capitalism

Articles

• Ukraine: Manifesto of opposition from the Left
  5 March 2014, by siawi3

  Ukraine’s economic system more or less exempts oligarchs from paying taxes. One can completely legally export tens of billions of dollars worth of minerals, metals, ammonia, wheat, and sunflowers, and report no profit. All earnings are stashed in offshore jurisdictions, where almost all of Ukraine’s functioning enterprises are formally located. Any profits earned by an enterprise inside the country can be legally and effortlessly transported to offshore locations by reframing them as a fictitious loan, for example.
  Is it any surprise that the Ukrainian government systematically has trouble replenishing the budget?

• USA: The Economics of Love and Loneliness
  24 February 2014, by siawi3

  Why aren’t Cupid’s arrows hitting their lovelorn targets the way they once did? New research points to our growing economic divide. Americans today have become distinctly less likely to marry someone outside their income bracket.
  “The rich marry rich and get richer, the poor marry poor and get poorer.”
  But the cause and effect here goes both ways. Assortative mating widens the income gaps that divide us. Wider income gaps nurture assortative mating.

• US and EU are paying Ukrainian rioters and protesters
  4 March 2014, by siawi3

  I have no objection to Ukrainians protesting government corruption. Indeed, such gullible people could benefit from the lesson they would learn once their country is in the hands of corrupt Brussels and Washington. What I object to is the lack of awareness on the part of the protesters that by permitting themselves to be manipulated by Washington, they are pushing the world toward a dangerous war. I would be surprised if Russia is content to have US military and missile bases in Ukraine. I know the case for Ukrainian dislike of Russia, but Ukrainian emotions fueled with Washington’s money should not direct the course of history. No historians will be left to document how gullible and witless Ukrainians set the world up for destruction

• In Ukraine, Fascists, Oligarchs and Western Expansion Are At The Heart Of The Crisis
  19 February 2014, by siawi

  You’d never know from most of the reporting that far-right nationalists and fascists have been at the heart of the protests and attacks on government buildings. One of the three main opposition parties heading the campaign is the hard-right antisemitic Svoboda, whose leader Oleh Tyahnybok claims that a “Moscow-Jewish mafia” controls Ukraine. The story we’re told about the protests gripping Kiev bears only the sketchiest relationship with reality

• USA: Military Humanitarian Intervention: the Shock Doctrine Applied to Syria
  22 February 2014, by siawi3

  There is concern that military operations in Syria could result in Iraq or Afghanistan-like debacles. The role of Salafist Islamic militants (trained and funded by the Saudis, Qatar, Turkey, and ultimately supported and manipulated by Washington) is minimized if not denied. Yet it is these elements who have, to a great degree, essentially hijacked a legitimate Syrian opposition movement, internationalized the struggle and continue to wreak havoc and death in their goal to establish Shari’a law in Syria and beyond.

• Meet the American Empire’s Favorite NGO: Human Rights Watch
  22 February 2014, by siawi3

  Why has Human Rights Watch (HRW)—despite proclaiming itself “one of the world’s leading independent organizations” on human rights—so consistently paralleled U.S. positions and policies? This affinity for the U.S. government agenda is not limited to Latin America. In the summer of 2013, for example, when the prospect of a unilateral U.S. missile strike on Syria—a clear violation of the UN Charter—loomed large, HRW’s executive director Kenneth Roth speculated as to whether a simply “symbolic” bombing would be sufficient. “If Obama decides to strike Syria, will he settle for symbolism or do something that will help protect civilians?” he asked on Twitter. Executive director of MIT’s Center for International Studies John Tirman swiftly denounced the tweet as “possibly the most ignorant and irresponsible statement ever by a major human-rights advocate.”

• Quand l’extrême droite défie la démocratie au Brésil
  30 août 2015, par siawi3

  Quand Le Monde se réjouit des manifestations « populaires » au Brésil contre « l’austérité »... C’est l’esprit de Vichy qui domine ! Loin de nous de défendre la politique suivie par la dirigeante brésilienne, adepte du libre marché et des intérêts capitalistes de son pays. Simplement, nous signalons l’alignement systématique des médias français - dont Le Monde - en toutes circonstances sur Big Brother. En ce qui concerne le Brésil, mais aussi vis-à-vis de tous les « ennemis » de Washington. Au Brésil, le gouvernement de Dilma Rousseff pratique une politique économique indépendante vis-à-vis des multinationales américaines. Péché mortel vis-à-vis du capital financier international et naturellement vis-à-vis du Monde et de ses patrons !

• Canada: The Whoredom of the Left
  25 March 2015, by siawi3

  Prostitution is the quintessential expression of global capitalism. Our corporate masters are pimps. We are all being debased and degraded, rendered impoverished and powerless, to service the cruel and lascivious demands of the corporate elite. And when they tire of us, or when we are no longer of use, we are discarded as human refuse. If we accept prostitution as legal, as Germany has done, as permissible in a civil society, we will take one more collective step toward the global plantation being built by the powerful. The fight against prostitution is the fight against a dehumanizing neoliberalism that begins, but will not end, with the subjugation of impoverished girls and women.

• A life of critical engagement: An interview with Issa Shivji
  25 March 2015, by siawi3

  I feel that the neo-liberal NGOism and the consultancy culture, with their emphasis on policy – more “action,” little thought – and prescriptive prognosis, has taken a toll on our intellectual thinking, the result of which is that we have abdicated analyzing and understanding the world. We cannot fight for a better world without understanding the world better.

• Middle East: A Brief History of the Islamic State (ISIS)
  27 December 2015, by siawi3

  ISIS emerged out of the dashed hopes of the Arab Spring.

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