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NDP Suppresses Palestinian Solidarity Again
Canadian PoliticsFor those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, ask yourself these two questions: Since polling reveals a higher percentage of Canadians support Palestinian rights than vote for the NDP federally, why won’t party officials allow a clear statement of support for Palestinian liberation? Is there a point when explicitly antidemocratic behavior that contributes to Palestinian subjugation will no longer be tolerated in a party claiming the mantra of social justice? It is time the NDP leadership listened to its membership.
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Why the Canadian Government is Confronting Venezuela
Canadian PoliticsSince the attempted U.S. coup against Venezuela on January 23, backed by the Lima Group of which the Justin Trudeau government is an active member, Canada’s corporate media have joined in a chorus of hate and disinformation against the Bolivarian Revolution, with the criticism focusing on Nicolás Maduro, the country’s constitutionally elected president. At the same time, a debate has arisen among workers, trade unionists, and social and political activists.
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Liberals use ‘human rights’ to push coup in Venezuela
Canadian PoliticsAs part of their effort to overthrow Nicolas Maduro’s government, Ottawa has funded and promoted a slew of groups and individuals critical of human rights in Venezuela. And a recent report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights gave a boost to Canada’s faltering coup bid in that South American country. Overseen by former social democratic Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, the report paints Venezuelan security forces as extremely violent and the government as politically repressive.
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Public Banks and a Just and Green Transition
Economic CrisisIn a financialized world dominated by a powerful, unaccountable, and self-interested financial class, there will be no just or green transformation without first reclaiming financial capacity in the public, not private, interest. But it would be a grave mistake to assume that resurgent public banks, by virtue of being publicly-owned, will necessarily function in the public interest. Public banks can and do go wrong. For public banks to work in the public interest, they must be made to do so.
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US vs. China: From Tariff War to Economic War
AsiaTrump’s trade wars and other policies should be understood as part of a broad reordering of US economic and political policies, and relations with other nation States allied and adversary alike, to ensure the continuation of US global economic and military hegemony for the coming decade. Nextgen technology development is at the core of that restructuring and restoration of US hegemony. Trump is just the appearance, the historic vehicle, behind the deeper global capitalist transformation in progress.
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Bernie’s Right: Three Billionaires Really Do Have More Wealth Than Half of America
Economic CrisisThe three wealthiest U.S. families are the Walton’s of Walmart, the Mars candy family, and the Koch brothers, heirs to the country’s second largest private company, the energy conglomerate Koch Industries. These are all enterprises built by the grandparents and parents of today’s wealthy heirs and heiresses. These three families own a combined fortune of $348.7 billion, which is four million times the median wealth of a U.S. family.
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The Plot to Keep Jeremy Corbyn Out of Power
EuropeIn the latest of the interminable media “furores” about Jeremy Corbyn’s supposed unfitness to lead Britain’s Labour party – let alone become prime minister – it is easy to forget where we were shortly before he won the support of an overwhelming majority of Labour members to head the party. In the preceding two years, it was hard to avoid on TV the figure of Russell Brand, a comedian and minor film star who had reinvented himself, after years of battling addiction, as a spiritual guru-cum-political revolutionary.
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The Koch Brothers and the Tar-Sands
Canadian BusinessCanada is attacking itself on all levels without knowing it. China has imprisoned two Canadian citizens and blocked long-standing major agriculture imports to our increasing public humiliation. The US, the actual cause of the problem, has done nothing to resolve it, and all the while, a deeper self-destruction of Canada unfolds to serve US Big-Oil demands. The usual leaders of Canada’s branch-plant culture in politics, media news and ‘expert’ commentary just continue their barking.
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This 4th of July: A letter from Richard D. Wolff
USA PoliticsThe Trump/GOP regime, desperately trying to “make America great again,” has chosen to make independence aggressive. It has attacked not an old King George representing a dying monarchism, but rising Chinese competitors. It has attacked poor immigrants and refugees mocking the words written on the Statue of Liberty. It celebrates extreme wealth, extreme inequality, and deregulated profiteering at home and extreme right-wing and repressive governments from Brazil to Hungary.
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Venezuela’s Guaido Investigated for Aid Embezzlement
Latin America and the CaribbeanVenezuelan authorities have opened a new criminal investigation against self-declared “Interim President” Juan Guaido for his role in the “humanitarian aid” corruption scandal unveiled over the weekend. Attorney General Tarek William Saab named Guaido as the accused “mastermind” behind the crimes, arguing that the opposition leader “personally directed the corruption mafia.” The investigation will focus on accusations of money laundering, corruption, and criminal association, and will be led by two public prosecutors.
