments. "That's all part of that underground economy," Mr. Barfi ...

Ten Years After the NATO Onslaught Against Yugoslavia

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Thus, the role of the various, only in words, "left" and "socialist" forces, the social-democrat parties, and the social democracy that aided the efforts to break the resistance of the Yugoslavian people has revealed. The governments of the socialist and the allegedly "left" parties in Greece, Italy, France etc. had surrendered their countries for the realisation of these imperialist plans. No matter if these forces are trying to present themselves as "progress ...

Out of the Crisis

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 01:00:00 +0100

Dr. Doom and the Temple of Economic Pain

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Waves of Crisis Popular legend has it that the Great Depression began with a market collapse in 1929 and sank to its bottom in 1933. But this is legend. In truth, the decline came in waves: periods of hopeful recovery followed by further declines. There is some reason to believe that we are experiencing a second wave of bank crisis. AIG has become a focal point for policy makers who have thrown 70 times the firm's current market valuation into the company's coffers with no appreciable affect. ...

Our South Africa Moment Has Arrived

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

By contributing to Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza and its criminal war against it, the EU and other Western states have reached a qualitatively different stage of complicity, becoming, more blatantly than ever, full partners in the US-Israeli policy of undermining the rule of law and espousing in its stead the law of the jungle, thereby promoting the Bush-Bin Laden self-fulfilling prophecy of a dichotomous world divided surgically into good and evil, with each side regarding the other as ev ...

Working People Didn't Cause The Crisis

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

So who's responsible? It would be easy to pin the blame for the economic meltdown on a few greedy individuals. It's true that a handful of global billionaires and gigantic transnational corporations have artificially inflated and manipulated the values of real estate, high tech, stocks, commodities, even national currencies. "Bubble capitalism" has reaped enormous fortunes for the ultra‑rich, while billions of working people and the poor ended up deeper in debt. The neolibe ...

Federal Government Must Block Stelco Layoffs

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, who is from Hamilton, is campaigning for a Buy Canadian policy which she says will create a market for Canadian-made steel and send Hamilton steelworkers back to work. Ontario Communist Party leader Liz Rowley said the federal and provincial government must stop the closure and hold the company to its agreement with Investment Canada. "This is about Canadian jobs, Canadian sovereignty and the future of manufacturing and secondary industry which req ...

Will We Let Canadian Steel Become A Memory?

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

In a country where trees grow, where the rivers run, where the earth offers up everything needed to sustain and develop life, where one of the world's most capable working classes lives, where science and technology is world class: why must we be poor? Why must our factories close because of decisions made in a foreign country? Why must Canadian cities and their people wither and die because we lack the authority in our own land to take back our resources, to use our factories to manufacture v ...

Protest Over the Auction of a Foreclosed Home

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

-- David Bacon is one of the country's foremost progressive photojournalists. For more articles and images, visit his http://dbacon.igc.org ...

Left Obamites Prefer Kool-Aid to Struggle

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Burnhams definition of motion does not involve confronting Power, but rather, attaching oneself to it. Lots of folks on the left, it is now apparent, no longer seek anything more than to bask in the sunshine of Barack Obamas smile. No matter how much national treasure their champion transfers to the bankster class, and despite his exceeding George W. Bush in military spending, so-called progressives for Obama continue to celebrate their imagined emergence as players in the national politi ...

A Meeting That Was Worth It

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

"But in addition to these structural causes others should be added: the accelerated financialization of the economy, the irresistible tendency to foray into increasingly risky speculation operations. With the discovery of capital's "fountain of youth," thanks to which money generates more money based on the value given to the exploitation of the workforce, and taking into account that enormous masses of fictitious capital can be achieved in a matter of days or weeks, at the mo ...

Brief Report on Beirut Anti-Imperialist Conference

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:49:29 +0100

In addition, hundreds of resistance organizations and prominent individuals endorsed the call for the Beirut Forum. It was the Second International Anti-imperialist Conference held under the aegis of the IAPSCC, and Manik Mukherjee, its General Secretary traveled to different countries to ensure wide international participation. Comrade Prachanda, Prime Minister of Nepal accepted the invitation of IAPSCC and planned to be present at the Conference. But urgent official work held him back ...

Race, History and Eric Holder's Remarks

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 07:55:22 +0100

Let's take the example of the American Revolution. Most of what passes for the history of the War of Independence either falls into the realm of myth or the selective use of facts. Rarely are we presented with the significant fact that the colonies probably would not have won had it not been for the intervention of the French and Spanish (not to mention Haitian volunteers who are often completely overlooked). Ignoring these facts, except perhaps to acknowledge the Marquis de Lafayette, gives o ...

Obama Expands War, Slaps Peace Voters

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:00:00 +0100

1. By ordering 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan Feb. 17, President Obama is continuing and expanding George W. Bush's war. It's Obama's war now, and it's getting much bigger. 2. By declaring Feb. 27 that up to 50,000 U.S. soldiers would remain in Iraq after "combat brigades" departed, President Obama is continuing the war in a country that remains a tragic victim of the Bush Administration's aggression and which has taken the lives of over a million Iraqi civilians and ...

Was Roosevelt a Good Guy?

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Dean Baker, a liberal economist who does a fine job of skewering mainstream economic writers and pundits, cites the growth rate during the New Deal as evidence that Roosevelt's policies brought on recovery. From 1933 until 1939 the US GNP grew by almost 48% in constant dollars -- an impressive number especially with the over 5% decline in 1938. Yet we must note that despite this increase, the economy didn't stabilize at a 1929 level until 1939. Perhaps more telling, the GNP growth per capita onl ...

Financial Crisis Sparks Unrest In Europe

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

* FRANCE President Nicolas Sarkozy faced criticism from both unions and bosses on Feb. 19 over new measures to tackle the economic crisis. Sarkozy offered an additional 2.65 billion euros ($3.4 billion) of social spending in an effort to quell labour unrest over a previous stimulus package that targeted investment rather than consumers. France's eight union federations called for a day of action on March 19. Up to 2.5 million protesters took to the streets of France on Jan. 29 in a da ...

A Planet at the Brink

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Indeed, if you want to be grimly impressed, hang a world map on your wall and start inserting red pins where violent episodes have already occurred. Athens (Greece), Longnan (China), Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Riga (Latvia), Santa Cruz (Bolivia), Sofia (Bulgaria), Vilnius (Lithuania), and Vladivostok (Russia) would be a start. Many other cities from Reykjavik, Paris, Rome, and Zaragoza to Moscow and Dublin have witnessed huge protests over rising unemployment and falling wages that remained orderly ...

Why Is Geithner Continuing Paulson's Policy of Violating the Law?

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

We need a Pecora investigation We can understand now why the administration and so many committee chairs are virulently opposed to the single most essential step we need to take to diminish future crises -- a modern Pecora investigation. Pecora was the prosecutor hired by the Senate banking committee to investigate the misconduct that helped cause the Great Depression. You must vigilantly study past failures to learn causation and to enact remedies. If we were dealing with a crisis of a ...

FAIR Study: Human Rights Coverage Serving Washington's Needs

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Though Colombia is not the chaotic state it was in the late 1980s and early '90s, and violence and repression have not been uniform, HRW's Americas director José Miguel Vivanco has called Colombia's current human rights situation "appalling" (Human Rights Watch, 1/22/08). Killings of civilians by uniformed Colombian military and police totaled 329 in 2007 (Los Angeles Times, 8/21/08), and the country's unfolding "para-political" scandals have revealed "links be ...

Atrocities in Kosovo Hushed Up

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Current Tasks of the Communist Movement

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

As far as the main topic of the meeting is concerned, the Working Group decided on the theme of "The international capitalist crisis, the workers' and peoples' struggle, the alternatives and the role of the communist and working class movement. " Furthermore, in face of the very dangerous situation created by the murderous attacks and war crimes by Israel against the Palestinian people, the Working Group decided to convene a extraordinary meeting of communist and workers' parti ...

Tareas de la corriente Movimiento Comunista

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

En lo relativo al tema principal, el grupo de trabajo decidió que el tema fuese "La crisis capitalista internacional, la lucha obrera y popular, las alternativas y el papel del movimiento comunista y obrero". Además, frente a una muy peligrosa situación creada por los asesinos ataques y crímenes de guerra de Israel contra el pueblo palestino, el Grupo de Trabajo decidió convocar un encuentro extraordinario de partidos comunistas y obreros en solidaridad c ...

A Radical Vision for Today's Labor Movement

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

At the heart of any radical vision for our era is globalization—the way unions approach the operation of capitalism on an international scale. In the discussion that led to the creation of the Change to Win federation, the Service Employees made a proposal about how unions should conduct their international relationships. It called on unions to find partners in other countries, even to organize those unions, in order to face common employers. AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Richard Trumka sa ...

COSATU Humbled By Inspirational Messages

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

We treat with particular contempt the comment, as reported in the media, by Goldstein that COSATU is racist and that our actions are immoral. What is immoral is the insistence by Goldstein, the SAZF and the SAJBD that they will support Israel's murderous actions in Gaza, including the massacres of civilians, the bombing of schools, places of worship, ambulances, hospitals and UN refugee centres. The real racism is manner in which Israel treats the Palestinian people - both in the Occupied Territ ...

US staying in Iraq until 2015?

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Looking Forward

Mon, 09 Feb 2009 11:14:52 +0100

Worse or Better for Whom? Lost in the ever-expanding, desperate recipes for "recovery" is the basic question of who deserves rescue and who does not. The popular picture, encouraged by the media, is that we face the crisis together with a common problem and a common solution. Certainly the Wall Street crowd and the big industrialists do not buy this view. They are fighting a feverish battle for the survival and prosperity of their class. The wealthy of the US –despite their frequent avo ...

Anglican Church Boycotts Caterpillar

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

South African Dockers Stop Israeli Ship

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

The worker action last night took place despite attempted subterfuge on the part of the owners of the shipping company. There was an attempt to confound the plan by arriving earlier than originally scheduled, which was 8 February. Dates for the berthing of the Johanna Russ were changed constantly. Yesterday morning, SATAWU members were told that the ship would dock this morning (Friday) at 02:00. Thanks to the vigilance of the dock workers, SATAWU discovered that the ship had docked on Wednesday ...

The Great Crisis and the Revolutionary Movement

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Financial and economic crisis of the capitalism – global and systemic Our party has made clear in its last Congresses - and Seminars with broad national and international participation, - that the recurring economic and financial crises in the 1980s and 1990s had shown the limits of a historical capitalism, based upon contradictory processes that conceived a structural character, derived from the fundaments of the system. The present crisis, which contains the cumulative ef ...

In Their Own Words

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Dr. Ambedkar or Dr. Marx

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:00:00 +0100

American Workers Need Our Support

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

His appeal was one of unity—national unity to rally all the political forces of the country in its hour of need as the economic crisis deepens. He appealed to workers and employers to come together to share the burden, and called for the unity of black, white and brown. Certainly unity of the people is essential if progress is to be made, no matter what country you live and struggle in. But as the Obama election campaign gathered pace, his steady movement to the right was discernible. ...

Mass Privatization and the Post-Communist Mortality Crisis

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Introduction The transition from communism to capitalism in Europe and central Asia during the early to mid-1990s has had devastating consequences for health: UNICEF attributes more than 3 million premature deaths to transition;1 the UN Development Program estimates over 10 million missing men because of system change;2 and more than 15 years after these transitions began, only a little over half of the ex-communist countries have regained their pre-transition life-expectancy levels. Bu ...

Assessment of the Political Moment

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

I. On the International Situation The most significant development since our last meeting in August 2008 is of course the deepening global economic crisis that had been maturing for several years but which erupted in force with the stock market crashes in early October and which has been unfolding in the material (goods and services) economy with ever-greater intensity and rapidity since. The early signs of the impending crisis emerged in the US financial sector in August 2007, but as predi ...

Documenting the "Silent Depression"

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

The Boston-based United for a Fair Economy, a progressive think tank which over the last several years has given special attention to the economic impact of racist oppression, has done a further service for progressives both within and without the African American movement with their recent publication of The Silent Depression: State of the Dream 2009. This report takes as its point of departure not the formal commencement of the current economic crisis (officially dated December 2007) but loo ...

Aides Say Obama?s Afghan Aims Elevate War

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

“If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of Central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who served under Mr. Bush and is staying on under Mr. Obama, told Congress on Tuesday. He said there was not enough “time, patience or money” to pursue overly ambitious goals in Afghanistan, and he called the war there as “our greatest military challenge.” Mr. Gates said last week that previous American goals for ...

Obama the Imperialist?

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Liberal imperialists have resisted explicitly racist arguments for domination, instead justifying empire as a humane venture delivering progress. Even so, implicit in such a stance was the belief that other peoples were inferior. Just as John Stuart Mill contended that despotism was a "legitimate mode of government in dealing with the barbarians" provided "the end be their improvement", so the Fabians contended that self-government for "native races" was "as useless to them as a dynamo to a Ca ...

Capitalism?s Self-Inflicted Apocalypse

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

The Constitution itself was fashioned by affluent gentlemen who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to repeatedly warn of the baneful and dangerous leveling effects of democracy. The document they cobbled together was far from democratic, being shackled with checks, vetoes, and requirements for artificial super majorities, a system designed to blunt the impact of popular demands. In the early days of the Republic the rich and well-born imposed property qualifications for voting and officehold ...

Impressions of the Sao Paolo Conference

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:21:17 +0100

At the airport, our hosts from the Partido Comunista do Brazil (PCdoB) were busy finding representatives of the 65 parties which came to Sao Paulo. Stopping first for coffee at an airport kiosk, the comrades who welcomed me quickly launched into a heated debate - about the merits of various Brazilian soccer teams! From there, it was a one-hour drive to the downtown Novotel Jaragua hotel where the conference took place. Along the route, the PCdoB comrades filled me in on eve rything from att ...

Obama Pledges Entitlement Reform

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Obama repeated his advocacy of large and immediate government spending and tax breaks on the same day that House Democrats were announcing the details of an $825 billion stimulus package and the Senate voted to authorize the release of an additional $350 billion in funds under the Troubled Assets Relief Program. He said that creating jobs and maintaining national security will be his top priorities and added that his efforts as president should be measured by whether the nation can overcome p ...

Why South African Trade Unions Favor Sanctions and Boycotts Of Apartheid Israel

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Israel occupied the land of the Palestinian people and created settler communities of Jews who enjoy a different lifestyle and privileges than those experienced by Palestinians. Palestinians are packed like Sardines in a tin throughout the Bantustans, with Gaza being acknowledged as the world's biggest open-air prison. The prime characteristics of apartheid in South Africa included:  Segregation of the country into highly developed whites-only areas co-existing with extremely u ...

An Urgent Call for Solidarity

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Many of those killed have been civilians. Just one example is the Israeli bombardment that killed 42 Palestinian Civilians in the UN school in the Jabalia refugee camp. Such civilian deaths as an inevitable and foreseeable consequence of air attacks on a densely populated area comprise a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are as such a war crime. We further refer to the earlier collective punishment of the people of Gaza by Israel. The Gaza St ...

The People of Gaza Under a Hail of Fire

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

There are clashes in practically all the sectors of the Gaza strip – Walid Al Awad, who lives less than 550 yards away from the sea, confirmed to l'Humanité that Israeli tanks had still not entered the city of Gaza yesterday afternoon, proof enough that Palestinian fighters are putting up a fierce struggle." Right now I can see Israeli ships firing at the town," he said. He also confirmed that "Israeli tanks are not far away but they have not entered the city center. They are in the ...

We Are All Palestinians - Spanish/English

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

We Are All Palestinians We all were, are and could be denigrated for some imagination of ethnic identity or some ascribed cultural or political judgement and selected for the ghetto, the extermination camp, the Holocaust. We all were, are and could be negated in your own land, discriminated against in the cradle, constantly wounded by the look, the stoning, the kick in the butt, the spittle from those who believe themselves superior for being different, an ...

Want to End the Violence in Gaza? Boycott Israel

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Yet even in the face of these clear calls, many of us still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. And they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tools in the nonviolent arsenal. Surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counterarguments. 1. Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis. The world has tried what used to be called "constructi ...

Canada Must Speak Out Against Israeli Aggression In Gaza

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

This genocidal assault must stop now! The Communist Party demands that the Harper government reverse its blatantly pro-Israeli policy and instead take real and immediate action to force an immediate ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal! No Justification for this Aggression The Israeli propaganda machine, with the help of its imperialist and corporate backers abroad, peddles the myth that it is the victim of unprovoked rocket attacks fired by Hamas militants in Gaza, and therefore claims ...

President of Ecuador on the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Dear sisters and brothers from Cuba, Ecuador, Latin America and the rest of the world, for each and every one of you, a warm embrace (Applause): Today, January 8, 2009, when – at the invitation of the Cuban Revolution – we are here representing the Ecuadorian people and their Citizen's Revolution, it is worth asking the question: When did the Cuban Revolution begin? Perhaps on July 26, 1953, when Fidel, leading the Centenary Generation, etched the name of the Moncada Garrison ...

Colombian CP Salutes 50 Years of the Cuban Revolution

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

 For Latin America, 50 years of socialist Cuba indicate that such an option is possible. Cuba has not claimed to be a model, much less impose it on other countries and realities. But its experience does reveal an attitude and example that inspire roads toward open horizons, the most overwhelming and successful of which are instances of concrete human solidarity, of a hand extended in health, education, techno-scientific and pedagogical development. All that serves to put socialist Cuba a ...

Let Obama be Obama?

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Who is Obama? Has Obama betrayed his progressive promise? Obama never made a progressive promise. The idea of Obama as a water-bearer for liberal or progressive reform came not from Obama's mouth, but from the sheer wishes and dreams of the left. They took the vacuity of the "change" slogan as something more than the usual hyperbole of two-party politics despite the fact that it is hurled at every lame duck or incumbent. They saw rhetorical, fuzzy commitments to constituents of the Democrat ...

Working Group: Appeal of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

We call on the workers, women, youth and other sectors, all anti-imperialist and peace loving forces to mobilize against the criminal attacks and policy by the Israeli government, to demand immediate stop and sanctions against Israel. To develop immediate solidarity actions and humanitarian support for the Palestinian people. Our parties express firm solidarity with the resistance against the aggressions, with the progressive, anti-imperialist and communist forces in Palestine and Israel, with ...

Grupo de Trabajo: Llamamiento en Solidaridad con el Pueblo Palestino

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

La política de genocidio y terrorismo de estado del gobierno israelí, apoyada y aprobada por las poderosas potencias imperialistas en los EEUU y en la UE y aceptada por algunos gobiernos reaccionarios árabes, es una nueva provocación contra los pueblos y el movimiento mundial de solidaridad. Llamamos a los trabajadores, mujeres, jóvenes y otros sectores, a todas las fuerzas antiimperialistas y amantes de la paz, a movilizarse contra los criminales ataques y ...

KKE on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Above all in difficult times for peoples after the Soviet Union was dismantled and European socialism defeated, socialist Cuba's existence and successful resistance to imperialist provocations and aggressions have represented a great contribution to people's anti imperialist resistance and struggle. Defending the flag of socialism, Cuba has made it so that hope stays alive, teaching that imperialism is powerful, but not invincible, that there is an alternative to capitalist barbarism, which is ...

For Cuba, Revolution Made All The Difference

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

For the Durham (NC) Herald-Sun, “the bleak economic climate and the approach of the holiday season” explained last month’s local increase in suicides. This scenario is grim. Cuba, however, abruptly lost 85 percent of its trade, 34 percent of its GDP, and 90 percent of its oil imports. Fertilizers, animal feed, spare parts, and consumer goods all but disappeared, as did sea-borne shipping, agricultural production, and public transportation. New U.S. restrictions on ...

A Food Agenda for Obama

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

These same subsidies, and anemic regulatory enforcement, encourage an increasingly monopolized food system, and a "cheap food" policy that lards us with fatty, processed foods – the cost of which is ultimately dear, more than $100 billion annually for obesity and diet-related diseases. Today's food system also generates a sizable portion of America's greenhouse gases, and rests on fast-dwindling and volatile oil supplies. Now is the time for something different – change we can eat ...

A Christmas Carol

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0100

That Marx and Engels came to appreciate the emotional force of Dickens and his contemporaries is clearly demonstrated from an article by Marx, written in 1859: "The present splendid brotherhood of fiction-writers in England, whose graphic and eloquent pages have issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together, have described every section of the middle class from the "highly gentee ...

Raul Castro: The Blockade Has No Future

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:38:16 +0100

He noted that more than 70 percent of Cuban citizens today were born under the conditions of the blockade and under the limitations imposed by the blockade. "What I mean is that we are trained, we are prepared for the blockade and for the hurricanes that will become, or already are more frequent, and what's worse, more powerful." "Nobody has been able to defeat us; Spanish colonialism couldn't, even when they assembled close to 300,000 soldiers in the late 19th century, in t ...

Guns, Butter, and Obama

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0100

But coming to grips with the issue, as one military analyst noted, is likely to resemble the worst of World War I trench warfare. "It will be like the British Army at the Somme," Winslow Wheeler of the Center for Defense Information (CDI) told the Boston Globe, "you will just get mowed down by the defense industry." Up Against the Industry For starters, there are 185,000 corporations behind those metaphorical machine guns, and a few are formidable indeed: Lockheed Mar ...

Theses on Socialism

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Latin American Summit Includes Cuba

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0100

"It's the demise of an economic model," he said. Cuba's admission on Tuesday into the long-standing Rio Group of more than 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries brought renewed calls for an end to the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Castro said on the eve of the summit meeting here that he was open to meeting with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to discuss the issue. Progress at Risk The global crisis, which has cut off credit lines and hit demand for the commodity exports ...

Obama and Cuba

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Observing the news about the victory of Barack Obama this past November 4, the veteran Cuban communist Ricardo Alarcón did not overlook "a detail" in the massive gathering that greeted the first black President of the United States, which happened in the same place where the great protests of 1969 put a close to the combative decade of the sixties. "I saw the images and recognized many friends in tears, people who were part of the New Left of another era. They felt a spe ...

People's Protests in Greece

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0100

On the prospect of early general elections, the KKE leader stressed that it would barely ripple the water if the unhappiness with the ruling New Democracy turned into a vote for main opposition, PASOK, To a question on whether the KKE would vote for the establishment of a parliamentary preliminary investigation committee on the Vatopedi Monastery-State land transactions affair, Papariga explained that if presumptive evidence of criminal responsibility arose ...

Cholera Outbreak Outcome of West?s War on?Zimbabwe

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The causal chain leading to the crisis can be diagrammed roughly as follows: • In the late 90s, Mugabe’s government provokes the hostility of the West by: (1) intervening militarily in the Democratic Republic of Congo on the side of the young government of Laurent Kabila, helping to thwart an invasion by Rwandan and Ugandan forces backed by the US and Britain; (2) it rejects a pro-foreign investment economic restructuring program the IMF establishes as a condition for balance of pa ...

Significance of the Chicago Factory Occupation

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0100

A World of Hope They inspired people fed up by the excesses of banks, corporations and the powerful who have led us into the worst economic crisis since the 1930s — and then got the government to bail them out with our money. They gave hope to people who face the prospect of losing jobs, homes, healthcare, retirement, and for many, the hope for their kids to get a good college education. A Movement to 'Resist Economic Violence' Rev. Jesse Jackson expressed it well when he said ...

Afghanistan, Another Untold Story

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Some Real History Since feudal times the landholding system in Afghanistan had remained unchanged, with more than 75 percent of the land owned by big landlords who comprised only 3 percent of the rural population. In the mid-1960s, democratic revolutionary elements coalesced to form the People's Democratic Party (PDP). In 1973, the king was deposed, but the government that replaced him proved to be autocratic, corrupt, and unpopular. It in turn was forced out in 1978 after a massive demonstra ...

Reflections on the Global Economic Crisis and Its Likely Impact on South Africa

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Marx was the first to provide a scientific analysis of the boom-bust cycle in capitalism, which he showed to be endemic to this mode of production. Crises in capitalism can occur as a consequence of factors extraneous to the accumulation process -- wars, natural disasters, social upheavals. However, under capitalism (and in contrast to earlier forms of production) wars, natural disasters or social upheavals are more likely to be the consequences of intrinsic crises within capitalism rather than ...

Closing Speech by Jeronimo de Sousa, PCP XVIII Congress

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The workings of the Congress itself, the permanent and high attendance of delegates during its work, listening to the speeches, however simple, is proof that, respecting the party collective, we respect the individual. This is a mark of distinction. We are not here to listen to leaders or candidates for leadership positions, to give or withold our support thinking only about leadership positions or power. Our Congress had a noble and dignified politics. It was the struggle, work, strength of a ...

Gaza's Death Throes, And No One's Listening

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The answer is: no government of integrity. And yet, government after government in Israel continues to demand recognition and accolades as a first world democracy superior to all others, despite Israel's flouting of international law, its human rights abuses and the criminality and corruption of Israeli leaders. Worse still, the world has acquiesced and has welcomed every Israeli administration into its fold as a favored guest. This should give everyone pause to revisit our noble declarati ...

The Deepening Crisis and the Socialist Option

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Financial Bailout The radical neo-liberals of the Bush administration were practitioners of an equally radical policy of de-regulation and total confidence in market mechanisms. The idea of correcting self-correcting processes was completely unimaginable to these disciples of Mises, von Hayek, and Friedman. Thus, when the first signs of problems arose, they relied on the financial sector – with a little fiscal juice from the Federal Reserve in terms of a $29 billion dollar loan ince ...

Holding an Obama Administration Accountable

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The media and politicians have exhibited amazing discipline in that few of the analyses and none of the solutions advanced in the mainstream media take into account the competitive advantage of universal free health care enjoyed by auto makers in Canada, Japan and Western Europe. The biggest difference between US and foreign auto production is that only US automakers are saddled with the burden of paying the health care costs of current workers and retirees.To make matters worse, beginning in th ...

Obama Needs a Protest Movement

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Sometimes, encouraged by electoral shifts and campaign promises, the ordinary people who are typically given short shrift in political calculation become volatile and unruly, impatient with the same old promises and ruses, and they refuse to cooperate in the institutional routines that depend on their cooperation. When that happens, their issues acquire a white-hot urgency, and politicians have to respond, because they are politicians. In other words, the disorder, stoppages and institutional br ...

The Venezuelan Elections, a Preliminary Look

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The winning of more states than they had before led the opposition to declare that they were victorious in the elections. Chavez took exception to this claim of victory. At a Monday press conference with the international press Chavez said, in a commentary directed to the opposition, "Come down off your clouds. This was a great revolutionary victory."A Venezuelan government press release, sent out by the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, DC, noted that the Chavez government "is st ...

By Bus, Canoe and Burro, Communists Gather for Bogota Meet

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Opening ceremonies took place before 1,500 seated onlookers plus hundreds standing or watching the proceedings by video in nearby rooms. Representatives of fraternal foreign parties conveyed greetings. Secretary General Caycedo paid homage to 14 jailed party leaders, victimized through government accusations of associations with leftist guerrillas cast as terrorists.The meeting's theme was "For a democratic government and toward a second independence." According to Voz, participants de ...

Resolution in Solidarity with Latin America and the Caribbean Peoples

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean are protesting against an unequal and exclusive system. Indeed, this region is one of the most unequal on earth. More than 200 million poor people do not have the basic resources with which to survive, while new centers of conspicuous and luxurious consumption develop alongside them. In this region, as in the whole world, unequal development takes place, which is polluting the planet and destroying its non-renewable energy resources.The harsh conseq ...

The Sao Paulo Proclamation

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Powerful ideological diversionary campaigns are seeking to conceal the true origins of the crisis and to block the way to solutions that would be in the interests of the popular masses, which favor a new balance of power, a new international order in favor of popular forces, international solidarity and friendship among peoples. The main capitalist powers, starting with the USA, the European Union and Japan, by means of the international organizations under their rule – the IMF, World Bank ...

On the 10th International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The current crisis demonstrates the complete failure and collapse of neo-liberalism, speakers argued, but it does not automatically represent the end of capitalism. On the contrary, the bourgeoisie is using its political power in the most developed countries to mount a 'rescue operation' for their system. But far from making capitalism more virtuous, these policies aim to make workers pay the cost of trying to resolve the system's intrinsic contradictions.This severe crisis also explodes the myt ...

This Is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama's White House

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Under Clinton, Yugoslavia was bombed and dismantled as part of what Noam Chomsky described as the "New Military Humanism." Sudan and Afghanistan were attacked, Haiti was destabilized and "free trade" deals like the North America Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade radically escalated the spread of corporate-dominated globalization that hurt U.S. workers and devastated developing countries. Clinton accelerated the militarization of the so-called ...

Fidel on the G20

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Anyone would have thought that the following day there would be a profound debate on the thorny issue.On Saturday morning, the press agencies were reporting on the program that would unfold at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. Every second was covered. There would be an analysis of the current crisis and the actions to be taken. It would start at 11:30 a.m. local time. First, there would be a photo op, or "family picture" as Bush called it, and twenty minutes later the f ...

Russia's Place in the World

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0100

In Praise of a Rocky Transition

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Then there is the nearly $2 trillion the Federal Reserve has handed out in emergency loans. Incredibly, the Fed will not reveal which corporations have received these loans or what it has accepted as collateral. Bloomberg News believes that this secrecy violates the law and has filed a federal suit demanding full disclosure. Despite all of this potential lawlessness, the Democrats are either openly defending the administration or refusing to intervene. "There is only one president at ...

Philippine Communist Party (PKP) Holds 13Th National Congress

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The Congress elected the members and alternate members of the 13th Central Committee. The 25 regular members of the 13th Central Committee in turn elected the 11 regular and 2 alternate members of the Political Bureau. The regular members of the Political Bureau elected the Secretariat, and Comrade Pedro P. Baguisa was re-elected General Secretary.The Congress also elected 9 Party veterans as honorary members of the 13th Central Committee. The 13th Central Committee then elected 5 of these Party ...

Was Georgia a Neo-Con Conspiracy? A Lesson for Obama

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The newly-released evidence for the "October Surprise" now deserves deeper reflection by Obama and his advisers, and greater investigation by the mainstream media.The trail of evidence starts with Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy adviser and former director of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which secured some $90 million in federal funds to lobby for the fabricated agenda of Iraqi exiles like Ahmed Chalabi leading to the Iraq invasion.Scheunemann became a regis ...

UE On the Elections

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

UE members elected to office in two statesUE members can also celebrate the election of two of our own. In Vermont Bob South, president of Local 234 and a trustee of the national union, defied the odds and won election to the state legislature in a district long dominated by the Republican Party. In Iowa, UE Local 893-IUP member Ray Zirkelbach won re-election to his Iowa state house seat with a 65 percent of the vote.Yes, there is much to celebrate. But there is much to be done. The national ele ...

Portuguese CP On the Elections in the U.S.

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The Theses of the Greek CP for its 18th Congress

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Chapter 1 International DevelopmentsA. Main trends: Changes in the correlation of forces and the slowing of global capitalist development1. Intra-imperialist rivalries are evolving on all levels – economic, military and political – and between the various groups of states as well. It is even being manifested in the field of environmental policy, between transnational monopolies as well as capitalist states.The hot spots of war that appeared after the creation of new markets in the fo ...

Communists Today - Chapter 5

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The Scientific-Technological RevolutionThe determining factor of material production of our epoch is “big industry." Karl Marx already clearly saw that 125 years ago.¹1. The “substitution of natural forces for human force, and the conscious application of science, instead of rule of thumb”²2. The natural increase of the “rapidity and intensity of labor."³3. The “systematic heightening of intensity of labor” converts “every ...

Nationalize and Socialize the Banks

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

If taxpayers were not now being compelled to preserve the banks and insurance companies not only of the five large banks of the USA, but of various banks in Iceland, Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and other countries, the banks would have gone bankrupt. The governments of the economically strongest capitalist states have enacted programs to save the banks. Some of the financial institutions most heavily struck by the crisis are to be - temporarily - trusteed by the government. The ...

The Crisis Of the Capitalist System and the Topicality of Socialism

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Forewarned by the mortgage crisis in the USA, expressed in the speculative bubble of the international financial and raw materials markets (food, energy, etc.), its impacts were quickly felt in the productive sphere and in the economic situation of several countries, placing the world on the doorstep of a world economic recession. The Central Committee considers that this new crisis of the capitalist system reveals, as has been pointed out in consecutive Political Resolutions of the PCP&rsq ...

Crisis : The Natural Offspring of Capitalism

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The deepening of process of imperialist globalization leads to a speedy infection of the world, spread by crisis. The free market mechanism causes unequal development, socially and geographically. Investment concentrates the wealth in a few areas, in the hands of a small number of people. Only state interventions can secure removal of those social and geographical differences. But the neoliberal policy has liquidated such interventions and asserts that the magic hand of the market will solve eve ...

The Crisis and Speculative Capitalism, Revisited

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

When I authored the article over six months ago, there was a widespread confidence that the US government had the tools to fix the ailing financial sector; “the economy is fundamentally sound,” we heard again and again. References were made to earlier financial disruptions occurring in the late twentieth century. The tools that worked then – massive injections of capital – were thought to be sufficient to tame the current crisis. But this time they have failed dramaticall ...

Notes on the World Crisis of Capitalism

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The Nature of the Current CrisisThe current crisis has a natural cycle, which results from the normal logic of how capitalism functions. This time the cycle has been aggravated by a combination of the following factors: • A large volume of financial capital had recently been transformed into paper, in governmental bank notes, into IOUs, and loans, without any tie, as with cash, to the production of goods. • The government of the United States abus ...

Preparing for US Invasion

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Morales has denounced the brewing "civic-business coup" and expelled United States ambassador Philip Goldberg, who was previously head of mission in Serbia's breakaway Kosovo region from 2004 to 2006, after he was caught secretly meeting opposition separatist leaders. Washington responded by kicking out Bolivia's top diplomat, tit-for-tat. In solidarity, live on television, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave US ambassador Patrick Duddy 72 hours notice to leave Caracas wit ...

Bloody Friday

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

This was not meant to be. An intense campaign directed at selling the idea that we were all in the same boat, a boat that would sink disastrously without granting the financial elites a huge, unprecedented subsidy to continue on a catastrophic path preceded the Monday September 29 vote by the House of Representatives. The kept, monopolized media, almost overnight, forced the word "rescue" upon the public, a public that had shown a decided preference for the harshness of the word &quo ...

The Law of the Jungle

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Therefore, what is at stake is whether the human being will be able to survive the privilege of having a creative mind. For, the developed capitalist system, epitomized by a certain privileged country where the European white man brought his creative ideas,  dreams, and ambitions, is today in a crisis. But, it is not the usual crisis happening once every few years. It's not even the traumatic crisis of the 1930s, but the worst of all crises since the world started to pursue this growth and ...

La Ley de la Selva

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

No es la habitual cada cierto número de años, ni siquiera la traumática de los años treinta, sino la peor de todas desde que el mundo siguió ese modelo de crecimiento y desarrollo.  La actual crisis del sistema capitalista desarrollado se produce cuando el imperio está próximo a cambiar de jefatura en las elecciones que tendrán lugar dentro de veinticinco días; era lo único que faltaba por ver.  Los c ...

Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

More investment and more jobs further expand economic demand, leading to more investment and so on. The easy availability of credit also pushed up property prices, because bank lending was growing much faster than the supply of housing. This boost in the value of properties made bank lending and borrowing even more attractive, because it increased the value of collateral that people could put up against loans. This pushed property prices - or, more precisely, the land element of proper ...

Communists Demand Policies for the People, Not Big Business

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

In the deregulated City, banks and financial institutions have utilized credit and other transactions to erect an enormous edifice of 'fictitious capital' based on financial instruments, which bear no relation to the real value being produced in the real economy. On the basis of such artificial business, together with the fleecing of the public sector and the general public, they embarked upon an unrestrained orgy of profiteering. The resulting bubble of personal, government and corporate deb ...

Statement of the Politburo of the CC of CP Greece (KKE)

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Irrespective of the ultimate depth and range of the current economic crisis, the managers of the system reasonably tremble before the danger of not being in the position to control the consequences that can endanger their political stability. The rising of the exploitation of employees and of the pressure against self-employed in order to increase and accumulate profits, surrounds and strangles all the economy. The danger of suffocation also stands before well-paid employees in the financial ...

The Current Global Financial Crisis and its Implications for South Africa

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Capitalist globalization since the 1990s has seen what has been called “financialisation” of investment. Facilitated by the introduction of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), capital has built the capacity to move from one investment to another in any part of the globe virtually at the press of a button. In this environment new financial institutions and new practices have emerged, located principally in the United States as the corporate headquarters of global fi ...

The International Crisis of Capitalism and Urgent Measures to Confront it

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

It is a cheap excuse to say that the government was caught off guard when the truth is that the speculative real estate bubble has been common knowledge for a long time. The government was aware of the situation, and even after the crisis began in August of last year, it continued to talk down its seriousness and to conceal its implications. It is an illusion and a mystification to state that there can be transparency and regulation in the current framework of the market economy, with a free ...

Pakistan As "New" Front In Terror War

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The U.S.'s "freedom fighters," whether in Central America or Afghanistan, had a strong penchant for killing civilians, as well as raping women and girls. This has been well documented by credible sources time and again. Meanwhile, the Taliban, simply the current evolution of the Mujahedin, views the U.S. in the same manner as their cohorts viewed the Soviets in the 80's. In other words, it is not favorably by any stretch of the imagination. Indeed, the U.S. is seen as an enemy, whic ...

CPC on Economic Crisis

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Consider some harsh facts. Exports of goods and services, consumer spending, residential housing construction, and investments in plant and equipment are all declining. The loss of almost 400,000 manufacturing jobs in recent years has left working people struggling to stay afloat, compelled to take low-wage, part-time service sector employment to pay the bills. No wonder that Canadian households now carry $1.25 in debt for every dollar of disposable income.   Meanwhile, corp ...

To End the Casino Economy

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The resulting bubble of personal, government and corporate debt maintained demand in the British economy long enough for Gordon Brown to proclaim the end of "boom and bust." Now that the bubble has burst, the economic cycle is reasserting itself just when the money market and financial institutions are losing confidence and credibility. Continuously pumping credit into the financial markets is inflationary and will reduce both wages and the social wage in the interests of monopoly pro ...

Why Nationalization Isn't Socialism

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

In The Political Economy of Revolution, Konstantin Zaradov distinguishes between three types of nationalization, arising as they do at different stages of economic and political development. The first is capitalist nationalization. This is where the state power, which acts to maintain and perpetuate capitalist society, takes privately owned assets and facilities into public ownership. It does so not to change the economic and social basis of society, to dispossess the capitalist clas ...

Review: Socialism Was Betrayed

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

A - Is historical materialism wrong, when all is said and done?TK - No. We were sure that, as far as method was concerned, historical materialism remained valid, but we asked ourselves - why is it that nothing is said about the collapse? We needed to do much reading. After more than a year and a half we began to identify some pieces of the puzzle and to explain the weight of the so-called "second economy" in the Soviet Union, which proved a decisive element in our conclusions. Ro ...

A Dose of "Socialism"?

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:05:44 +0100

What we don't need are charlatans and poseurs. With the departure of the European socialist bloc, the world Communist movement suffered a severe crisis of confidence and direction. Time also took its toll on veteran Communists who had experienced the warts of world capitalism and drew many profound lessons from its history. Their schooling in both life and theory could have proved invaluable in post-Soviet times were they still with us. Instead, we have suffered through a period of old ideas m ...

Ninety Experts on Bolivia and Latin America ask State Dept. to Reveal Bolivia funding

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Yet since the democratic election of Evo Morales in December 2005, the U.S. government has sent millions of dollars in aid to departmental prefects and municipal governments in Bolivia. In 2004, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) opened an "Office of Transition Initiatives" (OTI) in Bolivia, which provided some $11 million in funds to "build on its activities designed to enhance the capacity of departmental governments."[1]The OTI in Bolivia sought to " ...

Capitalism on the Ropes

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

With nearly a trillion dollars of public funds thrown recklessly at resolving this crisis, failure to backstop this decline has produced a general panic. Where investors were looking for bargains a week ago, they are now withdrawing their funds for safe havens. Unfortunately, there are no safe places any more. Confidence has been shattered. The crisis began with a demand for unrealistic returns, retreated to "reasonable" returns, and now would happily settle for any safe depository. To ...

The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Financial Crisis: Shattering the Glass-Steagall Act

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

But wait . . . as usual, the Democrats were eager to pile on to this reversal of New Deal regulatory progressivism -- fully 38 of 45 Senate Democrats voted for the repeal (which passed 90-8), including some famous names commonly associated with "progressive" politics by the easily gulled: Dodd, Kennedy, Kerry, Reid, and Schumer. And, of course, there was the inevitable shout of "yea" from the ever-servile corporate factotum Joseph Biden, Barack Obama's idea of a tribune of &q ...

Bolivia: US Ambassador of Ethnic Cleansing

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:46:17 +0100

These days, immigration agents and Bolivian police are careful with passengers coming from the United States. In March of 2006, another U.S. citizen, Triston Jay Amero, a.k.a. Lestat Claudius, a 25 year old Californian carrying 15 different identity documents, set off 300 kilos of dynamite in two hotels in La Paz. And on December 8th of this year, when the Summit of the South American Community of Nations was held in Cochabamba, security services uncovered the presence of two fake U.S. journalis ...

The War over South Ossetia

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:42:06 +0100

The above shows that far from restraining the Georgian hand, the US was facilitating, even encouraging, an attack; that the South Ossetians and Russians anticipated an attack and that the Russians used their position at the United Nations to try to stop it; and that the West was setting the stage to blame the attack on the victims. The above shows that far from restraining the Georgian hand, the US was facilitating, even encouraging, an attack; that the South Ossetians and Russians anticipat ...

How Physics is Validating The Labor Theory of Value

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Download the article in pdf form from MLToday.com.

Executive Pay and "The Market Economy"

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

There are several decisive rebuttals to this claptrap. First, there is no plausible market-based story why executive pay should have been bid up so much over the past quarter century. Are executives working harder now? Making better decisions? Has the CEO supply and demand equation changed? Second, executive pay is not set by the market, but by boards of directors, who frequently are CEO cronies and excuse their behavior by relying on conflicted compensation consultants. Third, the most ...

The US "Aid" Offer to Cuba

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

La Nota enfatiza que si el Gobierno de los Estados Unidos tiene una real voluntad de cooperar con el pueblo cubano, se le solicita que permita la venta a Cuba de materiales indispensables, tales como cubiertas para techos y otros para reparar viviendas, y para restablecer las redes eléctricas. Asimismo, se reitera la solicitud de que el Gobierno de los Estados Unidos suspenda las restricciones que impiden a las compañías norteamericanas ofrecer créditos comerciales ...

US Offer of "Aid" to Cuba (Eng.)

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The Note emphasizes that if the Government of the United States is really willing to cooperate with the Cuban people it is requested to allow the sale to Cuba of indispensable material, such as materials for roofing, for building repairs and for the re-establishment of electric networks. Likewise, it reiterates the request that the Government of the United States suspend the restrictions preventing U.S. companies from providing private commercial credits to Cuba for the purchase of foodstuffs ...

Obama?s Candidacy: The Advent of Post-Racial America and the End of Black Politics?

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Fallacy #1: That the end of a racially unjust society is a declarative act.Some commentators seem to be confused by the forms racism takes in the post-civil rights era, and prepared to declare that, since there are no laws explicitly upholding racial inequity, it must be dying out of its own accord.Racial apartheid and the most blatant 20th century forms of discrimination are behind us, but the colorline has hardly faded away. Centuries of affirmative action for whites built up an enormous wealt ...

The Myth of the Tragedy of the Commons

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0100

For 40 years it has been, in the words of a World Bank Discussion Paper, "the dominant paradigm within which social scientists assess natural resource issues." (Bromley and Cernea 1989: 6) It has been used time and again to justify stealing indigenous peoples' lands, privatizing health care and other social services, giving corporations 'tradable permits' to pollute the air and water, and much more. Noted anthropologist Dr. G.N. Appell (1995) writes that the article "has been ...

A Lampoon of Communism in a Communist Publication

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Apart from language abuse, Sims' posture is fraught with blatant contradictions. He claims to speak for himself, and himself alone, while posting on the "editors' blog" of a CPUSA publication, holding leading positions in the Party, and standing as the sole publisher of the publication. One might as well believe that Howard Dean's remarks at the Democratic Convention should not, in any way, be taken to represent the thinking of the Democratic Party. He chides respondents for using ...

Race Isn't the Reason for Obama's Slide

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The answer was blunt, straightforward, and even a tinge bitter. It's also dead wrong. During the Democratic primary wars Obama racked up a phenomenal string of nearly a dozen victories. This effectively knocked Hillary Clinton out of the contest. He didn't do it solely with black votes. In jost of these primary or caucus victories, there were few black votes to be had. He did it with white voters. They were young and old, and many of them were disenchanted cross over Republicans and independen ...

A Cuban Take on the U.S. Elections

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0100

One of the reasons attributed to this small margin, (carefully skirting the ethnic factor) is that Obama is a "different" candidate for which many voters harbor doubts regarding his experience and ability to exercise presidential authority. The McCain campaign orchestrates incessant attacks against Obama characterizing him as one who changes his positions, as elitist, superficial, opportunistic, inexperienced and unreliable. A group of Democrats are concerned that this kind of campaign ...

Review: Solidarity Divided

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Much of the book is taken up by the authors' account of the battles in the top union leadership in Washington DC, above all, the 1995 coming to power of the New Voice coalition led by John Sweeney and the 2005 secession of the Change to Win unions. As a top AFL-CIO staffer since 1995, Bill Fletcher certainly had a ringside seat. Fernando Gapasin's strength is a grasp of central labor council struggles and West Coast developments.But the book's biggest contribution is its profound political analy ...

The Root Causes of the Conflict in Georgia

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

In the Georgian crisis, this balance is reversed. National independence is an issue, but not in the same way. The peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two disputed regions, do not wish to be ruled from Tbilisi, but the idea of full national independence has not been raised and is, particularly in the former case, scarcely practical. Georgia will, on the other hand, claim to be asserting its national independence from Russia. Yet it is led by a government which has fully dissolved the cou ...

On the US/NATO Aggression in the Caucasus

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0100

The Communist Party of Canada condemns the Georgian invasion on August 7, including bombing raids on residential areas, hospitals, and schools in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, as an unprovoked assault which plunged the Caucasus into war. We give full support to calls from many countries for the com plete withdrawal of Georgian forces from South Ossetia as a first step towards a peaceful solution to this conflict, which must not be allowed to expand into all-out confrontation in the M ...

Rally For Cuban Five 9/13/08 in Washington

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

British Union Condemns Foreign Meddling in Bolivia

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Where is the People's Outrage?

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 03:00:00 +0100

Grant goes on:Barack Obama, the silver-tongued herald of change, forgettably told a crowd in Madison, Wis., some months back, that he will "listen to Main Street, not just Wall Street." John McCain, the angrier of the two presumptive Presidential contenders, has staked out a principled position against greed and obscene profits but has gone no further to call the errant bankers and brokers to account.The jost blistering attack on the ancient target of American populism was served up la ...

Communists Today - Chapter 4

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 01:00:00 +0100

Hans Heinz Holz: COMMUNISTS TODAYCHAPTER 4: CLASS STRUGGLEDo we live in a class society? Bourgeois politicians and social scientists are not too keen to talk about it. Among present-day sociologists, the word "class" seems to be taboo. Instead they tend to speak of "social layering", or even of "a graded middle-class society".This terminological allergy towards a classical concept of sociological teaching is striking. Might it not hide a social problem? Are politici ...

Communists Today - Chapter 6

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Main points to bring out:· The General Crisis of Capitalism is not the same as the well-known cyclical crises of the system.· It is not to be defined by the existence of a world socialist system - in dialectical materialist terms, the essential cause of a crisis has to be major features within the system itself.· The General Crisis of Capitalism does not mean that the capitalist social system is in a process of disintegration, rather that its internal contradictions are shif ...

Communists Today - Chapter 8

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Chapter 8: Some Thoughts on Defining the Political SituationIt was a great step forward in human intellectual history when Marx, Engels and Lenin worked out the fundamentals of historical materialism. For the first time, there was a scientific method for characterising the totality of the current epoch – bourgeois society – and of human history generally. For us Marxists, having such a method at our disposal is a priority. We must become conscious of it and hold fast to it, if we are ...

Respect for Democracy EU-style

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

McCain Revealed, a Briefing Book

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:00:00 +0100

When you page through the briefing book, you'll learn: McCain admits he doesn't really understand the economy. McCain systematically votes for bad trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) that don't protect workers. McCain voted to block the Employee Free Choice Act and doesn't support bargaining rights for federal workers. McCain has voted to privatize Social Security. McCain's health care ...

Chavez, the FARC, and the Path to Power

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:00:00 +0100

Even so, it would be useful to consider the viewpoints of several Venezuelans about the meaning of Chavez's remarks.First, Chávez did not enter into any kind of thoroughgoing analysis to show how conditions have changed in th e Americas and that there is now only one path to power for the left, especially for Colombia. What he said was that the FARC provides an excuse for the United States to attack Venezuela. Chávez went on to say that, if peace were to come to Colombia, the U.S. ...

American Inequality

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Despite an aljost cult-like devotion to the belief that unfettered free enterprise is the best way to lift Americans out of poverty, the report points to a rigged system that does little to lessen inequalities. "The report shows that although America is one of the richest nations in the world, it is woefully behind when it comes to providing opportunity and choices to all Americans to build a better life," the authors said. Some of its more shocking findings reveal that, in parts of Te ...

On the Politics of Opposition

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:00:00 +0100

Rolling over on his pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright for his outspoken progressive views, as noted in an earlier posting (The Political Economy of the Elections May, 18, 2008), was an early indication that Obama would adhere to traditional Democratic Party Presidential election tactics and veer to the right. But frankly, few expected the move to proceed so quickly and so far. The endorsement of neo-conservative “faith-based initiatives” – a naked right wing move to dilute ...

Communists Today - Foreword

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0100

In 1991, when I published The Downfall and Future of Socialism1, there was widespread discouragement and resignation among communists. Their revolutionary self-reliance had deeply shaken by the destruction of the Soviet Union and the annexation of the GDR. The perspective of a better, socialist, society appeared not just to have shifted into the distant future, but indeed to have become totally obstructed. In order to grasp the causes of this downfall it was necessary to streng ...

Communists Today - Chapter 1

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 22:00:00 +0100

To answer this question a communist party must first of all define itself in relation to all other political parties in capitalist society. In what way does it distinguish itself from them? What makes communists of the members of a communist party? There must be clarity over this, if the party is to avoid being simply an electoral association. The question gives expression to a particular characteristic of communists. People can be openly members of a Christian par ...

Greek Skies Host Training For Iran Strike

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:00:00 +0100

Joint training exercises started on May 28. On June 6, former Israeli defence minister and now Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz warned: "If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack." On June 14, two days after joint training exercises had ended, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana visited Iran to present an initiative by the five permanent members of the UN security council plus Germany. This required Iran to renounce its right to uranium enr ...

Blaming Everything But The System

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

As Marxists, we dare to speak the unspoken: the capitalist system is seriously unstable, teetering on a historic precipice. The late twentieth century expansion was fool's-gold, generating the destruction of trillions of dollars of fictitious capital in the high–tech collapse beginning in 2001. The full impact of this crisis was averted by fiscal manipulation executed by the Federal Reserve under the leadership of Alan Greenspan. Excessively low interest rates opened the floodgates of spec ...

Europe's Communists Hail Irish "No" to Lisbon Treaty

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

They express their determination to continue the struggle for a Europe committed to social justice, to solidarity and cooperation among peoples and countries, a Europe of peace among sovereign States, equal in rights. They further stress their commitment to the developing and supporting the ongoing important struggles in several European countries in defence of social and labour rights and to raising a strong barrier against the neo-liberal capitalist offensive embodied in the now defeate ...

Marxism Without Marx

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:00:00 +0100

Nonetheless, new framings of important ideas should be welcome, but with the skepticism that intelligent consumers bring to "new and improved" products. One should be alert to the fact that many of these "new" reconstructions of Marx's views never leave the thin air of the academic world. They circulate in dedicated academic journals intimidating the non-specialist with their formalisms and dazzling the initiated with their command of the shared technical language. I am dubi ...

Chavez, las FARC y la Via al Poder

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:00:00 +0100

Primero, Chávez no entró en un análisis, no importa que minucioso, para jostrar como han cambiado las condiciones en América Latina que diga que hay solamente una vía al poder para las izquierdas, pero especialmente para Colombia. Lo qué sí dijo fue que las FARC le dan una excusa a EEUU para agredir a Venezuela. Chávez continuó diciendo que si llegara la paz a Colombia, EEUU no tuviera ninguna excusa para atacar. Cualquiera que cono ...

Who Makes Obama's Foreign Policy?

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

More recently, Obama has completely abandoned the skepticism about the embargo he expressed during his 2004 run for the Senate. In a May 23 speech to the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami, he flatly declared that, as President, he will "maintain the embargo. It provides us with the leverage to present the regime with a clear choice: If you take significant steps toward democracy, beginning with the freeing of all political prisoners, we will take steps to begin normalizing relatio ...

The McCain Tour And The Manifest Destiny Of The U. S. Fourth Fleet

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

“What reason could the United States have to send such a powerful naval force to a region in peace, without nuclear power, without any real military conflicts or threats?·, the newspaper wonders. “They are never going to admit that it is because of natural resources, but it is no coincidence that this decision comes up just when a structural change in world economy is beginning, where reserves of fresh water, food and energy resources take on a position of important strategic ...

Dubious Design

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:00:00 +0100

Of late there has emerged a more refined offshoot of creationism called intelligent design (ID). It argues that living organisms are so irreducibly complex they could not have evolved haphazardly over the eons from more primitive forms but were precisely created in one fell swoop by a higher intelligence.In their assault on evolution the creationists and ID protagonists summon an urgent refrain. To quote from a statement by an anti-Darwinian school board in Dover, Pennsylvania: "Darwin's Th ...

Zimbabwe at War

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Zimbabwe, too, is a revolutionary society. Through armed struggle, Zimbabweans, like Americans before them, had thrown off the yoke of British colonialism. Rhodesian apartheid was smashed. Patterns of land ownership were democratized. Over 300,000 previously landless families were given land once owned by a mere 4,000 farmers, mainly of British stock, jostly descendents of settlers who had taken the land by force. In other African countries, land reform has been promised, but little has been ach ...

"Left" Voices Helping U.S. Imperialism

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Confirmation that the MRS cynically engineered the whole affair came with the letter’s sequel. First appeared a paid advertisement in the local press from the group of foreign cooperation development donor countries - who like the Bush regime have consistently promoted the MRS - criticising the Supreme Electoral Council’s interpretation of Nicaragua’s electoral law. Then the same day, the MRS held a national rally in support of Dora Maria’s protest. According to the MRS n ...

On the Anniversary of Clara Zetkin

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:00:00 +0100

Close the Misnamed NED

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

We care about democracy—at home and elsewhere. Unfortunately, the political-corporate-military machine tries its best to keep us from learning about US efforts to undermine elections in other countries. These efforts are aimed at making sure other governments adopt policies granting easy access for big corporations to natural resources, cheap labor, and new markets. This is backed up with US military power. Michael Plattner, a vice-president for the NED, explains, “Liberal democracy ...

CPUSA Demands Justice for Cuban Five

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Their supposed crime was to have taken non-violent actions in defense of their nation. For aljost fifty years, thugs and criminals, encouraged by successive U.S.governments, have directed murder and mayhem against the Cuban people. Five men, courageous and principled, volunteered to watch over unseemly private groupings, gangs we say, to report their plotting to Cuban authorities. The Communist Party condemns the U.S. government for its complicity with this terror campaign. We view that govern ...

The Bolivarian Revolution Is A Global Revolution

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:52:14 +0100

It has been affirmed that the coup against Chavez was CIA-backed. You have studied this case closely: how is this jost evident to you? There are distinct factors that I have been able to detect and expose through an investigation that I began more than five years ago, utilizing the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to demonstrate the involvement of the CIA and other U.S. government agencies in the coup against Chavez. The jost conclusive facts and evidence include a series of documents classifie ...

Blows Against the Empire

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:26:25 +0100

Yet despite the repeated attempts to undermine Havana, repeatedly in multi-lateral bodies, e.g. the United Nations, Cuba has received increasing support in its effort to end the blockade by U.S. imperialism of the militant island. Cuba’s growing prestige is buoyed by its own massive foreign aid program, particularly to smaller nations in Latin America and Africa. Immediately after the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Cuban government immediately offered assistance to the U. ...

What is the Philosophy of Marxism? - Part III

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:00:00 +0100

This is the cornerstone of understanding change. Change or evolution does not take place gradually in a straight smooth line. Marx compared the social revolution to an old mole burrowing busily beneath the ground, invisible for long periods, but steadily undermining he old order and later emerging into the light in a sudden overturn. In other words, qualitative differences gave rise to a qualitative change, leading to a new species. The whole of development is characterised by breaks in continui ...

McCain: A Risky Choice

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Many people write to me asking what I think of the current batch of presidential candidates in the U.S. First, let me make a general observation. The American political process, especially at the presidential level, is inhuman and inefficient. It is a gruesome meat grinder where candidates have to campaign for months in primaries or caucuses in all 50 states, raise tens of millions dollars and see their private lives exposed and criticized. With such a system, it is no wonder that few Americans ...

2008: a Reprise of 1976?

Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Incomes of working people were on the decline – weekly real incomes of non-agricultural workers fell by nearly 13% from 1973 to 1980. The US was saddled with an economic crisis dubbed, at the time, “stagflation”; slow growth, high unemployment, and raging inflation confounded policy makers. The crisis reached its zenith in the Carter administration with inflation averaging 9.68% and unemployment averaging 6.8% between 1976 and 1980. The dramatic increase in oil prices in the ea ...

The Empire's Hypocritical Politics

Sun, 25 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The content of these declarations by this strong candidate to the U.S. presidency spares me the work of having to explain the reason for this reflection. José Hernandez, one of the Cuban American National Foundation directives who Obama praises in his speech, was none other than the owner of the 50-calibre automatic rifle, equipped with telescopic and infrared sights, which was confiscated, by chance, along with other deadly weapons while being transported by sea to Venezuela, where the F ...

The Political Economy of the Elections

Sun, 18 May 2008 01:00:00 +0100

That is not to say there are no differences. There are. Unfortunately, the differences are only within the options that the ruling class allows. It is not that we should not participate in these campaigns, but how the left should participate. Our efforts should be to inject advanced, progressive policies into an otherwise personality-based, sound-bite campaign. Rather than debating on the internet which candidate might take, in the best of all imaginary possible worlds, a reasonably progressive ...

New Evidence on the Second Economy

Sun, 18 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

In working on Socialism Betrayed we carefully studied KKE's 1995 theses, available on the Internet in English. We greatly admire your draft 2007 theses, and their single-minded adherence to a historical materialist method. This conference's organizers kindly shared a translation with us. KKEs new draft theses express doubt about the usefulness of the phrase "Soviet collapse." We agree. We used the phrase "Soviet collapse simply in order to be understood. In English, the ...

Electoral Politics: A Glimpse at the Ruling Class Vision

Sun, 18 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

We sought to peek behind the curtains to expose the class forces that will shape the candidates actual performance after the November elections.Sometimes even Marxists get lucky. In an important article appearing in the May 10-11, 2008 issue of The Wall Street Journal, we were treated to a rare glimpse into the thinking on this subject of the US ruling class. Authors Gerald F. Seib and John Harwood (Seib is the jost reliable and insightful – and little known - political writer in the bourg ...

Statement of Communist and Workers' Parties from EU countries

Fri, 16 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

With the Lisbon Treaty, new steps are being taken towards configuring the European Union as an economic, political and military bloc, a pillar of the world order of imperialism today, contrary to the interests of workers and the peoples. The sovereignty and independence of peoples and countries are being further undermined. Under the guidelines of the "Lisbon Strategy," the attack on labour and trade union rights is being stepped up in the name of "modernisation," "compe ...

Santa Cruz Autonomy Campaign is Lynchpin to Destroy Latin American Progress

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

One cannot deny that it is racism and economic selfishness that drives the Santa Cruz autonomy campaign. It is without doubt a home grown campaign. An International Republican Institute spokesperson told a June 2006 delegation I led to Nicaragua that "We created the Movement for Nicaragua" (a supposedly non-partisan but anti-Sandinista civil organization). This isn't like that. The European descended Santa Cruzians have been exploiting Bolivia's indigenous population for over 500 years ...

On the Passing Away of M. Marulanda

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

[ESPAÑOL] Al Estado Mayor Central y al Secretariado del Estado Mayor Central de las FARC-EP Estimados camaradas: Con mucha tristeza recibijos su mensaje comunicándonos la muerte del camarada Manuel Marulanda Vélez, líder de las FARC-EP por más de 44 años. El movimiento revolucionario de Colombia y de toda América Latina perdió a un luchador destacado y un revolucionario cuyo nombre y vida han sido vinculados con la luc ...

Free The Cuban Five Bulletin

Sun, 11 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Unfortunately, we were not able to make the planned visits because on Sun., Apr. 13, at about 12:30 pm, while we were visiting him, a very grave disturbance occurred which interrupted our visit and resulted in a lockdown.While we were sitting in the visiting room, we thought we could hear a quick succession of gunshots and shouting. At that moment my mother was in the bathroom and my brother asked me not to tell her that we heard shots. The guard received a call and announced that the visits wer ...

The Contradictions of Amnesty International

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

In their communiqu, the international organization recognizes that "the majority were accused of crimes such as "acts against the independence of the State'." Amnesty International also recognizes that those people were sentenced "for having received funds or materials from the United States government to carry out activities which the authorities consider subversive and prejudicial for Cuba."(4) In order to be convinced of this state of affairs, existent since 1959, it ...

Shutting Down the West Coast Ports: The ILWU's May Day Strike

Fri, 02 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

On Thursday, May 1, the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union) staged a one-day (one shift, actually) walkout as a protest against the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The shutdown affected ports up and down the West Coast, from San Pedro, California, to Seattle, Washington. Although the PMA (Pacific Maritime Association) had warned the ILWU leadership that an “unauthorized” strike such as this was illegal, and that any rank-and-file dockworker who ...

Class: The jost Dangerous Word in America

Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The image of American workers as classless, God-fearing patriots must be maintained. This is what the American “two party, one ideology” system demands and what our rulers have successfully managed to do since the country was created. Discussion of class inequality and how it is made palatable has always been regarded as unpatriotic.Public figures who have tried to raise class inequality as a serious issue are quickly marginalized, labeled extremist and generally rendered ...

US Navy Resurrects Fourth Fleet

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Based in Mayport, Florida, the fleet will operate under the double orders of the American Navy and the Army's Southern Command, responsible for Latin America and the Caribbean. Vice Adm. Joseph Kernan will command the fleet, which should include a nuclear aircraft carrier.According to Alejandro Sanchez, an analyst at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a research center on Latin America based in Washington, "the reestablishment of the Fourth Fleet is more of a political than a military gest ...

Declaration of the World Peace Council - Caracas

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

On the other hand, certain developments in different countries of the world are helping to build more obstacles for imperialism as it faces increasing political isolation deriving from its arbitrary and unilateral acts of violation of human and peoples’ rights. Resistance against imperialism such as in Latin America or the Middle East is giving hope to the people for reaching a just and peaceful world. WPC calls for equitable political relationship among nations, free of military threats a ...

Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were aljost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.The advise ...

Zimbabwe and the Western Left

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Meanwhile, wave after wave of strikes rock Egypt, sparked by rising food prices, inadequate incomes, political repression, and the government's gutting of the social safety net. Virtually absent in a country which receives $1.3 billion in US military aid every year are democracy promotion NGOs helping to organize a people's revolution. Indeed, it might be hypothesized that the amount of democracy promotion funding a country receives is inversely proportional to the amount of US military aid it r ...

No War: The Movement That Has Dissolved Itself

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Nevertheless, on the fifth anniversary of this cruel and immoral occupation, data from Iraq are dramatic: more than a million civilians dead, and at least as many injured; three million refugees taking shelter in neighboring countries; total destruction of social infrastructures of the country, and its de facto Balkanization.In the face of all that, the response of North American and European citizens is silence. Why? There is no solidarity with the Iraqis. They are Arabs, largely Muslims, and t ...

Neither Clinton nor Obama Has a Plan to End The War

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100

When asked why they aren't expressing their anti-war opinions through the anti-war movement, many say they have simply lost faith in the power of protest. They marched against the war before it began, marched on the first, second and third anniversaries. And yet, five years on, US leaders are still shrugging: "So?"That's why it's time for the anti-war movement to change tactics. We should direct our energy where it can still have an impact: the leading Democratic contenders.Many argue ...

The CIA in Tibet

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Secret CIA Sponsorship of Tibetan Rebels against China Exposed.By People's Daily Staff Editor Liu ChaoOn March 25, 2008, Mr. Kenneth Conboy, surviving co-author of the the book CIA's Secret War in Tibet, readily accepted an invitation for an exclusive interview by People's Daily staff editor Dr. Liu Chao.The following are excerpts from Dr. Liu's exclusive interview with Mr. Kenneth Conboy, as well as some excerpts from his renowned book.Background: The Book and its AuthorsIn 2002, the Kansas Uni ...

A Tribute to a Revolutionary Leader: Fidel Castro

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 02:00:00 +0100

Cuba’s socialist revolution inspires people worldwide. In Latin America the example of Cuba has proven that it’s possible to defy the U.S. in its own backyard and win. Cuba’s internationalist solidarity with liberation struggles in Africa has earned it high respect there. And Cuba’s missions of sending doctors and providing free health care to the poorest countries and people around the world has been a shining example of internationalism in practice. Cuba’s interna ...

The Crisis and Speculative Capitalism

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The desperate meeting of Federal officials, JP Morgan Chase chiefs, and Bear Sterns executives on Sunday, March 16 only underscores the chorus of dire assessments. The Fed chairman, the Treasury Secretary, their staffs and their corporate counterparts sought to salvage the pieces of the collapsing Bear Sterns giant brokerage house and secure a firewall against further disaster in the financial sector. Finally the depth and breadth of the economic crisis has set in. Fear and panic have rep ...

The $200 Billion Bail-Out For Predator Banks

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there's a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush's man Bernanke was using ours. This week, Bernanke's Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks' mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure. Up until Wedne ...

UN Report Hits U.S. Racism

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100

In concluding the CERD report on the U.S. record, the panel of experts called for the George W. Bush administration to take effective actions to end racist practices against minorities in the areas of criminal justice, housing, healthcare and education. This is the second time in less than two years that the U.S. government has been found to be falling short of its treaty obligations. In March 2006, The CERD had harshly criticised the U.S. for violating Native Americans' land rights. Takin ...

On The Recent Developments In Latin America

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100

"Operation Fénix", prepared and executed with the support of the US Administration, was Álvaro Uribe and US imperialism's manner of responding to the multiple political and diplomatic initiatives aiming at a peaceful solution to the Colombian conflict - including the intervention of Presidente Hugo Chávez - and the repeated proposals by FARC to initiate political negotiations. Pressured by the repercussions of the FARC initiatives on the world public opinion and several p ...

What Is The Philosophy Of Marxism? - Part II

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100

For materialists there is no consciousness apart from the living brain, which is part of the material body. A mind without a body is an absurdity; matter is not a product of mind but mind itself is the highest product of matter. Ideas are simply a reflection of the independent material world that surrounds us. Things reflected in a mirror do not depend on this reflection for their existence. All ideas are taken from experience, are reflections true or distorted of reality, states Engels. Or, to ...

What Is The Philosophy Of Marxism? - Part I

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Dialectical materialism is the core of the philosophical system of Marxism-Leninism and its methodological basis.What is dialectical materialism? Do we need a philosophy?For those unacquainted with Marxist philosophy, dialectical materialism may seem an obscure and difficult concept. But for those prepared to take the time to study this new way of looking at things, they will discover a revolutionary outlook that will allow them an insight into and understanding of the mysteries of the world in ...

The Real Lesson of the New Deal for the US Left

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:00:00 +0100

Political liberals and a large section of the left fondly remember the New Deal as a great era of reform and social change that established a more benign social order befitting the nation’s democratic tradition. Conservatives and business interests demonize the period as a vast social experiment that harmfully distorted the normal functioning of a market economy, only to be corrected by the neo-liberal restoration brought forth by Ronald Reagan. Much of today’s tw ...

A Spectre Haunting Europe

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:08:11 +0100

This individual is of the opinion that the French Revolution and the Paris Commune were major mistakes in the development of European history. He and his likes believe that the working class have their place and should know their place and not seek to get above their station. Clearly democracy is of little value to this particular grouping.The resolution is part of a continuing campaign in several eastern European countries, with the connivance of the European Union and the US government. Many o ...

FBI E-Mail Refers to Presidential Order Authorizing Inhumane Interrogation Techniques

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 11:46:48 +0100

"These documents raise grave questions about where the blame for widespread detainee abuse ultimately rests," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "Top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers." The documents were obtained after the ACLU and other public interest organizations filed a lawsuit against the government for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request. The two-page e-mail that ...

Cuba-Venezuela Agreement: Bolivarian Alternative For The Americas: Breathing Life Into Clay

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:34:20 +0100

The aforementioned are all positive steps, threadings in the Latin American weave that faces hesitations on the part of some, doubt from others, as well as the pressure of U.S. imperialist interests, which although it failed in the original project of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), persists by other means and uses all the pressure it can bear in order to maintain the balkanization of Latin America.The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is the leading promoter of i ...

Iraq's Oil Workers Will Defend the Country's Oil

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:59:10 +0100

Although we're under British occupation, we've been able to establish the first union in the oil industry in the Bergeseeya district since the time of Saddam's terror. We've gone on to form unions in other areas in Basra and the southern part of the country. Now we have workers' councils in 23 areas of southern Iraq, and organized a small conference in Basra. We represent over 23,000 workers, and the oil enterprises in the south have about 90% of Iraq's oil reserves. It wasn't simple, or accepta ...

Iraq: National Liberation or Insurgency?*

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:23:44 +0100

As the struggle unfolded, these derogatory terms proved embarrassing and untenable. With the capture of Saddam Hussein and his leading cadre, the myth that resistance came only from corrupted, loyal lieutenants of the Iraqi dictator was exploded. If anything, the resistance was consolidated and advanced with their removal from the field of battle.The military sought other characterizations: the resistance drew from “foreign,” non-Iraqi, volunteers (as though the invaders ...

Iraqi Liberation: Postscript

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:22:31 +0100

The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0100

"I'm outraged by the mob attack against the U.S. embassy in Belgrade," fumed Zalmay Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to the United Nations. "The embassy is sovereign US territory. The government of Serbia has a responsibility under international law to protect diplomatic facilities, particularly embassies." His comments were echoed by a virtual who's who of the Bill Clinton administration. People like Jamie Rubin, then-Secretary of State Madeiline Albright's deputy, one of the main architects of US ...

Holding Barack Obama Accountable

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Holding Barack Obama Accountable by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon Whether it is truly possible to hold elected officials accountable in a political system where big money, big media, big corporations and the very rich call all the shots is uncertain. But we have tried and will keep trying. So will others. The stakes are too high not to. How We Held Obama's Feet to the Fire in 2003 Although close friends and confidants had been talking up a run for national office since t ...

Going Bankrupt

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The Current Fiscal Disaster It is virtually impossible to overstate the profligacy of what our government spends on the military. The Department of Defense's planned expenditures for fiscal year 2008 are larger than all other nations' military budgets combined. The supplementary budget to pay for the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not part of the official defense budget, is itself larger than the combined military budgets of Russia and China. Defense-related spending for fiscal 2008 wi ...

Wanted: A Fighting Communist Party

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Economic progress: The US economy is in the throes of a profound, persistent, and lengthy financial upheaval, reflecting the deeply embedded contradictions first exposed in the 2000-2001 stock market collapse, and now in the sub-prime mortgage crisis.Standards of living: Wages have not significantly improved since 1972. Health care costs have risen and retirement incomes have shrunk. Home ownership is collapsing in the face of the mortgage fiasco. Decent, secure jobs are disappearing, replaced b ...

Mises, Kantorovich, and Economic Computation

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0100

The Venezuelan revolutionary process and its avowed commitment to creating a new socialism has sparked a discussion of "Twenty-first Century Socialism." Therefore it is particularly timely to familiarize a new generation with the achievements of central planning since, in the years since the fall of the USSR, bourgeois economics has tried to make Kantorovich's work vanish. The paper, while somewhat technical, is a powerful defense of socialist rationality as embodied in the planning ...

Update on Palestine

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0100

I will tackle in this intervention some of the changes that effected the US policy and also the political developments at the Palestinian level and their impact on the conditions in the region. I will stress also on the importance of organizing solidarity activities with the Palestinian people who are struggling to achieve their aspirations in full independence and return to their homeland in accordance with the international legitimacy resolutions. As communist and leftist parties in this re ...

21st Century Marxism

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0100

1) The constitution of the proletariat as a class and thus as a political party - (The Manifesto of the Communist Party 1848)2) The critique of bourgeois political economy and the establishment of a political economy of labour - (Capital 1867)Certain questions were only touched on the form of a future communist society (Critique of the Gotha Program) and the political form of the rule of the working class (The Civil War in France).If we look at the 20th century we see a quite different set of qu ...

Palestine: A Case for the One-State Solution

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Inspired in part by the South African Freedom Charter [1] and the Belfast Agreement [2], the much humbler One State Declaration, authored by a group of Palestinian, Israeli and international academics and activists, affirms that "The historic land of Palestine belongs to all who live in it and to those who were expelled or exiled from it since 1948, regardless of religion, ethnicity, national origin or current citizenship status." It envisages a system of government founded on "th ...

Palestine: A Case for the One-State Solution

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0100

It is precisely this basic insistence on equality that is perceived by Zionists as an existential threat to Israel, undermining its inherently discriminatory foundations which privilege its Jewish citizens over all others. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was refreshingly frank when he recently admitted that Israel was "finished" if it faced a struggle for equal rights by Palestinians. [3] But whereas transforming a regime of institutionalized racism, or apartheid, into a democracy was view ...

Venezuela, Cuba, Latin American Integration An Interview With Ali Rodriguez

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0100

"Venezuela has a stable market for its oil sales," he said. "The media is talking about mercantile ideas, that we should take advantage of having that wealth and impose conditions on those who are thirsty for energy, no matter the fate of those peoples. That mentality is what jost contributes to the division of Latin America into small portions, much easier to dominate by the national oligarchies and by the big international oligarchy. Therefore, it is a confrontation of principle ...

New Year's Messages From the Cuban Five

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Message from RamonDear Brothers and Sisters of the World:As the Christmas and New Year 2008 celebrations approach, we want to send you our congratulations together with all the appreciation and affection, for supporting us in this cause that unites us: solidarity with Cuba and freedom for the Five. For these days one makes an assessment of what was accomplished and what is to be done. This is why, in remembering all the actions that were carried out in 2007 in order to gain more solidarity ...

CPV on Referendum Results

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Figueroa stated that the results and experiences of the Venezuelan people in recent days must lead to conclusions that strengthen the Venezuelan revolutionary process. He explained that "that which was lived through yesterday is a new episode in the class struggle, the intense ideological combat developing in our country about its transformation, the advance of the revolution, and the interests of our people." He added that "the revolution has lost a battle, but not the war agains ...

Fear of Chavez is Fear of Democracy

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Typical was the mouth-breathing editorial by the San Francisco Chronicle, that the referendum could make Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's President, a constitutional dictator for life. And no less a freedom fighter than Donald Rumsfeld, from the height of the Washington Post, said that by voting, Venezuela was receding into dictatorship. Oh, my!Given that Chavez referendum was defeated at the ballot box, we now know that, as a dictator, Chavez is a flop. Of course, without meaning to gainsay Secretary R ...

Peace is the Priority

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 01:00:00 +0100

"And, because the left stopped shouting at each other for a while, we were able to talk to the millions of British people who do not believe that they are on the left but wanted to march alongside us — for the first time in a generation."That history cannot be rewritten. It is important that everybody involved on all sides of the dispute in Respect says that the present controversies should not affect the anti-war movement. "I know that we all mean that sincerely. But, ...

Posada Hearing on Capitol Hill

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Fleetwood, who still holds a recording from the time of the testimony, which was published in the magazine New Times, had already agreed to give evidence as had been asked of him by lawyer Jo Ellen Ardinger, who was responsible for the case at that time. "In 1977 I interviewed two of the jost deadly terrorists of the 20th century,"begins Fleetwood, relating how he had access, tape recorder in hand, to Posada and Bosch, in the Venezuelan jail where they were being held for the previous ...

On the UN Vote against the US Blockade of Cuba

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 00:00:00 +0100

"The CPUSA notes that for 16 years U.S. depredations against Cuban sovereignty and national independence have been condemned by progressively increasing majorities of nations in the UN General Assembly. This year, the largest ever total of nations, 184 in all, joined Cuba's appeal for fairness and common decency on the part of the United States government."The CPUSA extends its recognition of the heroic determination of a unified Cuban people to resist unjust policies whose c ...

On the Ninetieth Anniversary of Great October

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100

The October Revolution was one of the rare, truly liberating social upheavals in human history. It made a sharp break with thousands of years of class-divided, exploitative societies, pointing the way for the international working class's liberation from the chains of imperialism, the highest and final stage of capitalism.Under the slogan "Peace, Land, Bread" and with the support of the overwhelming majority of the working class and poor peasantry, the Russian Social Democratic Labor P ...

On Political Organization

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100

The final question of all our theoretical debates has to be that of being politically organized. We don’t aim to sit together as in a seminar, determine the historical situation of the world, and say: "Now we know how things are." It’s a manual for our political actions we aim to get. We stick with the thesis of the unity of theory and practice.What are the practical consequences of our analysis of the world situation for the communist and socialist movement? Hans Luft talk ...

Nicholas Guill?n, Cuban Poet

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 13:28:53 +0100

Review: People vs. Profits

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0100

State-Monopoly Capitalism Today

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0100

As a scientific theory, we must hold SMC to high standards of validity: most importantly its power to predict the direction of the capitalist economy. Writing in 1981, a consensus of Soviet political economists wrote the following about SMC for a dictionary entry: “Some of the key elements of the merger of monopolies and the state are as follows: “personal union between finance capital and government institutions; bribing of government officials; activities of bourgeois parties, whic ...

The Legacy of Oppression and the Legitimacy of Resistance

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0100

A Blood Pressure Lowering Guide to the Democratic Party

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0100

The Iraqi Resistance is Just and Should be Supported

Sat, 11 Aug 2007 02:00:00 +0100

Some weeks ago Alexander Cockburn wrote of the need for the U.S. antiwar movement to openly support the resistance ("Support their troops?," CounterPunch). In her reply, "Why the Anti — War Movement Doesn't Embrace the Iraqi Resistance", Bennis correctly argues that the basis of unity in the movement should not be "Victory to the resistance", but the demand "Troops out now". But Bennis goes further and argues that anti — imperialists ...

Cuban Official Nixes Russian and Chinese Reforms

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Since Cuban leader Fidel Castro took ill over a year ago many foreign observers have speculated that his younger brother and stand-in as acting president, Defense Minister Raul Castro, favored the Chinese model of market socialism. Raul Castro has fostered an unprecedented debate within the Communist Party over how to improve economic performance, but has yet to launch any major changes in one of the world's jost centralized economies, which is 90 percent state-owned.Many Cuba experts ...

Faux Marxism

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:00:00 +0100

To begin, we would hope that all would agree that the political scene would be improved with Bush and Cheney’s exit, provided that the exit would not in any way strengthen their allies. But we must ask if there are any political elements that would benefit from Bush and Cheney remaining to complete their term. Outside of a shrinking minority of hard-core Bushites, the only possible beneficiary would be opportunistic Democrats who might see their prospects for victory in the 2008 ...

From Revisionism to Party Liquidation

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Lately there have appeared: The Nature, Role, and Work of the Communist Party,[4] drafts of which have been circulating since late 2006 and New Times Require Fresh Politics and Flexible Tactics,[5] a euphoric March 24 Report to the National Committee, after the March 23 vote in the US House of Representatives on the Supplemental war spending bill. The Report proclaimed the House vote a great victory. Then came Tactics Needed to End This War,[6] an article which appeared in the People ...

Progress, Achievements and Important Struggles in Uruguay

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0100

A FREE TRADE AGREEMENT WITH THE UNITED STATES WOULD HAVE A BIG EFFECT ON OUR COUNTRY, SAYS EDUARDO LORIER.Nevertheless, Lorier noted that the Uruguayan government's performance is still burdened by the debate between those who seek to keep in place the economic policies inherited from past administrations and those who want to change that economic model. "[This process] is ultimately taking its toll on the pace of the country's insertion into the leading regional group of [nations] that are ...

Guernica, More Than Ever!

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 13:18:20 +0100

The history written in blood some 70 years ago was destined to be repeatedwith the passage of time. In the Basque town of Guernica there were no garrisons or weapons stash; not even a communications center. There were only slingshots with which children hunted birds and spiders when they left school. But the plan for the Second World War was already hatched in the mind of a maniac who needed to test the new German Junker Luftwaffe planes.Carpet bombing is the term in military jargon fo ...

Review: Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939?1953

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Reviving the EU Constitution: The "Berlin Declaration"

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:00:00 +0100

The foundation has recently presented a draft paper to senior politicians from twenty EU countries and the United States on the "strategic reorientation" of the European Union, in which it recommends, as a first step, that the national armed forces of all member-states be combined into a single EU army. The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has taken up this suggestion and has warned against opposing integration, saying that "the ideal of European unification is today again a matt ...

The Fight for Socialism is Real Because Capitalism Has Decayed

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Instability and Uncertainty "The world is living a moment characterized mainly by instability and uncertainty. The latest stock market losses we have seen in the news demonstrate it clearly. One by one, investors have been panicking over loosing their investments' profits. First, there was an attempt to put out the fire by saying it was all about a "Chinese Crisis", once the first manifestation of such wave happened in Shanghai's stock market. Not long after, it was figured t ...

Fidel Talks with Ch?vez on "Al? Presidente"

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Hugo Chávez — [In English] How are you, Fidel?Fidel Castro — [In English] Very well (Laughter).Hugo Chávez — So, you have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice and to know that you are well.Fidel Castro — Thank you very much.Hugo Chávez — Here's a hug. We are very surprised, pleasantly surprised, and we were talking about you — like we aljost always do — a little while ago.Fidel Castro — I knew that I would end up on " ...

Working Group of the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0100

As it is well established, the meetings of the Working Group are open to all parties that take part in the International Meetings of Communist and Workers' Parties. The meeting was attended by the CP of Argentina, WP of Belgium, CP of Bolivia, CP of Brazil, Party of the Bulgarian Communists, CP of Cuba, AKEL-Cyprus, CP of Bohemia-Moravia, Unified CP of Georgia, CP of Greece, Party of the Italian Communists, Lebanese CP, Party of the Communists, Mexico, Portuguese CP, New CP of Yugoslavia, South ...

A Murderer and Terrorist: U.S. Avoids Trying Posada

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0100

The U.S. government should have filed charges with Judge Philip Martinez of El Paso, Texas, before February 1 to prevent the court from accepting a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by the notorious terrorist's lawyer, which — if successful — would have led to his release. It was to be expected, therefore, that prior to February 1, the U.S. government would bring charges of terrorism against Luis Posada Carriles, something for which — as the aforementioned MINREX state ...

A Guide to Becoming an Ex-Leftist

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0100

These are not isolated cases, since the private media is full of reformed or simply converted one-time leftist who spend their lives saying that they are not what they used to be, purging themselves in the eyes of the upper-class owners for their youthful transgressions. It is essential for them to refer to the saying "20 and not a radical — no guts; 40 and still a radical — no brains." Or, they can allude to the expression "going from being an arsonist at 20 to a ...

Review: The Twilight of American Culture

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0100

One Hundred Hours with Fidel (selections)

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0100

From the Cuban Revolution a custom was established, that the chiefs were "comandantes." That is the grade that I came with in the Granma (yacht). As I was the chief of a small Rebel Army and in the Sierra we had to assume a military organization, we couldn't say "general secretary of the guerrilla column." Thus I acquired the description of "Comandante en Jefe." Comandante was the jost modest grade in the traditional army and had one advantage: that 'in chief' could ...

Stop Violation of Human Rights

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0100

WFDY expresses its serious condemnation about the imperialist plans of the occupying forces led by USA to increase the exploitation, division and the religious conflict between the Iraqi people. The execution that took place during saint days of Islamic people cannot be tolerated.WFDY always condemned the Sadam Hussein regime for the actions against the human rights in Iraq, and we condemn as well all human right violations against the Iraqi people perpetuated by the occupation forces with compl ...

Statement of the World Peace Council on the Execution of Saddam Hussein

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0100

The International Labor and Trade Union Movement in the 21st Century

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0100

On the Right to the Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The recent agreement forbidding a sovereign and independent state to go ahead with its plans to develop a capacity to use nuclear energy for peaceful objectives is simply a confirmation of this assertion.Never mind the fact that experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have corroborated the peaceful aim of Iranian nuclear project, evidently the purpose is to force a country with large oil resources to consume it instead of keeping it as a reserve. Times will come when those wh ...

The 4th Plenary Meeting of the CC of the CP of Venezuela (PCV)

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0100

PUBLIC STATEMENTThe Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV), assembled in Caracas on December 21st, 2006, has held a broad, deep and enlightening discussion on the proposal by President Hugo Chávez Frías, supreme leader of the Bolivarian Revolutionary process, regarding the construction of the Socialist Unified Party of Venezuela (PSUV).1. In this regard, the Central Committee of PCV ratifies its steady and unyielding historical com ...

A Vast Struggle Line against USA Plans

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0100

A lot of participants representing different groups both from Lebanon and other countries are taking part in international Conference in Support of Lebanese Resistance. Democrats, socialists, communists and some Islamic organisations including conveners are coming together around a common platform. How do you appraise this situation as one of the promoters of the conference? International Conference in Support of Lebanese Resistance was realised together with Hezbollah, Lebanese Communist P ...

Review: The Question

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Parliamentary Delegation from Lebanon Visited Greece

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The Lebanese guests meet on December 10 with a KKE delegation headed by A.Papariga and attended the event organized by the CC honoring the fighters of the Democratic Army of Greece on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the civil war 1946-1949.After the meeting Mr. Ali Bazzi stressed:"We had the honor to meet the General Secretary of KKE and to convey the greetings of the President of the Lebanese Parliament. We had the opportunity to meet Mrs. Papariga in Beyruth in July this year, dur ...

Anniversary of the Landing of "Granma"

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Another reason why we are gathered here today is to celebrate the anniversary of a momentous event in our history. We are here to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the landing of the Granma yacht on December 2, 1956, a date which marks the birth of the Rebel Army and of its true successors: the Revolutionary Armed Forces.It is to the combatant people, heroic protagonist and legitimate pillar of the Armed Forces, and to their founder and Commander-in-Chief that this Military Parade is dedicated ...

Fidel: Impetuous, Unstoppable, and Victorious

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Carlos Lage assured that when the day comes that Fidel is no longer with us, his life’s work, ideas and example will be ever present. “We know that such a commitment is the best present that those of us that admire and love him can give him today. In Cuba there won’t be succession, their will be continuity.”Lage said there will not be another Fidel and that nobody will try to imitate him. “Many of us will follow him. There won’t be ambitions, egotism or vanity ...

Statement on the NATO Summit in Riga

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Choosing Riga, NATO rewards once again the jost reactionary, revanchist, anticommunist and chauvinist forces. Rewards all these which try to slander, distort and rewrite the history of the antifascist victory of peoples, of the popular struggle for democracy and social rights for all.On the agenda of the Riga summit will not be the crimes of the occupation forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Balkans, not the genocide exercised by the Israeli army against the Palestinian and Lebanese people, not the ...

International Solidarity Resolution

Wed, 22 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0100

2.Promotion of international relations based on peace, social justice and economic development through support for a strengthened democratised UN and opposition to the imposition of a 'new world order' through the armed aggression and economic expansionism of US imperialism.3.The US imperialist aggression and occupation has brought untold suffering to the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq. Our party will continue to work in the international struggle against those occupations and for the immediate ...

Interview with Ricardo Alarcon

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0100

From the left and right of the ideological spectrum came pressures in favor of various hypotheses and prejudices: Which will prevail? The people who support the revolution or the accidents of providence?Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada (Havana, 1937) was not among the 82 members of the Granma expedition, but was among the July 26 Movement youths who supported them.A former Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, foreign minister, and president of the National Assembly of People's Power, Alarcón ...

Contribution of the CP of Chile

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The contrast between the formidable possibilities to satisfy human needs generated by the development of the capacities of humankind and the waste of material resources, lives and intelligence is the dramatic paradox of this era. Such accumulated capacities would enable the resolution of the jost severe global problems: hunger, extreme misery, massive unemployment, illiteracy and the insecurity of life on the planet. However, within the framework of neoliberal globalization imposed under imperia ...

Statement in Solidarity with Palestine and Lebanon

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0100

We greet the fight and resistance of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation and aggressiveness.We salute the heroic resistance and struggle of the Lebanese people and the contribution and sacrifices made by the Lebanese Communist Party defending the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon. The fact that the Israeli government and its allies were not able to achieve their goals in Lebanon shows the real possibilities, which the people’s resistance movem ...

For a People's Alternative

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The congress was the culmination of six months of discussion and debate in branches around the country. Individual members not connected to a branch structure also had the opportunity to put forward amendments to the draft political resolution.The political resolution was the main document before the congress for debate and adoption. The resolution covers a number of areas: the international situation, developments within the peace process and the Belfast Agreement, assessing the situation in th ...

Alarcon Discusses Cuba, Fidel, Latin America with Spanish Press

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Is this your first visit to Oviedo. What brings you here?These kinds of meetings are very important. Firstly, because of the human contact that cannot be replaced by the internet or cell phone. Secondly, the discussion of ideas is very important, the debate that takes place in the quest for new common roads. I think it is a big mistake to believe that what can be attained in the theoretical plane does not have a practical use. The world is changing, and to a good extent, that change stems from t ...

In Solidarity With KSM

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

This is part of a long-running campaign of anti-Communism in Europe and the United States. The deplorable attempts to introduce the anti-Communist bill into the European parliament, the disturbing-to say the least-speech made by the American vice-president linking Communism and fascism and the speeches made by U.S. President Bush declaring that extremist religious terrorists are somehow today the successors to the "failed Communist ideology of the 20th century," we see signs of that ca ...

First Steps of Workers' Movement in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Destruction of Yugoslavia and of socialist values caused great disappointment and disorientation among workers. Soon after formal dissolution of communist regime, civil war began and workers were involved in national armies. They were enclosed by nationalist sentiments. Everything that was happening in the country not only during the war but also after it to the very present moment strongly influenced working class in negative sense so it is not capable of playing any independent role in social ...

On the Illegalization of the Communist Youth Union of the Czech Republic

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Following a process begun in December 2005, in which the Czech Ministry of Interior used as arguments the restriction of political activity solely to political parties or the fact that the Communist Youth Union of the Czech Republic had Marxism-Leninism as its ideological foundation — and following an international wave of solidarity against the attempt of illegalization of KSM — the argument now put forward is a demonstration of the anti-democratic and fascistic character of this me ...

Statement Condemning the Prohibition of the Communist Youth Union of Czech Republic (KSM)

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The Ministry of Interior had sent to KSM a warning and precept, in which it:1. Impugns the status of the KSM as a civic association under pretext that the goals of KSM´s activity interfere with an area restricted to activities of political parties that is, according to the interpretation of the Home Office of the Czech Republic, excluded from the intervention of civic associations. Nevertheless the KSM does not differ in this area from the field of action of other youth political organizat ...

KSM is Illegalized! Anticommunist Decision of Czech Government

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Letter to Embassy of Czech Republic

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

For the Freedom of the Five and of Solidarity with Cuba

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

This situation is so scandalous that the United Nations Task Group on arbitrary detentions considered illegal the trial of the five and demanded their release and even the Appeals Court of the 11th Atlanta Circuit unanimously decided, in May 2005, to overturn the trial. That is why it is necessary to insist in denouncing the atjosphere of arbitrariness, coercion and blackmail that has characterized this case. These past eight years are stained by illegality, unacceptable punishments and dis ...

About The Latest Armenian Genocide Law Adopted In France

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Turkey has been discussing the Armenian genocide law attempt in France for days. Numerous actors of the system are bringing suggestions about the necessary reactions against France. French imperialists on one hand, and the Turkish nationalists on the other hand, are turning the situation into a deadlock. And then there are the other imperialists, who intervene in the role of the "good cop"....The first truth to be said about the Armenian question is that the subject shall be freed from ...

True Humanism

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

And he laughs and aljost excuses himself, and, later, seriously we commented on the last editorial news. "He is resting in Spain, the first edition and aljost the second. We move on to the third which will be the one Cuban readers will have", he comments. English, Portuguese and French versions sell out in the bookstores while preparing contracts in other languages. Ramonet just came from Japan where he signed an agreement for the translation and publication of the book in that cou ...

PCdoB Achieves Positive Results in the Elections

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Along with those elections, the first round in the presidential and state government elections were also held. The presidential and 10 state government elections will be concluded with the runoff, to take place on October 29.That was the first time that communists took part in an electoral process as a party supporting the federal government, headed by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is running for reelection. The struggle to elect communist candidates for the Senate, the House of Represen ...

PCdoB's Guidelines for the Runoff Elections

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

2. The battle in the runoff must put all the popular, democratic and patriotic forces in a state of alert and fully mobilized. Our victory depends on their twofold and energetic efforts. This is not a time for neglectful, neutral or routine attitudes. The future of Brazil and Latin America itself is at stake. The coup-mongerers dream of a neoliberal counterblow in order to retake the FTAA negotiations and bury once and for all Latin-American integration; to launch a new privatization round; to r ...

Renato Rabelo: "Runoff demands concentrated energies"

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

How do you analyze the partial results of the presidential elections, according to which President Lula has aljost 50% of the votes now (49.79%), thus leading to a runoff?Renato Rabelo: First of all, it is necessary to highlight President Lula's strength. In face of such a violent attack, none of the other candidates would have that expressive voting. Since last year, right-wing opposition and the media develop an intense campaign to wear out and knock down the present government. Pres ...

What We Are Today, What We Will Be Tomorrow

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The event, which would have huge national repercussion within hours, closed a stage of consolidation of the political vanguard in its exercise of the revolutionary power.Four years earlier, in April 1961, when an armed mercenary brigade, backed and financed by the US government, invaded the island with the aim of reinstating neocolonial dependence and the exploitative regime that had prevailed until the very last day of 1958, Cubans stood up to and repelled the enemy aggression, defeating it in ...

Transition to Socialism

Sun, 01 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Without doubt, the "second wave" of socialism — the socialism of the 21st Century — will distinguish itself from the "first wave" of socialist construction during the last century insofar as the revolutionary forces today have the benefit of analysing and learning from those previous experiences — both their achievements and their failures and distortions — and in this sense we can confidently predict that the "new socialism" will be better, ...

Answers to the Questions Raised by Solidaire* about Lebanon

Mon, 25 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The differences between the two UNIFIL are notably:— First of all, the reinforced presence of troops belonging to member states of NATO and, therefore, placed indirectly under U.S. command. And even if the States to which these troops belong are great powers, they nevertheless on several occasions have yielded to the U.S. administration regarding the manner of solving conflicts militarily, especially in the Middle East where the experience of Iraq is still an open wound.— Then, certa ...

Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The letter was organized in response to the Palestinian call for an academic and cultural boycott. The ongoing Israeli occupation has meant that educational establishments are closed off for many Palestinians. The checkpoints, closures and curfews Israel has imposed, as well as the ongoing harassment of academics and students, have played havoc with university life. In addition, military attacks on universities and schools and the occupation of many schools by Israeli soldiers have turned educat ...

Building Working Class Power: for Accelerated Implementation of the Freedom Charter

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0100

1. Defend and deepen the proletarian character of the trade union movementOur theory, strategy, tactics and, above all, our practical experience in 85 years of struggle, tell us that the leading motive force of the national democratic revolution has to be the working class, in alliance with the great mass of urban and rural poor. But what is the actual reality on the ground at the present time?The reality is that much as South Africa's working class remains fairly strong and an important layer o ...

Statement of Solidarity with the 5 Cuban Patriots and the Cuban People

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Especially we condemn the measures by the "Commission for Assistance to a free Cuba" on the "urgency of working to ensure that the Castro regimen's succession strategy does not succeed" as well as the statement by the US President that US "are actively working for change in Cuba, not simply waiting for change".For all of us and our peoples hardly experienced already with the tragically consequences of the US and NATO bombings against Yugoslavia, with the continuous ...

Jer?nimo de Sousa at the Closing Rally of the "Avante!" Festival

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0100

On the national political scene, the General Secretary of the PCP underlined the coincidence, on essential matters, between the objectives and the policies of the PS [Socialist Party] and the previous PSD/CDS-PP [Social Democratic Party/Popular Party], and warned about the worrisome intentions to intensify and broaden the offensive of social and political regression undertaken by the present PS government, stressing the fact that this global offensive aims to adulterate the fundamental character ...

Israel, Oil and the Demolition of Lebanon

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0100

By bombing the highways and main bridges into Beirut, Israel has cut off the capital from the outside world and put the entire nation under siege. Israel can now execute its plan to pummel Lebanon into rubble without the threat of foreign intervention.The north has been effectively severed from the south allowing the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) to continue its ethnic cleansing operations as well as its search-and-destroy missions for Hezbollah fighters. They have meticulously destroyed all the m ...

The Sabra and Shatila Massacre and the Dark Corners of History

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 14:31:35 +0100

The Lebanese Resistance

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The form of the “new Middle East” that the United States wants has begun to take shape, particularly since the Iraq war and the blockade of Ghaza. It is a Middle East based on the abrogation of the Sykes-Picot agreement—not in order to replace it with greater co-operation, cohesion and unity, of course, but with fragmentation. They want to transform this region by creating feuding sectarian entities, the strongest of which would be the Zionist entity, which is fundamentally bas ...

Time To Change Course

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Contrary to the claims of Western propaganda and its Russian underlings to the effect that the USSR was one of the main sources of tensions in the world, the international situation has deteriorated in the years since the perfidious destruction of the USSR. The imperialist world as represented by the Western countries and Japan, is sinking into a crisis. Capitalist production in the foreseeable future will exhaust natural resources and bring about a global ecological catastrophe. The world is he ...

The Israeli Aggression and its Consequences

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:00:00 +0100

II. The Attacks were previously planned and the kidnapping of the two soldiers was an excuse:Out of what has been published in the United States of America and other places (in Israel too) about the early planning of the American-Israeli aggression on Lebanon, there is a kind of consensus that the Israeli retaliation toward "Hezbollah" operation in 12 July, in which two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and about 8 were wounded, went far beyond the operation itself. It is out of argument ...

Notes on the Greek Civil War (1946-1949)

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The position of the memorial is itself highly symbolic, placed as it is on a former machine gun post of the Democratic Army within a range of mountains where the jost ferocious battles of the civil war were waged in 1948 and 1949. In its statement to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the CC of the KKE noted that the civil war was the “The sharpest period of class struggle in Greece during the 20th century” the struggle for peoples democracy against the corrupt monarcho-fascist ruli ...

Israel is Defeated and Crisis Remains in the Middle East

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The demand that the Lebanese people's holocaust came to an end was an outcry of all humanity. The death of over a thousand civilians, the mass escapes of about one million people, the destruction of hospitals and schools, which constituted the painful daily life of Lebanon during over a month, will be indelibly marked in history as signs of a time in which the aggression war was chosen as the method by which the powerful impose their will on more vulnerable nations.Measures adopted in political ...

Meeting of CP's the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean, the Gulf Region and the Red Sea

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Secondly it gives us the opportunity to discuss and exchange views about the situation and more importantly to take action and coordinate our activity on the political-ideological level as well as practically in terms of solidarity actions, joint initiatives, which on the one hand will expose the imperialist organizations and operations, the decisions and measures they take against the peoples, movements and governments who do not fall in line with their plans. And on the other hand communists a ...

Statement from Cuba's Parliament on Cuban Five Case

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The decision makes evident once again the political nature of the trial and the unjust measures adopted, the arbitrary behavior of the United States government, the violation of the US Constitution and laws, and a breach of the jost basic standards of law and specifically of Human Rights.The magistrates of the panel, whose professional experience adds to more than 80 years, stated in a 93-page decision that "forming an (impartial) jury in this community (Miami) was less than probable due to ...

"No Enemy Can Defeat Us"

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Comrade Raúl, our people joyfully received the message and photographs of the Comandante en Jefe published in the press and the subsequent television report of the encounter with president Chávez. Nevertheless, taking advantage of this opportunity, it would be greatly appreciated by millions of people who have attentively followed information on the state of health of compañero Fidel, to hear your personal assessment, as someone always so united to him.Without any doubt, wha ...

The Long March of Justice

Sun, 13 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

They have also been eight years of blameworthy silence on the part of the main media that has diligently followed the order to conceal the truth. They have done so without blinking knowing that in this way they will facilitate the cruel and unjustifiable treatment of five innocent men and the impunity of the assassins and their sponsors.During this long period the U.S. public has only been allowed to know minor details of this issue, and information available to those living in other allegedly d ...

On the UN Resolution

Sat, 12 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

After attacks and retreats in every village in the south, after which the enemy claimed to have won some sort of victory or achieved some goal, the dust has cleared and it is obvious that the field is truly in the hands of the Islamic resistance that is defending, resisting, and inflicting losses and military casualties on the occupying enemy. This reality has exhausted America's excuses, its store of delaying tactics and its time. What has been taking place on the field of battle has resulted i ...

Labor and the Middle East War

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 01:00:00 +0100

Assessment of the Latest Developments

Fri, 11 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

All such attempts collide with the intransigence of America and Israel as they cling fast to their conditions and refuse to make any concessions. This is accompanied by military operations and Israeli military attacks that penetrate Lebanese territory, bombardments that kill civilians, and the killing and displacement of the largest possible number of residents in an attempt to put pressure on Lebanon from the inside by exacerbating the refugee crisis and preventing any means of providing for th ...

The Lebanese Communist Party Mourns its 7 Heroes

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The Lebanese Communist Party, through the course of implementing what was mentioned in the appeal that was sent to the comrades and friends, stressing the need to resist and face the Israeli attack — along with the inhabitants of the cities and villages, as well as the resistance men, announces to the Lebanese two of our comrades were martyred: Ahmad Salim Najdi, Mohammad Ali Najdi, were killed when they were performing their national duty in Srifa village.Here is part of their biographies ...

The Danger of Mistaking the Aggressor for the Victim

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

In the meanwhile, Israeli air force keeps on intensely bombing Lebanon, its capital Beirut and its surroundings. In four weeks of an unequal war, the Israeli criminals already provoked a holocaust. Lebanon is on fire and under ruins — over a thousand dead, the civil population is being massacred, its infrastructure is destroyed, about 1 million people fled the country and damages to the country's economy sum up to 2 billion dollars.A realistic evaluation makes one doubt the efficacy and ju ...

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: To Remember the Nuclear Crime

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

August 9, 11.02 AM. After over flying the primary objective — Kokura — saved by the clouds that did not allow a correct visualization of the target and the observation and the shooting of a film on the effects of the atomic weapon — a B29 Super Fortress accompanied by two airplanes whose mission was to record and film its effects launched on Nagasaki, a 6.4 Kg plutonium-239 bomb, Fat Man, causing the immediate death of 40.000 people and in the following days that of at least 80 ...

The Sovereignty of Cuba Must Be Respected

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Already the "Commission for Assistance to a free Cuba", presided over by the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, pointed out in a report issued on June "the urgency of working today to ensure that the Castro regimen's succession strategy does not succeed" and President Bush indicated that this document "demonstrates that we are actively working for change in Cuba, not simply waiting for change". The Department of State has emphasized that the plan includes measures ...

KSCM Launches Campaign against U.S. Anti-Missile Base in the Czech Republic

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The Communists want to use traditional summer nationwide events where people will have chance to sign the petition and discuss the issue with KSCM politicians. Within the campaign, the KSCM has also issued leaflets and postcards addressed to constitutional officials."The KSCM will support all events against military bases no matter who organises them," Horeni said.In their petition, the Communists also demand that information on the current course of negotiations with the USA on statio ...

No Lasting Solution without Justice for Palestine

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

This war would not have started without the say-so of the US government; equally, it will end when US imperialism agrees to end it, either when it is defeated or it secures its interests in the region. To accept that the kidnapping of two soldiers is the reason is like believing that the First World War was caused by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.Israel has destroyed aljost the entire infrastructure of Lebanon, from roads and bridges to hospitals, airports, factories, ...

Proclamation of Cuban President Fidel Castro to the People of Cuba

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

1. I temporarily delegate my responsibilities as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party to Second Secretary Compañero Raúl Castro Ruz.2. I temporarily delegate my responsibilities as Commander in Chief of the heroic Revolutionary Armed Forces to the aforementioned Compañero, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz.3. I temporarily delegate my responsibilities as President of the Council of State and the Government of the Republic of Cuba, to the Fi ...

On the Situation in the Middle East

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

2. (...) We are receiving witness accounts and accusations of the use of non-conventional weapons like white phosphorous and laser arms and of indiscriminate attacks on civilians, including refugee columns, which, if confirmed, cannot go unpunished.3. As a result of this escalade of Israeli violence — which has the connivance and support of the USA and the European Union — the situation in the already explosive Middle East is today one of the jost tense and dangerous of the last deca ...

Appeal for Resisting the Zionist Occupier and Defending our Land, and People

Sat, 29 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

This savage raging storm that took as its pretext the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers has exceeded all possible responses in such circumstances as it seeks to wreak vengeance on Lebanon and its people in an attempt to inflict the greatest possible harm to Lebanon under the heading of destroying the military and command structure of Hezbollah with the jost intensely destructive and deadly weapons and with the jost cowardly and barbaric means. The United States has revealed itself as a vicious ...

"Multinational Force" of the United States will Lead to Another War in Lebanon

Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The representative of US imperialism, Condoleezza Rice, has made clear on which side she is on, reiterating the United States' invariable support to Israel. She also declared to her interlocutors and to the world that the United States opposes the ceasefire, unless the Lebanese national resistance forces are finished off, even at the expense of destroying Lebanon. When the head of the United States' Department of State affirms that "ceasefire cannot lead to the previous state of things" ...

Rage Against Israel, Warning To AKP Government

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Our party, since the beginning of Israeli attack against Lebanon, started activities at everywhere it is organized, to explain the policies of US imperialism and Israeli zionism, and also to organize a strong protest. Hundreds of thousands of announcements were distributed, posters and placards were used. In factories, workplaces and other places, verbal explanations and discussions were made. Thus, not only party members but also many labourers who are against US and Israeli persecution attende ...

Hands Off Lebanon

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

A worldwide solidarity campaign against the barbaric Israeli assault is calling for an end to the lunatic war machine in no avail. Israel has been fully backed by the US Administration in order to impose the so called "New Middle East". Thus, the true cause of the assault has been disclosed as not a reaction to the kidnapping of two soldiers, but as a means to implement a designed plan to re-dominate the whole area and give Israel an upper hand through the Lebanese gate.Developments ha ...

Worldwide Protests against Israel's War

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 23:00:00 +0100

A large demonstration of between twenty and thirty thousand took place in Sydney with smaller rallies and marches in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.So far the UN Security Council has failed to act, being paralysed by the outright support of the United States and Britain for the Israeli aggression. To save face the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan criticised both sides, limiting his remarks about the Israeli aggression by saying that the Israelis were using "excessive force".The US is ...

The Solution of Middle West Crisis Demands the End of Bombing

Tue, 25 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

US imperialism is formulating, together other alchemists of the super-new world order they intend impose to nations and peoples, that they denominate as "lasting solution" to the Middle East crisis. Tomorrow in Rome they is going to do a test during the called Rome Conference which joins the Lebanon Group formed by France, United Kingdom, United States of America, Egypt and the World Bank. The Lebanese government has announced that will not be present in case of Israel be invited and i ...

The Latest Crime of Imperialism

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

As I write these lines, the number of reported dead reached 362 Lebanese and 119 Palestinians, aljost all civilians, massacred by the enormous firepower of the Israeli army.The aggressors report 34 dead including 19 soldiers.The disproportion in the number of deaths is so shocking that the Western media have had no choice but to mention it, even though the US and European press have once again unanimously and efficiently shown their subordination to the interests of Washington.It is simply a cri ...

Stop?Zionist State?Terrorism!

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

As regards the aggression against Lebanon, even Israeli media reports indicate that the Sharon and Olmert regimes have prepared comprehensive plans to bomb Lebanon on the slightest provocation, which was conveniently provided by the Hezbollah raid. There is no doubt that the plan to attack Lebanon was coordinated with the Bush regime, which just a few months ago was able to manipulate a situation in Lebanon which forced the withdrawal of Syrian forces (which have served as the stabilizing factor ...

Solidarity with Palestinian and Lebanese People

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

We reject and condemn the blames and threats by the U.S. and Israeli government addressed toward Syria and Iran and against other countries of the region. These threats reveal that the real aggressive and expansive force in the region is Israel.We strongly protest the US policy which encourages the Israeli aggressiveness. We reject the hypocrisy shown by the G8 leaders and the "equal distance" policy pursued today by certain forces.We are highly concerned about and warn of the great da ...

The Fifth Day of the Aggression

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Since the start of the aggression, our party has defined its position and stance as being at the head of those opposing with all possible means the aggression and the expected invasion. This aggression is a part of the Zionist-American plan for the region and is furthermore an act of aggression undertaken with international permission and cover, in particular that of the United States of America, which is using the Security Council and the United Nations as tools with which to exert pressure and ...

Ottawa Must Condemn Israeli Aggression

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The re-occupation of Gaza; the menacing intrusion into Jordanian airspace; and now the full-scale attack by air, sea and land on Lebanon: all of these Israeli actions over the past two weeks are absolutely unjustified under international law. No state has the right to use force against another country without the agreement of the UN Security Council.The murder of innocent civilians and the wholesale destruction of bridges, utilities and other infrastructure are not just unwarranted provocations ...

The PCP and the Israeli Aggression against Lebanon

Thu, 13 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

2. In view of the impunity of the violent military actions perpetrated during the last days in Gaza and the West Bank against the Palestinian people, the Zionist government of Israel feels encouraged to continue and intensify, under the usual excuse, its terrorist policy with the aim of annihilating the Palestinian cause, annexing territories, imposing its hegemony in the region, in alliance with imperialism.It is necessary to put an immediate end to this criminal escalade which is causing innum ...

The Plan Bush for "Assistance to a Free Cuba":

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

• The return to their former owners of all properties, including all homes from which millions of families would be evicted, in less than one year and under the supervision and control of the U.S. government via the U.S. government Commission for the Return of Properties. • All aspects of the economy would be completely privatized including education and health services; all cooperatives would be dissolved and the old latifundia restored; social security and assistance would be el ...

Resolution of the CC of KKE on Aspects of the International Developments

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The factors which have come to prominence in this period in the international developments have their roots in the intensity of the struggle and contradictions between the leading imperialist powers for the division of spheres of influence, the control of energy sources and routes, as well as the control of the markets in the various regions of the world, jost crucially the region known as Eurasia. As Brezwinski outlined; "the total domination in Eurasia would be equivalent with world pre-e ...

Fidel Castro Says Communist Party Must Be Strengthened More Than Ever

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

In several interventions during the meeting, Fidel Castro, First Secretary of Cuba's Communist Party Central Committee, said the Revolution is committed to facing the serious challenges stemming from the complicated international situation and its own deficiencies.The president noted the decisive role that the Party must play in the current battle being waged by the nation and how it needs to be strengthened more than ever. The Secretariat is re-established, he said, at the time the Party needs ...

Unpublished Interview With Comrade William Kashtan

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Then the war broke out. The Party proposed that all the Party functionaries move around so that they would not be arrested. So I was asked to move to Hamilton. I was there for a year or so. Then I was asked to go to Toronto to become the Metro Party organizer. Then the Party was declared illegal. So I was sort of underground. After the war expanded when the fascists attacked the Soviet Union, the situation changed. We agreed to form the Labour Progressive Party, so we could undertake public acti ...

Stop the IDF crimes in Gaza and the West Bank!

Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0100

During the month of June, the Israeli Army (Tzahal) killed dozens Palestinians, including several children, and now is continuing these crimes by the occupation of large territories of the Gaza Strip with the excuse of releasing the kidnapped soldier. The CPI objects killing of Israeli and Palestinian civilians alike. CPI calls upon all peace seekers, Jews and Arabs, to denounce the crimes of occupation and to demand the immediate pullout of Tzahal from all parts of the Gaza Strip. CPI ...

On the Significance of the Seventh Left Front Government

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0100

In the recent past, a series of coalition governments have sprung up at the level of the states and the centre. Many of these governments, particularly those of ruling parties, for all purposes are the product of an electoral coalition of opportunism, and are anti-people.Not being motivated by a declared principle of serving the people in general, these governments frequently suffer from shifting partners, giving birth to newer sets of coalitions, equally opportunistic as the predecessors they w ...

Imperialism is Not Invincible!

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:00:00 +0100

You probably know that the Communist Party of Greece has gone through "fire and steel" over the course of its lengthy history, from the time it was founded, in November 1918; it has experienced situations far more difficult than today's. Tens of thousands of Greek communists unyieldingly withstood torture, imprisonment, and exile, stood before the firing squad defending their ideas. I say this, not to distinguish our party from the other revolutionary parties and organizations of the w ...

Conflicting Scenarios

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The PCdoB’s 11th Congress, held very recently (last October), already called attention to the gravity of problems presented by the structural unbalances of the United States’ economy, by the gigantic dimensions of the twin deficits, and by its resulting indebtedness. It is clear that, in the presence of such factors, the volatility and instability will constitute the defining character of the economic situation and that proposed “ways out” would consist in greater protect ...

The "AFL-CIA" ? Not Dead Yet

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Debates in Brazilian Preliminary Campaign

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The exploitation of such episode by the conservative media and by the reactionary forces of Brazilian society, which intoxicated the public opinion with aggressive and chauvinistic appeals, revealed how right is the Leninist thesis according to which nationalism under the bourgeois hegemony, when successful, turns into imperialism. It also showed the deadlocks of a political conception and conduct according to which the possibilities of Brazil being inserted in the world with success is bonded t ...

Review: Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Failed Solidarity: The ICFTU, AFL-CIO, ILO, and ORIT in Haiti

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Arrogance of an Empire

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The election entailed a demanding assessment. Each one got what they deserved. Cuba was rewarded and the United States was punished. Each one had its history and the voting countries were well aware of it.The African countries recalled that over 2,000 Cuban fighters had shed their generous blood in the struggle against the outrageous Apartheid regime, which the United States supported and furnished with weapons, even nuclear ones.The election for Cuba came at a moment in which nearly 30,000 Cuba ...

On The Threats Caused By Terrorism

Tue, 30 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

With full impunity, in Miami and other cities of that country, funds to carry out terrorist actions are provided and collected; the bank accounts that finance terrorism are openly and regularly operated, terrorist are recruited, purchase of weapons and use of the territory are allowed to those who finance, mastermind and commit terrorist acts against Cuba.Instead of preventing and punishing terrorism against Cuba, the US authorities hold Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Fernando Gonzale ...

Working Group Statement

Mon, 29 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The Working Group, having analysed several issues relative to the preparation of the next International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, decided that the meeting will be held in the region of Lisbon, Portugal, on November 10, 11, and 12, 2006, hosted by the Portuguese Communist Party.The Working Group, having considered a broad set of suggestions made by the participating Parties, and others that were unable to be present but who sent their opinions to the Working Group, decided that t ...

Montenegro's Independence "Vote" is a Foul Play

Tue, 23 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

We will therefore readily fall in with the Common State Bloc and reject the "vote" straightaway.Numerous irrefutable facts prove that the secession of Montenegro had been brokered by the Djukanovic's separatists, the leaders of the European Union and the United States.Evidence of this is manifest first of all in the efforts and measures taken by the government in Podgorica on the eve of and in the course of the "vote" with its western mentors helpfully standing by.Even the wo ...

We Do Not Accept the Imperialist Break-up of Serbia and Montenegro

Tue, 23 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The first phase of the final blow of western imperialism on the remnants of Yugoslavia was carried out on 4 February 2003, when the bourgeois pro-imperialist counter-revolutionary regimes in Belgrade and Podgorica resolved to terminate the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the second and final phase was executed this past Saturday in the referendum in Podgorica. Although the League of communist youth of Yugoslavia (SKOJ), as the youth movement of the new Communist Party of Yugoslavia (NKPJ), c ...

On the Nationalization of Hydrocarbon Resources of Bolivia

Tue, 23 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Sovereignty over natural resources is a constituent aspect of the concept of national independence. It involves a universal principle: each people has the legitimate and absolute right to decide, under sovereign conditions, what to do with the resources existing on its territory. These material resources should be put at the service of the economic, social and cultural development of the people who possess sovereign rights to this wealth. Historically, this has not been the experience in Bolivia ...

Communiqu? of the Executive Committee Meeting of the World Peace Council

Sat, 20 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The day before the EC meeting, an International Seminar hosted by CEBRAPAZ, took place at the House of Representatives of Brazil, in which dozens of Brazilian MPs and 20 foreign guests from 13 countries analyzed the world situation and the need to strengthen the struggle for peace against, war, occupation and imperialist domination. After a very fruitful and rich discussion upon the agenda of the EC and about the main tendencies in the current world situation, having taken into account the ...

Hands off Venezuela and Cuba

Sat, 20 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

We urge all of you to join us in demanding an end to the criminal and hypocritical policy of the Bush administration that continue to promote terrorism against the Cuban people as illustrated by their protection of such cold blood killers like Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles and maintain unjustly incarcerated Five Cuban heroes that were detained aljost 8 years ago precisely for their efforts against those very same terrorist groups that operate with impunity and with the official protecti ...

Marxism in 2006

Thu, 18 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Revolution and Revolutionary Power

Wed, 17 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The identity of the Communist Party as the jost conscious section of the working class does not preclude its ability to express at the same time the interests of all working people, both independently, as well as through its strategy of alliances. In the ranks of the communist parties can be found not only the best representatives of the working class, but also those of the other popular strata, of its social allies. All members of the communist parties, irrespective of their class position and ...

Review: Overthrow by Stephen Kinzer

Sat, 13 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The International Juncture in Broad Strokes

Mon, 01 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

It was up to the government of President Bush to define the terms of the matter, both in theory and practice. The days that preceded the third anniversary of war and occupation were days of horror to the population of the Iraqi city of Samara, with which the occupation forces intended to display their capacity to control the situation and further their objective of keeping Iraq under their rule. They perpetrated other crimes against humankind as they have already done in the occasion of the geno ...

On A Third Alternative

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 23:00:00 +0100

In the days when the Congress was the dominant party at the Centre and till the eighties when the monopoly of Congress rule had to be broken the CPI(M) had fought against the economic policies, corruption and misrule of the Congress by trying to unite other Left, democratic and secular forces. Even at that time, the CPI(M) was opposed to having any alliance or understanding with the BJP. Instead of an anti-Congress alliance, the CPI(M) and the Left stood for a secular non-Congress unity that wou ...

Opposing Real Capitalism

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Ricardo Alarcón: I think there are some catches here. First, the West is presented as virginal when it comes to the issue of torture. That's not true!. Torture has been ordinarily and systematically inflicted in the United States. An interesting article by Naomi Klein was published in The Nation which states something similar to what I'm going to tell you now. What's new about Bush? What is he adding to the picture now? Well, that he openly acknowledges torture and turns it into a do ...

Information on General Election in Italy 2006

Wed, 12 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0100

On last 9 and 10 April elections for the lower house and the upper house (for voters over 25) took place with about 47 million Italians eligible to vote. The turnout was very high: 83.6%, which is the largest participation in the past fifteen years.Under new election rules introduced in December, at the lower house each party is able to elect a certain number of MPs depending on the amount of votes it takes according to proportional representation (PR). But the new system favours party coalition ...

Swaziland Situation Calls for Urgent Action

Wed, 05 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0100

There are even patronising suggestions that Swaziland’s political system is based on the culture and traditions of the Swazi people, a justification similar to that used by the apartheid regime in dividing the African population into different tribal groups through the bantustan system, and the colonial-apartheid imposition of the rule of chiefs as instruments of oppression. It is a justification which essentially suggests that African traditional systems are inherently repressive and base ...

The Case for Communism

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0100

These words were written in 1515 — originally in Latin — by Thomas Moore in his famous work Utopia. Since his day philosophers have tried to work out how human society came to be in such a mess — and more important, what we can do to put it right.In the 1840s two great communists, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, made an analysis of human society, the class system and capitalism — and how the injustices arising out of private property could be put right through socialism.I ...

Ripples of Freedom: Commemorating The 1916 Rising

Sat, 01 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Those events ninety years ago also had a significant impact on other oppressed and colonised peoples within the British Empire, an empire on which "the sun never set and the blood never dried." The ripples of freedom coming from Dublin lapped on the shores of the oppressed across the globe.The 1916 Rising continues to cause controversy to this day among academics, politicians, journalists, and others, all attempting to shape and interpret those events to suit their present agenda. Thes ...

Against Imperialist Aggression And Occupation

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Three years have passed but the daily aggression, torture, crimes, civilian assassinations go on. During all this time, Iraqi people have resisted heroically against imperialism. Today is even more clear that this criminal intervention, that used de menace of terrorism and the existence of weapons of mass destruction — which existence wasn’t proved — as pretexts to an aggression aims the expansion of the American imperialism, the control of the natural resources of this region ...

We?ve Done It Before, So Why All The Shock?

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

3rd Anniversary Of The War Against Iraq

Mon, 13 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

We call upon the working people to strengthen their struggle and solidarity with the Iraqi people and to stop the threat of new military imperialist interventions in the region. As communist and workers' parties struggling for peace, social justice, progress and socialism, we support the legitimate right of the Iraqi people to resist occupation.We reiterate our firm solidarity with their struggle for the end of occupation, for the restoration of the sovereignty and independence, for the lib ...

The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2005

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 23:00:00 +0100

I. On Life and Security of PersonFor a long time, the life and personal security of people of the United States have not been under efficient protection. American society is characterized with rampant violent crimes. Across the country each year, 50,000 suicides and homicides are committed (Va.Violent Deaths Are jostly Suicides, The Washington Post, October12, 2005).The U.S. Justice Department reported on Sept. 25, 2005 that there were 5,182,670 violent crimes in the United States in 2004. There ...

Europe and the European Union, Realities, Experiences

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Today’s initiative is taking place in a period that the working people are faced with a universal attack by the capital in all spheres. The restructures that the EU and the governments jointly promote, express a single imperialist strategy. These are measures that the capitalistic system absolutely needs, in order to face its difficulty to reproduce its social capital. The approach and coincidence of the liberal parties with the social-democratic (a recent characteristic example is the Bol ...

Europe and the European Union, Realities, Experiences of Struggle

Thu, 02 Mar 2006 23:00:00 +0100

* They have appropriated fiscal independence from member-states, with the European Central Bank and the Stability and Growth Pact criterion and its own currency.* They have established an EU weapons procurement and development agency.* They have established a "Rapid Reaction Force" and new Battlefield Groups consisting of 60,000 battle-trained soldiers, which will be able to operate thousands of miles beyond EU borders.* They have an EU Foreign Minister, though not yet a united foreign ...

The Leading Motive Force

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

It is therefore important that as we outline the key tasks and challenges for the next five years of local government, we seek to develop a common ANC and alliance understanding of the key perspectives underlying what we have referred to as developmental local government.Before attempting to advance some of the SACP’s perspectives on developmental local government it is important to briefly deal with our analysis of the performance of the ANC and some of the other political parties in the ...

PCdoB Repudiates New Menaces to the Bolivarian Venezuela

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0100

PCdoB rejects energetically the “request” of Mrs. Condeleezza. On the contrary, the relations between Brazil and Venezuela are the best at this moment of their history, in particular by the fact of both of them are in front of the national governments and committed with the Latin American integration. At this moment, the strategic partnership gains more force and consistency, in particular by adhesion of Venezuela to the Mercosur and by the announcement of the construction of the Lat ...

Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0100

What is paradoxical in all this is that the draft resolution, officially circulated today February 28, was meticulously conceived and negotiated behind the scenes with Washington's representatives to accommodate, precisely, the main demands of the superpower, knowing that these would not have the majority support of the members of the United Nations.During the months that have passed of the current process, the United States and its allies have exerted strong pressures on the numerous Third Worl ...

On the Worsening of International Tension

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0100

They are forejost, at the economic and social level, about the policies of liberalization, labour deregulation, privatization and dismantling of the social functions of the State of which the “Bolkstein Directive” on the liberalization of services is the jost recent example. It is about the multiplication of measures of a securitary nature, involving increasing attacks on rights, freedoms and fundamental democratic guarantees, while at the same time racist, xenophobic and far-right a ...

World Social Forum Evolves and Approaches the New Socialism

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0100

This year, for the first time we had a polycentric version of the WSF. And the great news was the fact that part of it was held in Bamako, Mali. What is your appraisement of the fact that Africa held the event?José Reinaldo Carvalho: The Bamako World Social Forum was the outcry of African peoples against colonialism and capitalist globalization that are the causes of that continent’s poverty and misery. In their main mottos, they said that a new Africa would only be possible in ...

Statement About the Cartoon Crises

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0100

It is not true when the Danish prime minister, the liberalist Anders Fogh Rasmussen, declares, that the freedom of expression is unlimited in Denmark. In Denmark the freedom of expression is freedom with responsibility which includes legislation against blasphemy. It is a normal ethical priority that you do not insult religious believes and thoughts.The same newspaper and the right-wing politicians in Denmark have no problems on restricting the freedom of expression and other human rights when t ...

What Will Happen After The Electoral Coup In Palestine?

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The Palestinian legislative council elections cannot be isolated from its surrounding and the elections were not held in a sovereign state, but were conducted under a national authority with incomplete sovereignty besieged by the occupation with its territories torn apart and disconnected. It is the same authority that was established in 1994 when the majority of the Palestinian factions, including Hamas, refused then to participate in it and refused to participate in the elections of its legisl ...

A New Left Force in Germany

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0100

During the period of confrontation between the world-systems the SPD became the party of the “third way” between capitalism and socialism. The situation of the working class improved to a certain extend due to reforms which were the result of struggle. This had the effect of integration into the capitalist system and was added to by the interlinking of SPD and trade unions. These were the major factors for the SPD-dominance in the German working class movement.After the end of the co ...

Bring The Troops Home

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Reflections on Revisionism in the USA

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 01:00:00 +0100

Author's Note: In July 2005, a discussion document, Reflections on Socialism (RoS), authored by one of the leaders of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), appeared in print and was widely distributed by mail with a cover letter inviting comment. It has now been placed on the CPUSA web site as well as in shortened form on the web site of the Communist Review, the theoretical journal of the Communist Party of Britain. RoS was originally (and to my knowledge still is) presented, not as an ...

No Majority, but Dangers Lie Ahead

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

While the Conservative push for a ruling majority was thwarted, Stephen Harper and his right-wing party managed to fashion gains at the polls on Jan. 23 jostly at the expense of the Liberals, winning 124 (of 3080 seats in Parliament.Even though the Tories fell far short of the outright victory they had sought, there should be no underestimation of the harm that could result under a Harper minority government. The challenge now for the labour, peace, equity and social justice movements will be to ...

Remarks by Fidel Castro to the Peoples of Cuba, US and of the World

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

"First, the release of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who was trained by US authorities ˜Bush Sr. included˜ and used to perpetrate monstrous crimes against the Cuban people. Recruited in 1961, this repulsive character was trained to carry out special operations during the Bay of Pigs invasion. He and Orlando Bosch, officially pardoned by Bush Sr., subsequently received rigorous training to execute despicable acts of terrorism against Cuba. Likewise, he was given instruction to ...

Evo Morales: "We Shall Complete the Struggle of Che"

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

A Joint Statement Concerning the Programs of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Iraq

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Capitalism and the Values of the National Democratic Revolution

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

All of this opulence is happening in the midst of 40% unemployment, with more than half the population of our country living in poverty. Basson and sections of the black elite are enriching themselves in the context of a continuing job-loss bloodbath, whole-sale casualisation and the continuing decline of workers' wages as an overall percentage within the economy. This despicable accumulation by a few is also happening in the midst of protests in townships and informal settlements.Despite enormo ...

The State, Leadership of the Democratic Revolution and the People

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Each formation has its distinct focus points, but there are also overlapping issues. These meetings come in the wake of important mid-term gatherings of the three Alliance partners, the SACP Special Congress in April, the ANC NGC in July and the COSATU Central Committee in August. These executive meetings will naturally further reflect on and seek to take forward some of the key resolutions from the mid-term congresses.These meetings also come in the wake of the August Alliance 10-a-side meeting ...

Iraqi CP Disagrees with Anti-War Movement's Call for Immediate Withdrawal

Sat, 14 Jan 2006 23:00:00 +0100

A Sober Analysis And A Call To The Anti-War Movement To Rethink The Complexities In Iraq Dear Comrades and Friends, Warm Comradely Greetings,The situation in Iraq has continued to be an international issue throughout the year 2005, even becoming a predominant national issue in several countries. It has also been the subject of debate among popular, progressive and democratic circles, especially because of the continued instability and extreme violence that has resulted in the death of ...

The Letters to Saddam Hussein

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

What is your opinion of Saddam Hussein?In 1991, after the Kuwait invasion, he got caught up in a chain of thought that led to a serious crisis. We voted in favour of the UN resolution condemning that invasion. I sent two letters to him with personal emissaries, recommending that he enter into negotiations and withdraw from Kuwait before it was too late.In the first missive, dated August 2, 1990, I wrote:"It is with great pain that I write to you, having heard today that troops from your cou ...

The Spectre of Communism Is Still Haunting Europe

Fri, 06 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

The European commissioner Frattini, member of Berlusconi's party, allied to the fascists in the Italian government, was questioned about this. He thinks that discussing this topic as a strategy against racism is "not the proper framework" to talk about Communist symbols. He encouraged Parliament to organise the debate on these symbols and what they can mean to European citizens.With the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Europe against fascism, the European Parliament (EP) appro ...

About The Anti-Communist Motion: You Cannot Change Either Our Current Position Nor Our History!

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

We are not going to discuss the meaning of communism and its contributions to the humanity with reactionary circles. While the outputs of capitalism and imperialism are evident, we don’t think that the aim of a society without classes and exploitation is a matter of discussion. Despite the efforts by imperialists, who continuously produce lies, distort the history and plunder all cultural values, communism is representing today the real wealth of humanity, as it was yesterday. We won& ...

Review: The Culture Struggle

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Using vivid examples and riveting arguments throughout, The Culture Struggle ranges from the everyday to the esoteric. Despite its brevity, this book offers a wealth of stimulating insights. Richly informed, penned with eloquence, irony, and economy of language, The Culture Struggle helps us understand the world we live in.One of America's jost astute and engaging political analysts, Michael Parenti shows us that culture is a changing process and the product of a dynamic interplay between a ...

Roll Back Energy Prices Now!

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

In a January 3 statement, Figueroa said that the Communist Party candidates will demand “immediate measures such as a cap on energy prices, especially for home heating; emergency assistance to truckers facing huge increases in operating costs; and a substantial ‘windfall profit tax’ on large oil and gas companies.” The Communists are also calling for the full nationalisation of the oil and energy industries.The world’s oil giants have reaped huge gains from rising o ...

Latin America: Beginning of a New Era?

Sun, 01 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

We used the opportunity to discuss South Africa’s constitution-making process prior to the adoption of our new constitution in 1996, and perspectives on general political developments since then. Interestingly, we found we shared many common convictions with Cde Morales on the fundamentals of developing a progressive democratic constitution that will advance the interests of the overwhelming majority of the working people and the poor in our respective countries.‘You cannot win on th ...

Cuba and Bolivia Move Closer with New Accords

Sat, 31 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Review: War At Home: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do About It

Sun, 25 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0100

In early 1971, the FBI's domestic counterintelligence program (code named "COINTELPRO") was brought to light when a "Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI" removed secret files from an FBI office in Media, PA and released them to the press. Agents began to resign from the Bureau and blow the whistle on covert operations. That same year, publication of the Pentagon Papers, the Pentagon's top-secret history of the Vietnam War, exposed years of systematic official lies about ...

I Believe Only in the Power of the People

Sat, 24 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Delphi Workers Fan Flames of Labor's Renewal

Thu, 22 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Statement of Mikis Theodorakis On the Anti-Communist Memorandum

Thu, 22 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0100

It considers that the biggest enemies of Nazism, i.e., the Communists, are criminals and indeed equal to the Nazis! And it even worries and protests, because although the Hitlerites were condemned by the international community, nothing as such has happened yet with the Communists.For this reason it suggests that this condemnation takes place now by the Plenary Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the 24-27 of coming January. Meanwhile, it worries because &ldquo ...

Time to Stand against Racism

Wed, 14 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The riots and violence were deliberately organised and it has been revealed that several white supremacist fascist organisations played a part in fanning and perhaps organising the racist actions. The fact that many young people were caught up in these demonstrations is one of their worst features.Much has been done in Australia to promote a tolerant multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society. Such riots, if allowed to succeed and spread, could tear apart our society and set race against race and r ...

KSM (Czech Republic), Request for Solidarity

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The Ministry of Interior has sent a warning and precept, in which it:1. Impugns the status of the KSM as a civic association under pretext that the goals of KSM´s activity interfere with an area restricted to activities of political parties that is, according to the interpretation of the Home Office of the Czech Republic, excluded from the intervention of civic associations. Nevertheless the KSM does not differ in this area from the field of action of other youth political organizations in ...

Speech at 2nd Cuba ? CARICOM Summit

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Throughout these years, the enormous challenges our countries have faced, while trying to ensure the survival of our peoples, have become more dramatic. The unilateral and selfish actions undertaken by some of the jost important trade partners of the Caribbean countries have combined with the unprecedented incidence and magnitude of the devastating hurricanes that have ravaged our region. I think that there is today a clear understanding that neo-liberal globalisation threatens the very existenc ...

Anniversary of Cuban Aid to Angola

Fri, 02 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0100

This magnificent triumph, however, would no be the end of the armed struggle.For, imperialist treachery, aggravated by every measure of public benefit or which consolidated national independence, kept us constantly on guard. Many comrades had to continue risking their lives in defense of the Revolution, both in Cuba and abroad, in the fulfillment of sacred duties.Exactly 19 years after the 'Granma' landing, in November 1976, a small group of Cubans in Angola fought the first combats in a battle ...

Interview With Pedro Ross Leal, General Secretary of the Confederation of Cuban Workers

Thu, 01 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0100

A Tribute to a Giant: SACP Congratulates COSATU on its 20th Anniversary

Sun, 27 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

“For the SACP this is also a moment of celebrating two decades of a rich, comradely alliance between our two formations. Together we have taken up the battle against an economic system based on exploitation of the majority and private profits for the few. Together we have opposed privatization. Together we have sought to highlight the job-loss blood-bath that has engulfed our country over the past decade. Together we have embarked on struggles for gender transformation. Together we have en ...

US Prepares for War from Australian Soil

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The massive planes will fly from their US base in Guam to the Delamere Weapons Range in the Northern Territory, which has been especially developed for bombing exercises.The testing of US weapons on Australian territory was first publicly mooted 12 months ago with an agreement between the Bush administration and the Howard Government to allow the US to test a new generation weapons at Shoalwater Bay in Queensland and two training areas in the Northern Territory.The kind of weapons to be tested h ...

Resolution of Solidarity With Venezuela

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

In the last few years, in spite of facing the constant aggressions of US imperialism and the destabilizing and subversive activity of an internal opposition that has been defeated in the ten popular referendums held up to now, the triumphant Bolivarian Revolution can show a vast social work that has benefited millions of citizens who used to live sunk into poverty and neglect.As part of the numerous programs that are being carried out by the Bolivarian Revolution, last October Venezuela declared ...

Statement On The Mausoleum of Lenin

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

It is common knowledge that the victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War was inspired and organized by the Communist Party which, like the Russian Federation and the Soviet State, was founded by V.I. Lenin. The vast influence of V.I. Lenin on the whole course of history is beyond doubt. In popular memory, he remains as one of the greatest political and state brains of humankind. During the past century everything associated with his name has been held sacred by millions of citizen ...

Contribution by the Portuguese Communist Party

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The requirement to overcome capitalism is not new. Capitalism's entry into its imperialist stage — which Lenin characterized in his famous work “Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism” — opened a new epoch of social revolutions. The 1905 Russian revolution, the centenary of which we are celebrating, is already an expression of this reality in the concrete conditions of Czarist Russia. But it was the great October Socialist Revolution that translated the necessary so ...

Contribution of the General Secretary of the CC of the KKE, Aleka Paparhiga

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

We believe that the impact of these international meetings is based on objective needs that we in all parties are aware of. The even greater need for coordination and common action, the need to work out as far as possible a common strategy towards our common problems arising from contemporary imperialist barbarity. The need for internationalist solidarity is even more urgent today.To describe the current problems, to paint them in the blackest colours is not nearly enough to achieve the mass mob ...

Review: After The Empire

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Text: Orderly and Rapid Withdrawal from Iraq

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Without a Left, US Labor Continues its Downward Spiral

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

We Can Build the jost Just Society in the World

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

He also went to talk about the complexities of today's world and that of the future; about internal errors; the living conditions of our people, which will continue to advance; the need to think about the evils that must be overcome, including crime and particularly, unlawful enrichment.His words at the Aula Magna confirmed for the audience and the thousands of young people gathered outside the venue who were following his speech via large-screen televisions, that before them was the same rebel ...

Arafat the Obstacle Has Been Exposed as a Myth

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 14:33:34 +0100

A Communiqu? on the Convening of the 10th Syrian Communist Party Congress

Sat, 12 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The 10th Congress of SCP was held in Damascus from 9 until 12 November 2005 under three basic slogans:“For a Free Country and Triumphant People” “For Defending the Country and Defending Interests of the People”“For a world Anti-Imperialist Front”The Congress was decorated with SCP patriotic, class and International slogans.The Congress was attended by (239) original delegates, (9) observers and a number of guests. The Congress was also attended by delegat ...

Contribution of the Workers Party of Belgium

Sat, 12 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The object of their unanimous anger is a plan of the social democrat-liberal coalition to make them work longer before they can retire. In Belgium, the official age of retirement is 65 but the workers can take early retirement at the age of 58, provided they have a career of at least 25 years. These regulations were obtained by struggle and also because government and capitalists wanted to avoid class struggle when they closed factories or laid off large groups of workers. The government wants t ...

Cuban Foreign Minister's Speech at the UN

Thu, 10 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

It is true that the United States Government has repeatedly ignored the aljost unanimous demand of the international community and it is also certain that President Bush will intensify the blockade even more, making it the longest and cruelest of its kind in history. But this doesn't diminish in any way the political, moral, ethical and legal significance of this vote.Never before has this blockade been applied with the viciousness and brutally seen over the last 18 months. Never before ha ...

UN Vote on the Blockade

Thu, 10 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

It is true that the United States Government has repeatedly ignored the aljost unanimous demand of the international community and it is ?also certain that President Bush will intensify the blockade even? more, making it the longest and cruelest of its kind in history. But ?this doesn’t diminish in any way the political, moral, ethical and? legal significance of this vote.??Never before has this blockade been applied with the viciousness and? brutally seen over the last 18 months. Never be ...

Who Owns Solidarity Center?

Wed, 09 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Colombia ? No Option but Struggle

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The Cuban Five: Silencing The Truth Is An Unpardonable Crime

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The double standard of U.S. authorities in dealing with terrorism had never been revealed with such audacity. By not appealing the ridiculous ruling, the officials of the DHS — a superstructure with a multimillion-dollar budget, whose agencies are supposedly charged with protecting U.S. citizens from acts of terrorism — gave their blessing to the farce in El Paso and have just expedited the definitive accommodation on U.S. territory of someone considered, along with Orlando Bosch, to ...

Developments within the Imperialist System ? The New Dynamics in the Anti-Imperialist Struggle

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The Communist Party of Turkey has been illegal for jost of its eighty years of existence and has lost thousands of members, either forced into exile or tortured and murdered by the different regimes that have ruled Turkey. This is a major step from under decades of repression, though the legal status of the CPT is still very uncertain. Our party is proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Turkish comrades.The title of this conference represents a formidable task. I will not attempt a compreh ...

France-US: Set Apart Over the Middle East

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0100

There is a growing concern in the international arena about the negative implications that could stem from the conflict between the Bush Administration and the French Government, particularly its effects on the system of transatlantic relations.Some right-wing American congress members, displaying a negative disposition towards Paris, have outlined projects to damage French wines in American markets, criticizing French arrogance vis a vis American "modesty and honesty."[1] This tense s ...

On the Congress of the ?European Left Party?

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0100

The framework and the way of activities of this “European Party” are clearly identified by the institutions of the European Union, and it is financed by the EU. This gives the explanation why the ELP is not striving for the creation of a socialist society.The aims of this Party are actually the “transformation of capitalism” and “to overcome the capitalist logic,” without putting in question the private ownership of the means of production or even the class ch ...

WFTU Calls Upon International Trade Union Movement

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The Workers' Party of Belgium and the European Left Party

Tue, 25 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0100

After the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, imperialism has launched wars to recolonize the Third World. NATO has expanded its sphere of action to the whole world and has increased its combat forces. More than ever, the United States is relying on its military superiority to consolidate and extend its dominance on a global scale. The European Union wants to become the world's jost competitive economic power. Under capitalism, this requires that the EU also puts in place a corresponding military fo ...

A Message From The Cuban Interests Section

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The blockade on Cuba is the longest and jost cruel known to the human history. It is an act of economic warfare, a fundamental part of State Terrorism policy and it qualifies as an act of genocide.It has extraterritorial characteristics since it illegally forces companies and citizens of other countries to follow US laws; formalized by the Torricelli (1992) and Helms-Burton (1996) Laws.Torricelli Law prohibits Cuban commerce with the subsidiaries of US companies in third countries. It also oblig ...

Cuba Demonstrates Its High Degree of Preparation for Confronting Nature's Adversities

Mon, 24 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Fidel contrasted the serenity, discipline and organization demonstrated by our people in face of the dangers posed by this menacing storm with the scenes of looting happening in stores and markets in the United States following Hurricane Katrina and now in the Yucatan, Mexico, after it was harshly lashed by Wilma's winds of more than 200 kilometers per hour."That is the big difference between the capitalist system that promotes irrational consumerism, selfishness and madness, which leads pe ...

International Colloquium to Free the Five ? Holgu?n, Cuba

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 01:00:00 +0100

Our five compatriots are matchless examples of human solidarity because the essence of their dilemma is that they sacrificed their own lives for those of others, because they were carrying out their mission in the United States — a mission separating them from their families, from their land, where they ran major risks entering the jaws of the very worst of the empire: that of the terrorist right- wing.They are worthy, therefore, of our support, of our concern, of our interest in the cause ...

Speech Delivered by Comrade Fernando Rem?rez de Estenoz

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0100

During all these difficult and complicated years, our parties have faced the attempts of imperialism and international reactionaries to establish a world dictatorship, based on neo-liberal globalization principles. Today it is more essential than ever to see a union of revolutionary and left wing forces so that they may analyze the current world situation and propose concrete actions.After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the pipe dreams of those who proclaimed the final victory of c ...

Resolution of Solidarity With Cuba

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The policy of the US blockade - whose main objective is to destroy the Cuban Revolution and impose US colonial domination on the island, an ambition clearly stated in the so-called Bush’s Plan for the Annexation of Cuba — qualifies as an act of genocide and a violation of the principles of international law. And, as an evidence of the isolation of this criminal policy of the US Administration, the international community has expressed its increasing and aljost unanimous rejection of ...

The Iraqi Constitution: A Referendum For Disaster

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Communist Party of Australia ? 10th Congress, 2005: Opening Night Speech

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The Communist Party’s slogan for our 10th National Congress is: BUILD THE PARTY IN THE WORKING CLASSEVERY MEMBER AN ACTIVISTWe chose this theme because the capitalist ruling class is trying to disarm the working class movement, the working class itself and the people’s movements all around the world and we believe we must build and strengthen resistance to this attack. We chose this theme because we believe that it is the working class that must participate actively in the ...

CPA 10th Congress Resolutions

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 23:00:00 +0100

These meetings have strengthened and developed political and organizational understanding, contact and common action throughout the world. These meetings have led to significant advances for the anti-globalization movement, trade unions and progressive governments. The 10th Congress of the CPA resolves to maintain and strengthen our work with communist and workers parties in our region with the objective of establishing and strengthening fraternal relations and the building of the anti-imperiali ...

Report on Political Resolution

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 22:00:00 +0100

"We have before us a very vibrant, rich political document to guide us in our work over the next four years. …"??In preparing her report to Congress, Anna noted the changes that had taken place in the world in the four years since the previous Congress, and how those changes were reflected in the current Political Resolution."How different the world looks! The so-called “war on terrorism”, the “anti-terrorism” and anti-union laws, Guantán ...

Revamped Party Program Endorsed

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 22:00:00 +0100

Rob pointed out that the essential thrust of the Program is unchanged. The CPA is a working class party, "… a party that is not only ‘confident that the working class is capable of leading the struggle to win political power from the capitalist ruling class’ but which believes that ‘the socialist reconstruction of society is only possible when the working class becomes the class which governs society’."The crucial role of the CPA in the transiti ...

Statement of the Central Committee Meeting

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0100

The CC meeting defined the main guidelines to respond to and counter those options. The PCP's Central Committee equally assessed the development and assertion of its candidacy to the Presidential election in a context in which it underlined the Party's irreplaceable role in the battle to assert a new path for the country and to defeat the right-wing, its candidates and its projects. Also discussed and defined were the main current policy lines and tasks, notably the campaigns against the rise in ...

Anti-Communism in Europe ? The Revival of A Spectre

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0100

In the autumn of the same year followed the well-known declarations by the EU Commissioner on Enlargement at that time, Mr. Verheugen, saying that taking into consideration what those peoples had suffered from communism, he himself would have asked for the ban on communist parties, if he were a citizen of those countries. But the centre-left President of the European Commission at that time, Mr. Romano Prodi, had said as well that to ban a communist party in an accession country (to the EU) ...

The New Dynamics in the Anti-Imperialist Struggle