The United States is hosting a Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California, on June 6 – 10 to “focus on ’Building a Sustainable, Resilient, and Equitable Future’ for our hemisphere.” The irony of the US-hosted event could not be more in your face: in terms of sustainability, the US is the second largest CO2 emitter, with its pentagon alone ranking as the “world's 55th largest emitter;” in terms of inequality, in the US the “top 0.1 percent hold roughly the same share of our wealth as our bottom 90 percent;” and in terms of providing an ‘equitable future for the hemisphere,’ the US’s continued Monroe doctrine treatment of Latin America as “its own colonial territory,” where it has waged criminal regime change operations for over a century to protect its imperialist sphere of influence, would place it as the last country in the region with the right to talk about an equitable future for the hemisphere.

Nonetheless, the irony of the event is intensified by the US’s exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. Apparently, besides blockades, covert terroristic campaigns, and the creation and funding of ‘dissident groups,’ part of the punishment nations face when they prevent US monopolies from owning their counties’ resources or superexploiting their people’s labor power, is also an expulsion from the geographical region their country is in. Like the British colonial ordinance surveys in Ireland, geography itself becomes a tool in the hands of imperialists; the US sees itself capable of determining who is, and who is not, American.

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) threatened to personally boycott the event if Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua are excluded. He affirmed on May 10th that "If they exclude, if not all are invited, a representative of the Mexican government is going to go, but I would not."

Since AMLO’s statement was made, Bolivia, Honduras, and The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have joined in protest against the exclusion. Bolivian president Luis Arce said that “If the exclusion of our brother peoples persists, I will not participate in it.” Similarly, Honduras’ Xiomara Castro said that “If all our nations are not there, it’s not a summit of the Americas.”
​
As Fidel Castro once told Salvador Allende in their late 1971 meeting, "This continent has in its belly a creature called Revolution, which is on the way and that inexorably, by biological law, by social law, by the law of history has to be born. And it will be born one way or another." In the context of a returned socialist tide in the region, of the inclusion of various Latin American countries into China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and lastly, of the continued collective rejection of US imperialist narratives and exclusionary events, the grounds are being laid for a sovereign and united patria grande, a condition which is essential for the region’s birthing of the ‘creature called revolution.’ 

On Wednesday morning the Israeli Military killed Al Jazeera's renowned journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Video from the event showed the IDF firing at journalists who were clearly marked as "Press" in bright uniforms. The videos prompted Israel to retract their initial statement that Shireen had been killed by Palestinian militants. An obvious attempt to deflect blame on to the Palestinian Resistance for crimes committed by the occupying military force, which has been armed to the teeth by the United States Government.

Israel has consistently been found guilty of suppressing media which is critical of the occupation, and committing violence against journalists. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights compiled a 50 page report titled "Silencing the Press: Israeli Occupation Forces Attacks on Journalists" which details the systematic suppression of descent and criticism that has been carried out by the Israel for years. Shireen's murder was not random. She was another victim of a system of colonial occupation that uses violence to suppress those who expose its crimes to the public.

Of course those who criticize Israel's actions will be decried as Anti-Semitic, or lumped together with right wing conspiracy theorists. And let us be clear that the Occupation of Palestine and violence of the IDF is a product of capitalist imperialism. It is motivated by the material interests of transnational corporations and imperialist governments who seek to control markets, resources, and labour in West Asia. Israel serves as an economic and military ally to the U.S. in an oil rich region, where much of 21st century western imperialist aggression has been focused. Zionism has been allowed to thrive as an ideology because it is propped up by these forces of capitalist imperialism who find it useful for furthering their material interests.

There is no conspiracy here. And as Marxist analysis always reveals, there is no inherent quality in any race, religion, or ethnicity of people which causes them to act more aggressively, or be more likely to occupy another. Rather it is material class forces which drive colonialism and colonial violence. Ideology is born from these material forces, usually as a way to justify the interests and actions of a certain class. The occupation of Palestine is driven by the material interests of much of the capitalist class in the West and Middle East, and Zionism is the ideology produced in order to justify those interests. Anti-Semitic conspiracies should be rooted out from our thinking, and crushed with the hammer of Marxist class analysis.

R.I.P. Shireen Abu Akleh! Your courage will never be forgotten.

From the River to Sea Palestine will be Free.

Palestinian Center for Human Rights Report on Israeli Occupation Forces Systematic Supression of Press Freedom: https://reliefweb.int/.../prees-report-engliesh-2020.pdf

Hello Tony,


My name is Eddie Smith, but I usually use Eddie Liger as a pseudonym when producing online political content.

Here are three articles I have written on this subject of Venezuela.

This is my undergraduate senior thesis which focuses on US imperialism towards Venezuela and the US Media portrayal of the situation in Venezuela: https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/neo-colonialism-in-venezuela-and-its-coverage-in-western-media-by-edward-liger-smith 

This is a critique of the Maduro Government I published after he was criticized by some Chavista socialists in Venezuela: https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/venezuelas-anti-blockade-law-a-critique-of-maduro-and-the-lies-of-western-media-by-edward-liger-smith 


This is an article I co-authored with my co-editor Carlos Garrido about the recent wave of socialist Governments coming to power in Latin America and what it means for the future:
https://www.internationalmagz.com/articles/post-110_marxist_analysis_latin_america


These articles should give you a good idea of my general positions on Venezuela, and why I criticize US foreign policy in Latin America. However, here's a statement responding to your question specifically.

Statement: Western Media outlets tend to focus their coverage of Venezuela on the Maduro Government and Nicolas Maduro Himself, usually portraying the former bus driver turned President as a dictator, and warning of human rights abuses he's committed against the Venezuelan people. However, Western media tends to omit information about US hostility towards Venezuela, particularly the 15 year long economic sanction regime. By ignoring the effects of US policy on the Venezuelan economy and people, US media largely ignores the historical context which led to Venezuela's current situation, and the context that Maduro is currently acting within. Most Western coverage simplifies the situation, portraying Maduro as a comic book style tyrant ruling over his people with an iron fist, which is simply not an accurate portrayal of the complexities existent in Venezuelan politics.

The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, which brought Hugo Chavez to power in the late 1990s, was not a top down movement implementing a dictatorship. Rather, it was a grassroots movement organized by and for the Venezuelan people, and against the years of colonial expropriation and exploitation Venezuela had been subjected to by Western Oligarchs. It is the revolution that I support, not an individual man; I support the Venezuelan workers and Chavista Socialist Leaders, who often have criticisms of the Maduro Government in relation to police brutality, economic policy, social policy, etc. My support for Maduro extends as far as the Venezuelan people's. While he is not a perfect leader, he is the man who the Venezuelan's voted for despite millions in Western money being funneled to Juan Guaido and the US backed opposition. So, in the context of Venezuela's last elections, I do support him, because I support the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people and their struggle against US imperialism.

A recent report from the UN showed that US Sanctions have caused Venezuela's economy to implode with the State losing $31 billion in revenue between 2017 and 2020 alone. The UN investigation showed that US sanctions affect poor and vulnerable Venezuelans the most, and concluded they are being blockaded from vital medical supplies, despite US claims that the sanctions do not target medicine. The US claims these sanctions were supposed to create a "democratic transition" in Venezuela, but now admit it has only united the Venezuelan people together in a struggle against Western interventionism. It is these working class Venezuelans who I support in their struggle, and these violent actions from the US state Department which I criticize in almost any conversation about Venezuela. 

As Americans, it is not our job to meddle in Venezuelan politics, it's our job to assess our own Government and improve it wherever we can. That is why I spend so much time advocating for the US to remove there 166 economic sanctions on Venezuela.
​

-Eddie Liger

​As the news erupted on Monday evening of a leak in the Supreme Court’s draft opinion piece that ultimately may reverse the monumental 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized the right to abortion, left-wing organizations and parties immediately went to take the streets with working women against this travesty on our bodily autonomy. Since the 1973 controversial decision, the right wing and ultra religious Christian groups have long lobbied politicians to overturn or create legislation to ban this right for women, and it may appear that they have finally found grand success. The criticisms against the right wing’s “Pro-Life” movement are numerous and I will not address them here as that would be redundant. Instead, I will focus on the left’s attitudes of abortion and women’s healthcare and how in fact, the current trend among the left is detrimental to our relationship with proletarian women. 

​It is no secret that among the left, working women have been leaving our movement in droves whether through being pushed about by chauvinism, exploitation, or worse – violence. That has been the basis of the creation of anti-imperialist and left wing groups that are women-only such as CODEPINK and Af3irm. Patriarchy and its baggage have found its noose tightened among revolutionary women even in organizations claiming to fight for their liberation, and through the years we have seen revolutionary women become disillusioned with the capability of our movement for it. I do not blame them, we must not shame them but instead rip our movement free from patriarchy and become a movement women are protected in. 
​
But whether through the remnants of liberal feminism, idealism, and the lack of Marxist feminist analysis in left organizations, the left is losing its legitimacy with working women. It’s almost as if the plights of women and our reproductive care are just a concept to the left and not a lived reality for millions of working women. There is an idealist view of abortion and even worse, lack of uproar about women’s access to healthcare and work – making it seem like the only time we speak about women are during defending abortion and #MeToo moments. This has given a revival to the radical feminist movement that many young working women are flocking to as they’ve yet to have their issues revealed among the left. In fact some argue the fight for abortion is simply a culture issue and to be fair, the way the left fights for it is cultural and less economic. 

Prior to this SCOTUS leak regarding Roe v. Wade, when was the last time we spoke about the lack of comprehensive study on women’s health? When was the last time we argued for accessibility and affordability of emergency contraceptives? Have we en masse pushed for scientists to research an extension beyond the 72 hour period for Plan B, or even how ineffective it is for overweight women? In states like Texas and South Dakota, emergency contraceptive pills are extremely limited in access and quite expensive. Birth control too is expensive and as millions of women and girls are prohibited from accessing it whether by lack of healthcare or laws restricting the pill by age.
 
Comrades, this is our fault because this was our task. The capitalist class, the liberals and of course the right will never make it their priority to champion for comprehensive study and access to healthcare for women and girls nor would they be interested in critiquing what little options there are today. We waited so long and sat on our hands that now we have neither the healthcare nor the last-result options for women in this country. Of course we did not ask the right to lobby against us nor did we push the Supreme Court to make such a heinous decision, but likewise we let the issue go completely disregarded and we contributed to failing the women of our country. And worse, the few organizations like Af3irm and Women for Racial and Economic Equality (WREE) have been and continue to struggle for women’s rights, were instead attacked by the left and smeared as state agents. 

While we have been struggling for unions and better workplace conditions, we must connect the woman’s relationship with abortion and motherhood as economic conditions. Women in this country have been placed with the double burden of unpaid domestic work and employment, being doubly exploited at home and at the office. This is unappealing to working women of our time and the brunt of capitalism has resulted in now seeing a decline in reproduction rates. According to the Statista Research Department’s report in May 2021, the fertility rate needed to maintain the population sits at 2.1 children per woman but we have fallen below that rate to 1.77 children per woman since 2017. The number of births in the US has also steadily declined. Some will attribute this to life expectancy increasing, thus prolonging the decision to have a child. But the truth is that in these economic conditions, having a child seems so inconceivable. Housing is expensive and in places like New York City, most adults live with roommates who certainly would be partial to a crying infant at 3am. The cost of living increases while wages remain stagnant. Healthcare and education continue to send thousands every year into bankruptcy. Less and less adults are able to afford their own homes and then we wonder why birth rates are declining. The root of the issue is capitalism. 

We need to remember these realities when we fight for abortion, that when we fight for women’s rights we are not beginning and ending with the right to an abortion. In our fight to defend Roe v. Wade, it cannot be lost on us the multifaceted class warfare against women. Nor should we glamorize the procedure, as sadly, that is what we’re beginning to see.

Quickly, organizations mobilized thousands of people at a moment’s notice all over the country to show their outrage against possible overturning Roe v. Wade and demand that women’s right to an abortion be protected. It is exhilarating to see the growth of our movement following the devastation that we’ve seen after the counter revolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. While more people are joining our ranks, we still struggle to keep women for reasons aforementioned. 

Writer and revolutionary feminist Lavy Shwan has long been vocal in her support for women’s liberation and critique of the sex trade which she personally lived through. She has shown her dedication and her prioritization to uplifting working women from the strife imposed on them by this capitalist regime. Yet in February of 2022, while on recovery from removing breast implants which are fed to women as a necessary component to achieving beauty, she wrote online about the political theater surrounding the fight for abortion is, citing that it lacks any depth to transforming and materially uplifting working women. She was immediately hailed as a chauvinist, accusations thrown against her as being right wing and moralistic, all because she critiqued the movement surrounding abortions. At no point did Shwan say that women should be banned from having the procedure nor should they be prosecuted for having one. She simply critiqued the political theater of the pro-choice movement that makes a departure from real Marxist feminism. 

This is a point that one may have to sit with themselves before immediately reacting to — the political theater of the pro-choice movement. At the recent mobilizations in favor of Roe v. Wade, activists took to the streets with signs demonstrating their frustration against this decision with signs like “Defend Roe v. Wade” and “Abolish the Supreme Court”. These are objectively good and winning slogans. But aspects that were particularly troubling about these protests were the signs that read “We love abortions” “pro-woman, pro-choice, pro-abortion”. If these signs were held by liberal, this would not come as a shock. But these were signs made and written by Marxists and paraded as a testament to our movement. This is the most egregious error of the left’s relationship to women.

While lived experience must be limited in our political analysis, I’m starting to believe only those who have had an abortion understand the complexities of it all. The left treats abortions as though it is a simple procedure – easy peasey lemon squeezy. A last form of birth control is all. They cite the brevity of the procedure as evidence and parade women who have had abortions and support the right to abortion around as a political token. I have had an abortion. I support a woman’s right to have an abortion under any circumstance she feels necessary. But I do not support romanticizing the single hardest decision a woman may have to make in her life, a choice that could alter her life, her emotional and physical health. 

While it is now rare that a woman will die or become infertile after having an abortion, thanks to medical development and the legality of abortion procedures, by no means is the procedure light on your reproductive system. The procedure lasts roughly ten minutes, but most women are left awake, feeling every excruciatingly painful tug and dig. In the decision to not follow through with the pregnancy, a woman also undergoes the surgery awake and sentient which can be psychologically damaging to those particularly emotional about the pregnancy. After the procedure ends and the painkillers wane off, she is sent home with a caretaker bleeding heavily through pad after pad, cramping everywhere a zygote or fetus once was. In the subsequent weeks, her menstrual cycle becomes completely thrown out of whack leading to possibly changing the nature a woman experiences her next period. An abortion is not the same as a root canal and while not all women experience the emotional trauma and depression that follows, they will undergo the same physical experience.

There’s this idea that women that decide to have abortions all go with the decision unscathed. This is to counter the right wing moralistic narrative that women who have abortions will have lifelong regret and suffering. Make no mistake, the decision to have an abortion is largely not done recklessly or impulsively. But two things can be true at once. Under capitalism, women are under much economic exploitation and strain as it is, and motherhood is not any easier. Many women choose to have an abortion because they cannot afford or take on motherhood at the moment. Many women who chose an abortion have children later on in life. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 6 in 10 women who have had abortions are now mothers. In the US, a mother is responsible for her child and her alone. She must pay and find childcare when she's at work, she must have the burden of housework and employment. The child is a representation of her upbringing. It is not an easy task under such an individualist society. So it should not be in the least bit controversial to raise that capitalism fuels the demand for abortions and the decline in rates of child birth. It should not be controversial to state as Marxists, we must strive for a society where abortion demands decline through expanding study of women’s health, through access to healthcare and emergency contraceptives, using abortion as a last case option. That does not mean to limit abortion under any circumstances, but when women’s health is a priority and when women have their basic needs met, when we finally break free from wage slavery, then we will see less and less demand for abortions. 

Lastly, another troubling aspect of our pro-choice movement among the left is our reluctance to cast this as a woman’s issue. Abortion rates have increased in 2019 from their previous steady decline, just as recessions and the COVID pandemic saw women losing work and facing housing insecurity. The Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research group, reported that 94% of those who have had abortions identify as women. Yet, among the left we are seeing a resistance to saying “women’s right to an abortion” instead calling them “vagina-havers” or “people with uteruses”. It is a double blow when through the struggle of losing our right to bodily autonomy, we then become dehumanized and unnamed by those who are fighting for our liberation.
 
How can we expect working women to join us, how can we expect to be the crusaders in defense of women’s rights when we refuse to even say the word ‘woman’? Among the left, there is always the desire to be inclusive and bring a collective together under a banner. As noble as this is, it obfuscates that 94% of those getting abortions identify as women, it is clear this is a woman’s issue. This does not mean it is solely a woman’s issue, but we must respect those affected.
 
In the struggle for Black liberation, it is often noted by the right wing that there are more white people murdered by the police than Black people. Of course this statistic does not account for the fact that proportionately, white people make a larger percentage of the population and if we took the rates of the population into account, Black people are the vast majority of victims of police and state sanctioned violence. Exceedingly. Police violence is an issue that harms and kills the Black people of this country, of course that is not denying other races and ethnic groups are victims too. But into the question of police harm, it is clear as day that the issue is one especially pertinent to Black people and we recognize that fact on the left. But why can’t we acknowledge this for women? Women’s issues are routinely ignored day to day, but when the moment comes to stand up and roar for women’s liberation, we won’t even say ‘woman’. How on Earth do we expect working women to join us when we won’t even name them. 

The Left has become alienated from women, and women have become alienated from themselves in light of the lack of Marxists taking on the task to champion them. I cannot understate how much disservice we do to ourselves and women when we don’t take on the economic positions of women’s struggles and reduce them to political trends that dissipate. Whatever the result of this draft may be, until capitalism is abolished, until women are raised from the depths of their plunder, working women will still be doubly exploited by domestic work and employment, women will suffer from lack of healthcare. Until we begin to address this, women will not feel at home in any of our movements. 

On May 2, 1945, the Red Army raised the banner of victory over Berlin’s Reichstag after the fall of the German capital. Adolf Hitler had committed suicide in his bunker less than 48 hours before. He had slaughtered 25 million of the Soviet Union’s people to wipe out the “Judeo Bolshevik menace” once and for all, yet failed to break them. After the most titanic, nightmarish war in modern history, after rivers of blood shed from Kiev to Moscow, from Stalingrad to Kursk, the workers and farmers of the Soviet Union had vanquished the most vile killing machine the world had yet seen.
 
Stalin was eager to exploit the symbolism of storming the Reichstag, the symbolic heart of German power, in time for May Day, and have the red banner waving from the top of the building as a great propaganda victory. The Red Army waged a ferocious battle with fanatical SS die-hards to seize the building.

The first Red Army soldier to scale the Reichstag and raise the flag on top of it was not a Russian but a Kazakh by the name of Rakhimzhan Koshkarbayev, who scaled the Reichstag on April 30.[1] However, it was not suitable for a propaganda photograph because it was too late at night. In addition, the building had not been fully secured from the enemy and the flag was taken down by German soldiers the next day. The day after, the last Nazis had finally been cleared from the building, the flag was raised once again and photographed. Accounts differ, but according to the photographer himself the man who raised the flag was a 18 year old Russian soldier from Kazakhstan named Aleksey Kovalev. He was assisted by two other soldiers, a Muslim soldier named Abdulraham Ismailov from Dagestan in the Caucasus, and Leonid Gorychev, from Minsk in Belarus.[2]

The photographer was Yevgeny Khaldei, a Ukrainian Jewish Soviet naval officer. His father and three of his sisters had been murdered by the Nazis during the war-only his mother survived the war. He was from Donetsk in the Donbass, the coal mining hub of eastern Ukraine, in many ways the West Virginia of the USSR. The young man who raised the red banner went on to live in Kiev for much of the rest of his life, where he served in the Kiev Fire Department, and is buried there.

 They were Ukrainians. They were Russians. They were Soviets. They were all these things.

The iconic photograph became the symbol of the Red Army’s ultimate triumph over Nazism.

Exactly 69 years later, on that very exact day, the  fascist enemy re-emerged on the soil of the former Soviet Union. War was declared on Russia, the peoples of the former Soviet Union, and on all socialists and trade unionists everywhere in the world. It happened on May 2, 2014.


 On that date, in the Russian speaking majority city of Odessa in Ukraine, pro Russian demonstrators, socialists, Communists and trade unionists took to the streets demonstrating against the new Ukrainian ultranationalist government in Kiev, which had taken power in Euromaidan coup against the Ukrainian President Yanukovych a little over two months earlier.

They were rejecting moves to pass laws discriminating against the Russian language, criminalizing Ukraine’s Communist Party, and laws honoring Ukrainian fascists who had collaborated with the Nazis as national heroes. Chief amongst these “heroes”  being Stepan Bandera, the aspiring little Ukrainian Hitler whose forces participated in the Babi Yar massacre and Lvov Pogrom against the Jews alongside the Nazi SS, and also committed genocide against 50-100,000 Poles in Galicia and Volhynia.

The demonstrators were viciously attacked by a mob of armed neo-Nazi thugs of Right Sector. They were driven into the old Soviet Trades Union building by the mob. The building was set on fire by Molotov cocktails wielded by the Nazis. People who attempted to flee the burning building were gunned down or clubbed to death. When the embers burned out, the fascists moved in and finished off those who may have still been alive, eliminating the survivors execution style. At least 46 were dead and hundreds wounded. The dead included a pregnant woman who was strangled to death with steel wire, and the youngest victim was a 17 year old boy who was a member of the Ukrainian Communist Party’s Youth League[3].

Ukraine’s then acting, later elected President Poroshenko appointed Ihor Palytsia, one of the ultra nationalists who had led the mob, acting governor of Odessa only four days after the massacre. The message was clear- in the new post 2014 Ukraine, Nazis could murder, torture, and rape with impunity. They would not be punished. They would be the law.

This massacre barely registered in the West. It was described blandly in the US and Western European media as the ‘Odessa clashes’ in which both sides were equally at fault. This despite the fact that neo Nazi Right Sector proudly took responsibility for the murders on its own website and praised the perpetrators of the killings as heroes.

In the 21st century, open unabashed Nazis spilled blood the day after May Day,  in a house of the working class, in broad daylight. The lack of punishment, consequences or even condemnation for this outrage only made the vile monster hungrier. It had tasted blood now and from here on out, its appetite would only increase.

The lines of battle were drawn.

Just nine days after this atrocity, the people of Ukraine’s industrial coal country of the Donbass, centered around Donetsk(the photographer Yevgeny Khaldei’s hometown) voted to secede from the Ukrainian state. The miners, the working class backbone of eastern Ukraine, took a stand against the reemerging Nazi menace. The people of Donetsk and Luhansk wanted no part in a state where people would be burned alive by fascists for speaking Russian, for being Communists or taking pride in their Soviet past. Like their ancestors had, they took up arms against the swastika.

The fascists mobilized for their counterattack. For eight years- 2014 to 2022- the people of the Donbass were besieged by the Ukrainian military and neo Nazi paramilitaries. They were bombed, they were shelled, they were terrorized and yet they did not bend, they did not break, they did not give in.[4] A popular front mobilized to defend the Donbass consisting of Slavic nationalists and Communists alike. Not only ethnic Russians but numerous other peoples- anti fascist Ukrainians, Cossacks, Ossetians, Abkhazians, Chechens, Georgians, Siberians, Spanish communist internationalist volunteers, even Afghans who had supported the pro Soviet communist Afghan government.

Thirteen to fourteen thousand people in the Donbass died in those eight years. Including hundreds of children. No marches. No petitions. No 24/7 trembling proclamations of incredulous outrage on CNN or MSNBC or the New York Times. Not a mumbling word from the ‘civilized’ liberal West, worse, Obama and Biden alike legitimized the Kiev government and armed the fascist killers. Even many Western ‘socialists’ essentially yawned.

Only when the Russian Army, at long last, came to the aid of the Donbass on February 24, 2022, was Western liberal and ‘leftist’ opinion awakened. Only then did we see volcanic indignation. The last to wake up, they will be the first to go back to sleep, when their tech oligarch masters and social media “thought leaders” instruct them to.

Today, this war continues. In the ruins of Mauripol, in the open Ukrainian plains, in the hills of the Donbass. Russian soldiers, Chechen auxiliaries, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians alike die by the thousands as we speak, and Ukrainians witness the destruction of their country as it becomes a battleground between Russia and NATO in the opening salvos of a new Great Power conflict. Russia and their allies in Ukraine have resolved that the Right Sector and Azov Battalion Nazis must be pounded into the dust. The lynchers of Roma, the torturers and rapists of Russian women and children, the architects of genocide and hatred who spent nearly a decade terrorizing the people of the Donbass like wild beasts, cannot be permitted to be their neighbors. And NATO is equally determined to arm these fascists to the teeth, to effectively use all of Ukraine as a human shield for its Great Game of advancing NATO’s eastern flank. This war will not end until one side or the other breaks.[5]

As heinous as this war is, and whatever criticisms one can make of Russia’s conduct of it, it must be said- Russia did NOT start this conflict. No resolution of the war is possible without an honest reckoning with this fact.

One anticipates all the programmed responses- but Putin is bad. Putin is a monster, Putin is a war criminal, Putin is insane. Putin threatens democracy and freedom and European civilization.

No one wants to be seen as championing an invasion by a stronger country by a weaker one. Yet the history of the USSR reveals that barely more than 30 years ago it was all one country. Being a Russian or a Ukrainian, a Belarussian or a Kazakh, was akin to being a Texan or a Californian, a Michigander or a Virginian. What appears superficially as one nation invading another country is in fact more akin to a civil war- one side of Ukraine identifies as the descendants of those who fought in the Red Army against fascism, while another identifies with those who fought on the side of fascism. NATO is backing one side of this civil war, and Russia is backing the other. The miners of Donetsk represent one pole, and Bandera loving Nazis of Lvov represents the other. And most of Ukrainians are stuck in a hellish battleground between these two different poles. And it is telling which side the Western establishment has chosen.

This is not about this or that leader. It is not about Vladimir Putin’s mind or personal psychology. It is not about the admittedly many flaws, injustices and yes crimes of the current Russian state.

It’s about the Russian nation and the Russian people . And between two warring sides of the Ukrainian people. As well as numerous other countries of the former USSR which have been impacted by the same history(particularly Armenia, Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, etc). Virtually every family was impacted by the war. Every major city is full of monuments and memorials to the dead. The Great Patriotic War is more than merely another historical event.  It is, quite literally, at the very core of the Russian and eastern Ukrainian people's identities. It was a war in which had they not prevailed, their nations would have literally ceased to exist- they would have either been dead, or slaves of the Fascists. China also has a similar collective memory of its brutal struggle against Japanese fascism in the same world war, with unknown millions giving their lives as well.

The broad masses of these countries know, in their bones, that fascism came within a hair's breadth of annihilating them as a people. Generation after generation has passed on the message- remember what your ancestors did. Never forget. Never. And never allow it to happen again. Russia and China are the two leading anti fascist powers in the world, since that struggle is foundational to their modern identity.

The West flatters itself too much, and tells fairy tales about how they slew the Axis on their own. Endless brainless and stupid films, video games and Netflix series reinforce this nonsense. The reality is, the Nazi and Imperial Japanese monsters were poised to devour the Earth, only to bash their brains out against the hard rocks of the great Eurasian fortress presented to them by the Soviet Union and China. Had the Axis captured Eurasia’s vast pools of hundreds of millions of people as slave labor, seized their oil, gas, agriculture, and wheat, seized their coal and iron and uranium, Hitler and Hirohito would have ruled the globe. Britain and yes, the United States would have been swallowed. It is insane how this elemental fact is ignored.

Had these people of the former USSR and China not made this sacrifice, we’d ALL be living under the swastika and the Rising Sun. It quite literally decided the fate of all humanity.

And yet neither country gets respect from Western governments and elites in the subsequent 80 years. What they got, and continue to get, is decades of Cold War, arms race, hostility, relentless demonization, and most insultingly- constant equations between their societies and Fascism in popular Western discourse, even by the so called intelligentsia.

Russia(and China) is tired of the insults. Tired of the ingratitude. Tired of the hypocrisy.

The fact is, for all the US/European liberal intelligentsia’s pontification about ‘totalitarianism’, of equating Communism with fascism, the reality is that since 1945, the real unholy alliance has been between liberal ‘democracies’ and fascism.

The greatest American President of the last century,  Franklin D. Roosevelt, hoped to turn the wartime alliance with Stalin against the Axis into an enduring framework for a peaceful post war global order. There were even plans for the Soviet Union to be a recipient of Marshall Plan aid after the war to help them rebuild.[6]

Alas, FDR died right before the hour of final victory. And a sinister shift occurred at the highest levels of the US government. Harry S Truman, representative of the more hardline, anti communist and pro business factions of the American elite, took over the Democratic Party. He and his allies decided on a course of confrontation instead of cooperation with the USSR. McCarthyism ushered in a new intolerant climate domestically, to purge American society of all elements that might have supported peace and cooperation with the USSR.

Due to the Cold War, an Iron Curtain descended not only over Europe, but the narrative about the Second World War. The Soviet and also Chinese contributions to the Allied victory could not be honored or acknowledged in the West in any way because that interfered with the consensus that these peoples were now “the enemy”. A revisionism prevailed whereby the Western Allies were the sole authors of the victory over the Axis, while Communism was simply another form of ‘totalitarianism’ equivalent to, and in some ways actually worse than the Nazis.

But even more ugly, the remnants of the defeated Nazi regime merged into the emerging CIA, beginning with the Gehlen Organization. In its global war to vanquish the Communist menace, the American intelligence apparatus recruited over 1,000 former Nazis from the Wermacht, SS, and Gestapo to assist with collecting information against the Soviet enemy and planning insurgency and counter insurgency operations. For these enlisted fascists, they were continuing the same war against the ‘Judeo Bolshevik’ menace that had started in 1941- they were simply working for a different boss[7].

A new  war to contain and destroy the communist enemy began, directed from Langley, Virginia instead of Berlin. One of its first major operations in 1949 was the CIA arming and supplying Bandera’s Nazis in western Ukraine, who were still waging an insurgency against the Soviet state. Thousands of Soviet soldiers and police died up into the 1950’s, when Bandera finally fled to West Germany for refuge, only to be assassinated by the KGB.[8] When the CIA failed to directly destabilize the USSR on its home turf, they began a campaign to choke off the Soviets from international allies in the Third World. Scorch the earth around it, and gradually starve the Bolshevik redoubt economically until it crumbled from within.

As documented by Vincent Bevins in ‘The Jakarta Method’, this was a systematic global campaign to wipe out communist and leftist movements worldwide to ensure the preeminence of the US dominated global capitalist system. In South Korea, Guatemala, El Salvador, Iraq, Vietnam, the Philippines, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and most spectacularly Indonesia, fascist death squads armed, trained and directed by the CIA killed and tortured millions of communists to prevent the Third World from aligning with the Soviet Bloc and China. Over a million butchered in Indonesia alone, 200,000 in Guatemala, 200,000 in South Korea, 60,000 across South America in Operation Condor in the 1970’s and 80’s.

While much of the general population was ignorant of these crimes, the liberal elite, especially those in the educated upper classes were aware of them, and embraced it as necessary for the survival of their ideal society. When Suharto mass murdered the Indonesian Communist Party and its sympathizers out of existence, the New York Times proudly proclaimed that this event was “a gleam of light in Asia”. Liberalism is fine with breaking some eggs to build their omelet, as long as they can outsource the violence elsewhere. The rapists and the torturers can do their nasty work to the wretched of the Earth, and they can imagine their souls are pure.[9]
 
And so it continues to this day, with the New York Times readers with their BLM flags and pronouns in their online profiles, cheering for the triumph of the Azov Nazis for ‘democracy’.

American liberalism has thus retained a double character since World War II- liberal freedoms, pluralism and tolerance in the imperial core, which it could afford due to a prosperous middle class satisfied with the status quo. Yet this prosperity was sustained by genocidal violence abroad that enabled the super profits to roll in that made this arrangement possible.

By contrast, the USSR and Eastern Bloc supported countless struggles against Western colonialism across the Third World. National liberation movements from India to Cuba, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua, from Vietnam to South Africa received invaluable economic and military aid from the Soviet bloc.

Much ink has been spilled about Soviet and Russian totalitarianism, yet if the words democracy are to mean anything real, the breaking of centuries of Western colonial rule over the darker nations must count as the greatest expansion of freedom and democracy across the globe in modern history. And it was the Soviet Union, not the Western liberal democracies, that made the great contribution to that new dawn of freedom.

This is why even now, so many African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian governments have refused to take sides in the war between Ukraine and Russia, and at the grassroots of much of the Global South there is widespread sympathy for the Russian narrative. The populations of these countries remember who stood for their freedom, and who wanted to keep their populations in chains. The New York Times and the Times of London express bewilderment at this fact. In Delhi and Mombasa, Beijing and Sao Paulo, it is the common sense perspective that liberal ‘democracy’ is little more than a Trojan Horse for Western domination, and that Russia, whatever its flaws, stands as a counterbalance to the dictatorship of New York, London and Paris over the non Western world.

The standard historical narrative of the entire 20th century is wrong. The struggle was not between liberal democracy and the totalitarian twins of Communism and Fascism, but rather between those who wished to preserve Western supremacy over the globe, and those who thought a re-division of the Earth’s spoils in favor of the billions in Asia, Africa and Latin America was more just. ‘Communism’ was just a convenient label to smear the latter camp, whether the antagonists in question were in fact communists or not. Russia had to not only be defeated but humiliated, so that the superprofits of the West were never more threatened. Everything that had been built since 1917 had to be demolished.

This was never more apparent with how American banks and multinationals treated the defeated Russians after the USSR finally capitulated in 1991. As in 1945, there was an opportunity to mend relations between the West and Moscow and have a fresh start. This did not happen.

That opportunity was lost. Instead of providing economic aid and favorable loans to Russia, as American corporations did to Germany and Japan after World War II, the IMF and American free market advisors imposed a brutal neoliberal austerity regime on the Russian working class. Millions died from poverty, alcoholism, disease and crime as the country's wealth was looted by rapacious oligarchs. The publicly owned economy was gutted so a tiny minority could become obscenely wealthy. The male life expectancy declined by 10 years in just five years. Women were enslaved in the sex trade. Millions of orphans lived on the cold streets, selling drugs and prostituting themselves to survive. It was the greatest demographic disaster Russia experienced since the Nazis invaded, and it was in peacetime[10].

The Clintonite liberals and the free marketeers tried to complete what Hitler failed to accomplish- the final and total destruction of Russia as a cohesive social, cultural and economic unit. In the 1990’s it looked very likely that Russia would permanently become a failed state, perhaps itself break up into even smaller and weaker entities akin to Yugoslavia. Mitterand’s derisive quip that Boris Yeltsin’s Russia was little more than “Upper Volta with nukes” wasn’t far from the truth.

In Russia’s moment of weakness, NATO advanced further and further towards Russia’s borders. Advancing 600 miles to the east and encircling Russia with US troops, bases and batteries. This humiliation was swallowed over and over again for 30 years by the Russians.

The rise of Vladimir Putin to power in Moscow halted this disintegration, and brought Russia back from the brink of total destruction. He reigned in the worst excesses of the oligarchs, stabilized the economy, and put some key parts of the nation's natural resources such as oil and gas under state control. He did not expropriate the oligarchs, but he diminished their political importance. A KGB veteran, he represented remnants of the old Soviet bureaucracy, particularly the intelligence agencies, who wanted to rebuild Russia into a great power. He presided over a regime with one foot in the Soviet past and another foot in the post Soviet kleptocracy, albeit in a more managed form than under Yelstin. For 20 years, this unstable, contradictory transitional state held together, barely.

Putin, representing this alliance between the former Soviet security state and Russia’s business class, wanted a good relationship with the West and did not wish to be an international arsonist. He even attempted to join NATO, but was rebuffed.[11] He wanted to play ball with the West, but not at the cost of Russia’s sovereignty. The atrocities in the Donbass reawakened the Russian people from their post Soviet stupor, indifference and despair. The motherland was in danger again. The Russian bear roused itself from its slumber and roared.

In 2020-22, signs that NATO was preparing an all out push against Russia proliferated. One all sides, US backed color revolutions and military provocations popped up on Russia’s borders- first the war by Turkish backed Azeri forces against Russia’s ally Armenia in 2020, then protests against Russia’s ally Lukashenko in Belarus, then the protests/coup attempt against the Russian friendly government in Kazakhstan in January 2022, which Russia sent troops to quell.

Putin didn’t single handedly bring Russia into this war. Had he not acted, he would have lost his nationalist legitimacy with the Russian people. Russia’s oligarchs face the prospect of being permanently marginalized, as this war has led to their investments, properties and hedge funds in the West going up in flames due to US/EU sanctions. Putin’s place in the Kremlin stands on shaky ground- antagonizing the oligarchs whose support he has been so reliant on, cutting himself off from the West to go into the arms of Beijing, and riding a wave of Russian national fervor. It could either be a masterful strategic move, or a fatal blunder.

If Putin’s government fails to accomplish the objectives in Ukraine of de militarization and de Nazification, or achieves an unsatisfactory result after all the sacrifices his people have gone through, his government will be swept aside and someone even more hardline will take his place. The Communists, being the best organized opposition party, are the most likely to take the reins of state power in that situation.


Russia will have to patch things together with the other former Soviet republics to halt the NATO drive to the east- which means a break with narrow Russian nationalism. Closer economic and mutual military defense pacts are already in the process of being built between Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other former SSR’s.[12] And with China’s rise there is an increasingly favorable economic environment in Eurasia for such initiatives. The tribes of the USSR that were apart must come together once again. The alternative is eternal impoverishment, dismemberment, division and humiliation- a return to the 1990’s. It is no longer possible to fence sit or take half measures.

China, facing US military encirclement itself since Obama’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ and confronted with the alarming remilitarization and rearming of its old genocidal adversary Japan with US encouragement, needs Russia at its back just as much Russia needs Beijing at its back. Europe and the West consolidate into one fortress, and Eurasia consolidates into another.

Russian and Belarussian, Kazakh and Armenian, Caucasian and Siberian, Chinese and  either all stand together, or they all fall.

In closing, the words of the Soviet poet Olga Bergholz, whose prose is engraved in stone at a memorial to the Siege of Leningrad, is appropriate: “Here Lie Leningraders- Here are City Dwellers- men, women and children. And next to them, Red Army soldiers. They defended you, Leningrad, the cradle of the Revolution with all their lives. We cannot list their noble names here, there are so many of them under the eternal protection of granite. But know this, those who regard those stones- no one is forgotten, and nothing is forgotten”.

Every May 9, not only in Russia but increasingly across most former Soviet republics, hundreds of thousands turn out for the “Immortal Regiment” celebrations. They carry with them the photographs of their relatives and ancestors who fought in the Red Army. Being Russian means honoring the memory of the dead of that war. Had those men and women not prevailed, their nation would not exist. They fight not because they are barbaric, or bloodthirsty, or brainwashed, but because the weight of their historical debt leaves them no choice. They remember.

And yet in the current political discourse in the West especially, everyone is forgotten, and nothing is remembered.


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Citations

[1] https://m.azh.kz/en/news/view/3787

[2]https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/legendaere-foto-manipulation-fahne-gefaelscht-uhr-versteckt-wolken-erfunden-a-551663.html

[3] ‘Council of Europe issues report on far right massacre in Odessa’
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/01/19/odes-j16.html

[4] Donbass: Documentary by Anne Laure-Bonnel, 2016:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFLhjEHvfmk

[5] For independent journalism documenting Azov Battalions atrocities:
Patrick Lancaster- Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday

[6] ‘Roosevelt and Stalin: Portrait of a Partnership’ by Susan Butler.
Vintage Press, 2016.

[7] “In Cold War, US Spy Agencies Used Over 1,000 Nazis’
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/us/in-cold-war-us-spy-agencies-used-1000-nazis.html

[8] “Cold War Allies: The Origins of the CIA’s Relationship with Ukrainian Nationalists’
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/STUDIES%20IN%20INTELLIGENCE%20NAZI%20-%20RELATED%20ARTICLES_0015.pdf

[9] Vincent Bevins, The Jakarta Method, Public Affairs Press, 2020.

[10] “Privatization ‘raised death rate’, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7828901.stm

[11] ‘Ex NATO head says Putin wanted to join alliance early in his rule’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule

[12] ‘Russia, Belarus, Call on Former Soviet nations to help form USSR style union’
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-belarus-form-new-ussr-call-ex-soviet-nations-join-1701741

Over the course of the pandemic conservatives and far right representatives have mobilized in a widespread assault on science as an institution. While this has been an ongoing phenomenon well before COVID, over the pandemic it has expanded into a variety of issues relevant that concern the LGBTQ+ community–especially in light of recent schools’ decision to remove safe space stickers or anything related to Pride, and the expected overturning of Roe V. Wade. At the center of the maelstrom are a group of individuals who call themselves the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW)—so named by New York Times reporter Barry Weiss, and a label they have also used to describe themselves. While to most people this conjures up images of websites where people can by illicit substances, the IDW is merely a loosely affiliated group of celebrity academics and pseudo-intellectuals. These include people like internet talk show hosts like Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan; but also discredited academics like Jordan Peterson, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying  who use their scientific credentials to justify conservative positions on hot button “culture war” topics like the legislation targeting the existence of LGBTQ+ people, prohibitions on critical race theory, and anti-abortion legislation–creating a rift between some individuals aligned with the IDW. Although the IDW is not a formal organization, their mutual support has allowed their collective impact to be felt far and wide.
           
​While each member of the IDW concerns themselves with a variety of different issues the central line trying their work together is the link between biology and human social behavior. While there are a variety of reputable scholars working in this area, they diverge from the IDW by noting the limitations of their work—and they don’t try to use their work to justify discriminatory policies. Figures in the IDW have even gone so far as to alleging that women, African Americans, and LGBTQ+ people are inferior. The work of the IDW resembles the kind of armchair theorizing that gave rise to a whole host of discredited scientific endeavors in the 1950s. We know today that such old theoretical stances are deeply rooted in the rampant racism and bigotry that existed in that age—perhaps why many of their fan base comes from far-right circles.
           
If the IDW remained contained to academic circles they would probably go unnoticed, and their harm could be contained. However, they have done well at cultivating rich benefactors that have allowed their voices to be amplified across the internet and beyond. So called establishment science operates under a process known as peer review in which other anonymous scholars critique their ideas. While biases of reviewers can sometimes taint this process, such internal debates make up a whole field of study known as the philosophy of science. However, in the case of the IDW the issues rest not in the partisan biases of other scientists, but rather rests squarely on a failure to meet the rigorous methodological standards of scientific investigation. Even mainstream outlets have begun to recognize the IDW’s devolving standards as a result of subverting peer review. One review of Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying’s best selling book was described by The Guardian as a book that "lazily repeat[s] false information from other pop-science books." 
           
The IDW however is not entirely to blame for their ability to massively influence the public, the institution of science is also an accomplice to their success. Since the 1950s there have been calls for scholars to speak to the lived experiences of those they study and to make a greater connection with the public. This call has been answered mostly by scholars hailing from marginalized backgrounds including LGBTQIA2 persons, African Americans, and women who have had to fight hard to be recognized within science. Behind every scholar from a minority group is a story of struggle. WEB DuBois, one of the greatest public intellectuals of our time, lacked funding and faced significant opposition to his pioneering scholarship on the study of African American experience. Contrary to this the members of the IDW are backed by a range of conservative billionaires. Dave Rubin, for example, is funded by Learn Liberty which is supported by Charles G. Koch—the 20th richest person in the world who has contributed vast sums of money towards conservative and far right political figures, and anti LGBTQ+ legislation.  Eric Weinstein (Bret Weinstein’s brother), is perhaps the most vocal person in the IDW, serves as the director of Thiel Capital founded by Peter Thiel who also owns paypal. This allows the voices of those in the IDW to be amplified over legitimate science, and the public mobilized against the very institutions which might guard against ideas like the consumption of bleach as a cure for COVID.
           
The IDW has exposed the shortcomings of institutional science, and has illustrated the important commitment that research institutions have to the public. This is due in large part to the lack of an incentive structure for those working in science to engage in this type of work. In fact, young scholars who are often best equipped to engage in public scholarship, risk placing their careers in jeopardy due to the political nature that comes from public scholarship. Tenured faculty, who are protected, lack the skills to reach audiences outside of academia—trapped in the preverbal ivory tower. This includes a multitude of individual scientists and other intellectuals taking to Twitch.TV and Youtube to lead the charge against misinformation. While to outsiders these platforms are more closely associated with gaming and watching than science communication, over the pandemic the two sites have been used in a variety of intellectual ways.

An overwhelming majority of science communicators on Twitch.TV have recognized the potential for harm to the LGBTQ+ and other minority communities posted by the IDW. This is due in part to the platforms large trans and non-binary population, and because many of the leading science communicators on the platform hail from the LGBTQ+ community. As my own research on LGBTQ+ life has shown, LGBTQ+ persons have always been good at using the internet as a mechanism to organize, find community, and ways to establish community–thus it is no wonder that they have applied these community organizing skills towards public outreach. Such science communicators include those in public health such as Marcus Weinman, Dr Neuroforieur, philosophers such as Dr. Bwinbwin, and independent science commentators such as Echoplex Media, and Gremloe.

However, LGBTQ+ allies on Twitch.TV, and other platforms, such as biologist The Peer Review, sociologist Professor EXP, and smaller professional journalists like  LVELHEAD also explore these issues in their own outreach efforts–albeit from markedly different perspectives. Unlike the IDW the thing that unites these individuals is their dedication and passion to restoring public trust in science, but more importantly in promoting truth, equality, and understanding. As these figures show us, scientists and professionals of all backgrounds need to come out of the laboratory as we need them now more than ever! As rights for the minorities and the LGBTQ+ community continue to erode, this Pride may matter more than we all know.

​In many lands for many centuries, May celebrations marked the coming of Spring and the renewal of earth and crops and life for the masses of people. In our time, May Day, the international holiday of the labor and socialist movements, developed out of labor's struggle against exploitation and socialism's dedication to the regeneration and empowerment of the working class. And May Day began in the United States, even though its capitalist class has sought to erase that point from the the consciousness of the people of the United States.
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May Day's roots are in the peaceful demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers in Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, and other cities on May 1, 1886, for the eight hour day. Supported by the Knights of Labor, the new American Federation of Labor, and by various labor anarchists and socialists, the demonstrations were denounced by the capitalist press as conspiracies to revive the Paris Commune in the U.S.

In Chicago in Haymarket Square three days after the May first demonstrations, labor anarchists organized a protest demonstration following police killing of strikers at the McCormick Harvester plant. After a bomb was thrown at the large contingent of police there to intimidate the demonstration, the ensuing police riot, national Red Scare, and arrest and trial of eight of the demonstration's leaders (four were executed), made Haymarket an international symbol of capitalism's war against the working class.

With the Haymarket struggle as their precedent, an international Congress of Socialists and other labor activists, meeting in Paris in 1889 in the centennial of the French revolution, designated May 1st as a day of demonstrations for the eight hour day through the world.

As the socialist movement grew and a Second International of socialist parties developed in the 1890s out of the Paris meeting and the subsequent May Day demonstrations, May Day became an annual event, reflecting both workers pride and militancy. Although the AFL initially supported the demonstrations,Samuel Gompers, federation President and advocate of what came to be known as conservative craft oriented 'business unionism,' the distanced the organization from it and focussed on Labor Day as am 'American' national labor holiday.

But socialists, anarchists, immigrant workers pouring in to the U.S. from European countries with developing labor and socialist movements, celebrated May day as a day of mobilization and contemplation of Labor's past, present and future. The Soviet Socialist Revolution of 1917 made May Day both an official holiday and the symbol of a revolutionary workers state through the world, with huge peoples marches through the country.

May Day demonstrations were brought to the colonies and 'protectorates' of the world primarily by Communist supporters of the Third International in the interwar period, although Socialist and Labor parties throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States, whatever their divisions from Communist parties continued to celebrate May along with Communists.

In the post WW II period, when the colonial empires collapsed and socialist forces advanced, May Day in the 1950s through the 1970s became the most widely celebrated day in history, reaching more people than any religious or national holiday

In the U.S. though, where May Day demonstrations had been large in New York's Union Square in the 1930s and 1940s, legal restrictions, police abuse and organized street violence by right-wing elements shut down May Day for much of the 1950s and 1960s.

In Germany, when the Nazis came to power, they had 'replaced' May Day with a 'national day' and, among other things, outlawed the use of the word 'proletarian,' along with their public burning of Marxist books and the works of writers deemed 'racial subhumans' (Jews most of all but also others) In the U.S. May Day wasn't formally banned, although permits for demonstrations were nearly impossible to come by and local authorities cooperated often with McCarthyite elements to squelch any possible demonstration for the greater part of a generation. Cold Warriors even tried without much real success to sponsor 'law day' demonstrations to rival May Day in the 1950s.

This history of ugly repression and the resistance to it in the U.S. deserves to be remembered when we celebrate May Day, remembering that it is first and foremost the holiday that proclaims the inseparable bond and interdependency of the labor and socialist movements. It is the holiday of unity among all sections of the labor and socialist movements, not just Communists or Socialists.

Although some have noted that May Day in the cold war era came to be identified megatively with military parades in Red Square in Moscow reviewed by Soviet leaders (which always of course got the most coverage) May Day was about much more than that even in the Soviet Union, where it was celebrated at all levels through the Society, and throughout the world, where it was identified with peoples struggles against exploitation and oppression.
Happy May Day, in the struggle for working class unity, peace, and socialism! Like the working class itself, it unites the people of the whole world.

The following essay started as a technical analysis of the disparities in American healthcare between rural and urban communities. It was originally written in an academic style with very dry language and the use of vocabulary words that are not well known outside the field of healthcare administration. However, the essay has been revised into a summary of the healthcare system in rural America, and a persuasive argument in favor of moving towards a socialistic system of healthcare. The purpose of this is to demystify the healthcare system for American workers, to reveal the contradictions laying at the base of the system and explain how they have led to the system’s many failures. Any thorough analysis of the U.S. healthcare system such as this will blatantly reveal the contradictions of capitalism itself, and the many ways that capital has infected American healthcare.
​
Additionally, this analysis critiques the toothless ‘solutions’ to the problems in healthcare being proposed by ‘healthcare policy experts.’ While these experts are deeply knowledgeable about the existing system, they almost always overlook the blatant contradiction between the profit motivations of healthcare capitalists, and the intended goal of the system, which is to maximize health outcomes for the population. Policy experts generally suggest technocratic changes to the system, which never threaten the billions of dollars in revenue that shareholders make from the system each year. Solutions produced by these policy experts are often funded by enormous healthcare conglomerates such as United Health Group Inc. Therefore, the very companies who constitute the root of the healthcare system’s problems, are those who oversee producing solutions for fixing the same problems they caused. This shows how deeply capital has infected the system and captured the discourse surrounding it.

One of the primary healthcare concerns that has plagued the rural United States for decades has been lack of access to hospitals and emergency care. Rural America has a general shortage of physicians and healthcare professionals, a lack of sufficient healthcare facilities, and has experienced overall economic stagnation throughout the last 40 years. Four decades of neoliberalism, the political-economic ideology favoring unregulated capitalism and minimal social safety net, has battered the economies and healthcare systems of most every town in the rural U.S. In the last decade alone over 100 rural hospitals were shut down due to lack of revenue, leaving many rural residents without access to a hospital within a reasonable distance. An overall shift in healthcare, towards outpatient care and away from inpatient, has also contributed to the falling number of rural hospitals.
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Various solutions have been proposed to tackle the issue of declining rural hospital access. Many policy experts have called for Freestanding Emergency Departments (FSEDs) to provide emergency care for rural areas in desperate need. FSED’s are essentially mobilized emergency care departments, that don’t offer the other services traditionally associated with hospitals. Proponents of FSEDs argue they deliver care faster and are farther reaching than traditional hospitals but are cheaper to maintain as they require less staff. FSEDs have seen some success in practice, however, that success is usually dependent on the economic conditions of the community it’s implemented in, as well as how much Government financing the FSED receives. FSEDs are not a viable solution to the massive problems facing the rural healthcare system. Based on the existing barriers between rural Americans and hospital care, and the consistently decreasing number of hospitals in rural areas, much larger scale changes are needed to improve access to quality hospital care for the rural U.S.

To better understand the problems facing rural America specifically, we can compare relevant health statistics between urban and rural communities. Over the past four decades a large body of literature has been produced detailing the disparities between rural and urban healthcare. A comparative study was done in 2007 analyzing the differences in healthcare quality indicators between urban acute care hospitals and rural critical access hospitals in the U.S. Of the 12 quality indicators measured, 8 showed a statistically significant difference between urban and rural, with 7 of the 8 favoring the urban acute care hospitals (Lutfiyya, 2007). The study concluded that urban communities have access to higher quality healthcare services than rural communities overall. Since that study, 164 new rural hospitals have closed according to the University of North Carolina’s Shep Center for Health Services Research, further decreasing the already low level of hospital access for rural residents. This data reveals that poor access to health services and low-quality hospital care have been issues in rural communities for many years and have only gotten worse with time.

Many policy experts believe the solution to decreasing healthcare access is mobilizing FSED’s for the purpose of providing emergency care in rural areas. Thus, we must take a closer look at FSEDs and how they function. The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) define an FSED as “a facility that is structurally separate and distinct from a hospital and provides emergency care.” There are two types of FSEDs: Hospital Outpatient Departments (HOPDs) also known as Hospital-Based Off-Campus Emergency Departments (OCEDs) and Independent Freestanding Emergency Centers (IFECs).

HOPDs belong to, and are controlled by, larger medical centers or hospital systems. These systems tend to accept Medicare and Medicaid payments, thereby placing them under the regulatory rules of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The CMS regulations governing HOPD style FSEDs, are the same regulations that most Emergency Departments in the U.S. operate under.

The other style of FSED are IFECs which differ from HOPDs in that they can be owned by individuals or private businesses. CMS does not recognize IFECs as Emergency Departments, which prevents them from taking Medicare or Medicaid payments, and exempts them from the regulations that govern HOPDs and traditional emergency departments. Because of this the regulations for IFECs are incredibly inconsistent and vary by state. Some states have decided to regulate IFECs under guidelines of the Emergency Medical Treatment and labor act (EMTALA), which ensures hospitals treat and stabilize patients regardless of their ability to pay. A handful of states have taken no regulatory action at all, allowing FSEDs to act largely unregulated. Many states will not give licenses for any kind of FSED, and others will only license HOPDs style facilities governed by CMS regulations. 

So, who is advocating for this move to Freestanding Emergency Departments as the mode of delivering healthcare in the rural U.S.? In an article from the Rural Health Information Hub discussing FSEDs as an alternative healthcare model for rural communities, the organization spoke to MD and ACEP member David Ernst who advocated for the IFEC model, the model which allows for FSEDs to be privately owned. Ernst argued that independently owned IFECs are more sophisticated, efficient, and economically streamlined compared to other models which are hampered by federal enforcement of Medicare mandates (though Ernst does not explain here what he means by any of these statements specifically.) He also mentions that IFEC facilities tend to thrive in high income urban and suburban areas where most the population has high quality insurance (Lukens, 2016).
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How the large-scale implementation of IFEC facilities would improve healthcare quality and access in rural areas is truly a mystery. Anyone who genuinely offers this as a solution likely does not understand the nature or the gravity of the problems facing rural healthcare, and the U.S. healthcare system in general. Most who offer it as a solution likely have contradictory motivations leading them to believe that this is a viable solution.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s causing poor health outcomes for rural Americans. The National Library of Medicine did an analysis of the historical problems in rural healthcare and found that the general lack of rural hospitals is largely due to ‘financing issues,’ as rural healthcare facilities often struggle bringing in enough revenue to remain profitable in sparsely populated rural areas. Additionally, when larger healthcare systems realize they are no longer making a net profit from selling healthcare within a certain geographic area, they have historically chosen to remove healthcare providing facilities from that area, regardless of how it effects the residents in that area. The analysis identified that the primary elements contributing to rural healthcare’s worsening condition are decreasing and disproportionately elderly populations, economic stagnation, high rates of underinsured residents, and the trend towards outpatient over inpatient care (Weisgrau). All the relevant scholarly literature agrees that the most influential problems facing rural healthcare are economic in nature.

These issues highlight the inefficiencies of the market when it comes to protecting the interests of working-class citizens, and the lunacy of the idea that profit driven private companies working within healthcare will prioritize the interests of vulnerable populations over their own monetary interests. In fact, companies could not prioritize population health outcomes even if they wanted to. Market competition rewards those who sell the most healthcare at the greatest margins, but harshly punishes those who would bring healthcare to a population of people who can’t afford to pay both the costs of the healthcare services provided, as well as the profits of the private shareholders who own the facilities providing care.

So now that we have a more concrete understanding of the problems rural healthcare is facing, let’s turn back to the proposed IFEC model to ask whether it truly addresses the economic barriers in rural healthcare? Given that IFECs can’t accept Medicaid payments, it is unlikely that underinsured populations will have access to IFEC care. In many states IFECs can turn away underinsured without giving care, as they are not subject to CMS regulations and therefore EMTALA. For the private business entity who owns the IFEC this is a positive, as IFECs can avoid the revenue loss that traditional hospitals incur from being forced by regulation to provide unpaid care. However, IFECs do nothing to improve deficient access to care for the underinsured, or the 12.3% of rural residents who are completely uninsured (Day, 2019). IFECs may be a less costly way for businesses entities to maintain Emergency Department style facilities in rural areas that can’t support full-service hospitals, but they do little to address the most impactful barriers to healthcare affecting rural citizens. IFECs do nothing to provide healthcare for those who lack insurance coverage, which is one of the foremost barriers to healthcare in the U.S.

The proposed system could easily be exploited by predatory business interests. With a declining number of rural hospitals, business entities could theoretically wait for an area’s hospital to close, then fill the healthcare void in that area by implementing an IFEC style FSED. The facility would be under no obligation to treat those residents who cannot afford to pay for care. They could perform services exclusively for people with income levels high enough to afford them, or those desperate enough to pay more than they can afford. After operating in this manner for a period, the IFEC owners would get an understanding of who in the rural community can afford ED services and how much they’re willing to pay. The facility could then be staffed with only as many employees as necessary for performing those services, decreasing variable costs for the facility, and maintaining sufficient revenue levels for the business owners. Moving towards IFECs would allow healthcare investors to generate revenue in rural areas where they previously could not but would do little to address poor health outcomes for rural populations that need it most.

So why did MD David Ernst promote the IFEC model in his interview with Rural Health Information Hub? Well, it may have something to do with the fact that Ernst is the president of a company that provides telemedicine software to 325 emergency departments and hospitals across the U.S. Ernst thus stands to profit from the implementation of more FSEDs, as the facilities are reliant on telemedicine software to communicate with other facilities. Creating more FSEDs would increase demand for the software produced by Ernst’s EPOWERdoc company. Obviously, there is a conflict of interest here, and Ernst is likely promoting the FSED model to boost his private companies’ revenue. Despite the conflict of interest, Rural Information Hub present Ernst’s interview as if he were an unbiased expert. A clear example of how the solutions to the healthcare systems many problems are being produced by profit driven interests, who do not prioritize the health outcomes of the communities they serve, but rather the revenue of the companies they belong to.

A detailed cost analysis of FSEDs concluded that IFECs would not be financially viable in rural areas, especially if they are not allowed to accept Medicare and Medicaid payments. The analysis also found that the alternative HOPD model has only worked in areas with relatively high population density and favorable payer mixes. They have been far less successful in the sparsely populated and poorer areas of rural America. Hospital systems rarely think it is worth their effort and resources to implement and maintain FSEDs in these areas. Doing so rarely generates revenue and can even work in reverse as a drain on total revenue (Williams, 2015). While FSED implementation may be an improvement in rural areas with no nearby hospitals at all, they are a deeply flawed concept, and one that has been debated since the early 1970s. Bringing high quality healthcare to rural America will require new solutions that seek to enact macro level changes, rather than outdated solutions which have largely failed to address historically prevalent issues.

The primary contradiction in rural healthcare, and the healthcare system in its totality, are the profit incentives of the various entities who provide healthcare services and mediate payment. Cuba is a vastly poorer country than the U.S. that has faced an embargo limiting its economic activity for decades. Despite that, Cuba has achieved and maintained universal health care for many years, including the rural and mountainous regions of the island. Since 1959 Cuba has invested substantial resources towards developing their healthcare infrastructure and training new doctors. Cuban doctors receive free medical school in exchange for pledging to serve the rural areas of Cuba for a certain time after graduation. A beautiful example of a policy designed to both train new staff and ensure that the staff serve the neediest parts of the country.
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In 1999 Cuba assisted Venezuela in implementing similar policies, as well as an effort to increase the level of preventative care services. Their efforts resulted in a substantial increase in the number of rural clinics, physicians, nurses, and dentists as well as a 30% decrease in ER visits thanks to the newly implemented preventative care (Westhoff). If the U.S. were to implement a similar program, focusing their resources on developing the healthcare system, similar policies to those enacted in Cuba and Venezuela could be implemented on a massive scale. The problem is that Cuba’s reforms required Government initiatives to ensure the nation’s resources were utilized to develop the rural health infrastructure, and train more rural healthcare staff. Government planning was used to do what the free market could not.

The healthcare markets and private hospital systems in the U.S. have shown time and time again that they will not adequately serve rural communities unless it is profitable. In sparsely populated communities across rural America, it is rarely profitable. Thus, the state of rural healthcare can only be improved if the U.S. abandons the dogmatic belief that market forces always generate optimal outcomes for everyone – especially in the realm of healthcare where profit motivations so clearly contradict the effort to create an optimal system for everyone. The healthcare system itself must abandon the idea that it can maintain the current profits that it generates for investors, while also meeting the needs of rural populations. Rational economic planning is what is needed to fix the system’s problems in the future. Rational planning is impossible under the system’s current ownership, whose only rationale is maximizing their own revenue. Workers must seize control of the healthcare system from the shareholders and executives who have captured it and turned it into a profit generating monstrosity. This change in ownership over the healthcare system’s ‘means of production’ is the only way to create a rational system which works to optimize health for the working masses of society.

​

References

Lutfiyya, M. N., Bhat, D. K., Gandhi, S. R., Nguyen, C., Weidenbacher-Hoper, V. L., & Lipsky, M. S. (2007). A comparison of quality of care indicators in urban acute care hospitals and rural critical access hospitals in the United States. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 19(3), 141–149. https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzm010

University of North Carolina. (2022, January 11). Rural Hospital closures. The Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://www.shepscenter.unc.edu/programs-projects/rural-health/rural-hospital-closures/

Lukens, J. (2016, November 30). Freestanding emergency departments: An alternative model for rural communities. The Rural Monitor. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/rural-monitor/freestanding-emergency-departments/

American College of Emergency Physicians. (2020, April). Freestanding emergency departments. acep.org. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://www.acep.org/patient-care/policy-statements/freestanding-emergency-departments/#sm.00000p5gnbn6o8e9rs6g9980zvd72

Weisgrau, S. (1995). Issues in rural health: Access, hospitals, and reform. Health care financing review,17(1),1-14.
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Day, J. C. (2019, April 9). Rates of uninsured fall in rural counties, remain higher than Urban counties. Census.gov. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/04/health-insurance-rural-america.html#:~:text=Residents%20of%20rural%20counties%20still,percent%20for%20mostly%20urbhttps://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/04/health-insurance-rural-america.html#:~:text=Residents%20of%20rural%20counties%20still,percent%20for%20mostly%20urban%20counties.an%20counties.

Williams, J. D., Song, P. H., & Pink, G. H. (2015, November). Estimated costs of rural freestanding emergency departments. ShepsCenter.unc.edu. Retrieved April 19, 2022, from https://www.shepscenter.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2015/11/Rural-Freestanding-ED.pdf

Esposito, C. L., Gilbert, J., Ciampa, A., & Markman, J. (2017, August 1). Against All Odds: Cuba Achieves Healthcare for All- An Analysis of Cuban Healthcare. nysna.org. Retrieved April 19, 2022, from https://www.nysna.org/sites/default/files/attach/ajax/2020/08/NYSNA.Response.to_.the_.New_.York_.State_.Department.of_.Health.Final_.pdf

Westhoff, W. W., Rodriguez, R., Cousins, C., & McDermott, R. J. (2010). Cuban healthcare providers in Venezuela: A case study. Public Health, 124(9), 519–524. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2010.05.008 

I wholeheartedly appreciate the trust and support of the people, because without it, without the support of the people, we could not resist the onslaught of the corrupt conservatives or achieve (which is the most important thing) the beautiful ideal of continuing to transform the country. We are inspired by our exemplary history in the legacy left to us by our heroes, and in the cultures of deep Mexico, from which they demand the best lessons of work, freedom, justice, democracy, honesty, dignity, and love for others.

In the time that we have (two and a half years to go, a little less), I hope that, as has been the case up until now, with the support of the people, we continue walking towards a welfare state that allows us to eradicate hunger and live free from misery.

We have the task of guaranteeing social security from birth to death, that no one in Mexico is born condemned to poverty, without justice, without a future. May the widest opportunities open up to climb the social ladder through study and work, without abandoning our identity, the pride of our origin, and that the right to happiness become a reality.

I think there are two fundamental things, they continue to promote the revolution of consciences with words and deeds, which is the most effective way to confront the conservative and reactionary thinking of our opponents. And not only for that, so that the conquests of our times become irreversible, so that everything we achieve for the benefit of the people cannot be reversed. And the best guarantee, the best insurance, is a change in the mentality of our people, because the people will be in charge of defending these achievements for their benefit.

And do not forget that material well-being and also the well-being of the soul must be sought, because man does not live by bread alone. There is no doubt that human beings need well-being. We all need to live well, no one can be happy without work, food, health, housing, or any other basic satisfaction. A man in poverty thinks only how to survive before taking up political, scientific, artistic, or spiritual tasks.

Frederick Engels masterfully explained it in his speech at the grave of Karl Marx, arguing that “just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, Marx discovered the law of development of human history." "The fact so simple," according to Engels, "but hidden under the ideological undergrowth that man first of all needs to eat, drink, have a roof over his head, and clothe himself, before he can do politics, science, art, or religion."

But the meaning of life, I maintain, should not be reduced solely to obtaining the material, to what we possess or accumulate. A person without attachment to a code of principles, without attachment to an ideal, to a doctrine, hardly achieves happiness; in some cases he will succeed at all costs and unscrupulously leads to an empty life, an unhappy life.

Hence, the balance between the material and the spiritual should always be sought. Ensure that no one lacks what is essential for survival, and cultivate at the same time, the best feelings, and attitudes towards our fellow men. In short, let us never stop acting with mysticism in our public work, in our political work, nor let us ever put aside humanism and fraternity.

​Many thanks.

Author

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO): President of Mexico.

Chinese people and the Chinese government are two different things on this issue. Among Chinese people there’s been huge energetic support for Russia, there was even a movement among people to buy all the Russian products from online shops in China and everything sold out very quickly. 

People have been bringing up the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy during the war in Yugoslavia (3 dead, 20 injured). The United States said it was a mistake, but Chinese people never forgave NATO for that. There is also a belief that if Russia is sanctioned today then it could happen to China tomorrow, so people believe they should support Russia now. 

However, the government has been sticking to its long-held foreign policy and maintained its neutrality, but that doesn’t mean that it’s been ignoring the issue. China always supports upholding the territorial integrity of countries. As they built good relations with Russia, they never recognized Crimea as Russian, China still recognizes it as part of Ukraine. The Chinese government has also been vocal about recognizing the legitimacy of Russia’s security concerns. China has always opposed the escalation of armed conflict and that’s why they voted neutral at the UN on the question of the Ukraine conflict. They oppose the use of military intervention and also the use of sanctions. This has been China’s position with regard to every conflict that has come before this too. 

China, while maintaining its neutrality, has emphasized that the principal motivation for the crisis is NATO expansionism and its inability to recognize the legitimacy of Russia’s demands. This is a much more nuanced position than that taken in the West where they just say ‘Putin is crazy’ and ‘he wants to invade the whole of Europe’.

China has also been denouncing the biolabs in Ukraine where it seems that the US has been developing biological weapons. Since the start of the pandemic, China has suspected that the origin of the virus could be in the US military lab in Fort Detrick. They’ve always insisted that Fort Detrick should be investigated just as Wuhan was. The US has recognized that these labs in Ukraine exist, but say that they’re not for biological weapons. 
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Xi Jinping has been speaking to France and Germany and has tried to get them to take a bigger role in achieving a peaceful solution because after all, Europe is the most affected by this conflict. China is emerging as the ideal candidate to broker a solution to this conflict, but we don’t know what will happen. 

UnionPay is a payment system used for credit and debit cards, basically the Chinese version of Visa. However, in China, most people pay for everything electronically on WeChat and Alipay, so maybe Russia can now be the best growth market for them. UnionPay was already present in Russia and its cards are accepted by most ATMs there and around the world, so the transition is not difficult, and it means the Russian banking system won’t just collapse. The sanctions have also left the Russian market open for Chinese consumer goods now that Western companies have pulled out. For the Chinese companies that don’t have business in the US, this is a huge opportunity for them to move in and scoop up the Russian market. This will also help accelerate the de-dollarization of the global economy, and for this transition period, China is well-placed to help fill the gaps while Russia develops its own self-sufficiency, which Lavrov says is their aim. 

At the beginning of the conflict, a lot of Taiwan separatists were mobilizing to express support for Ukraine and this generated a lot of mockery on social media even within Taiwan. Remember that only a minority of Taiwanese people want independence, the majority support the status quo as long as they continue to benefit it from it. Most Taiwanese people know that separating from China would be an economic catastrophe for them. People there are still culturally Chinese, and it’s a very pragmatic society, so they have no desire to separate. Taiwan’s elites don’t want that either. The attempts to make comparisons between Ukraine and Taiwan haven’t been successful for anything other than generating a few joking memes, people aren’t comparing the two issues.

A substitute teacher at an Arlington, Virginia middle school has been suspended for teaching an insufficiently one-sided perspective on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Apparently one of the students recorded the lesson and showed it to their parents who complained to the school.

This happens as RT America shuts its doors following an astonishingly aggressive censorship campaign against Russia-backed media outlets throughout the western world.

The virulent post-9/11-like hysteria about Russia that has been promoted by one-sided mass media reporting on the war, and by the five years of fact-free conspiracy mongering which preceded it, has created an environment where you’ll get shouted down on social media for voicing any opinion about this conflict apart from saying Putin invaded because he is evil and hates freedom. Voices calling for diplomacy, de-escalation and detente are being systematically drowned out.​

​Meanwhile you’ve got massively influential pundits like Sean Hannity calling for a direct NATO airstrike on a Russian military convoy in Ukraine, without the slightest risk of losing his immense platform for advocating a move that would probably lead to a very fast, very radioactive third world war.
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“You know, if we can see on satellite imagery where the convoy is, I don’t know, maybe some smart country, maybe NATO might take some of their fighter jets, or maybe they can use some drone strikes and take out the whole damn convoy,” Hannity said on Premiere Radio Networks’ The Sean Hannity Show on Wednesday. “And then nobody takes credit for it, so then Putin won’t know who to hit back.”

Hannity hastily adds that he’s “not talking about nuclear war,” but then adds a “but” which completely contradicts him.

“But at what point is this gonna end?” Hannity asks. “Cuz nobody did anything after Georgia was taken in ’08, nobody cared about Crimea being annexed in 2014.”

Hannity has also made repeated calls for Putin’s assassination, saying that “if you invade an innocent sovereign country, and you kill innocent men, women and children, you don’t deserve to live.” An interesting position for one of the most aggressive defenders of Bush’s Iraq invasion.

​On the other side of illusory US partisan divide you’ve got MSNBC pundits like Richard Engel and Clint Watts also calling for direct hot war with Russia.

“Perhaps the biggest risk-calculation/moral dilemma of the war so far,” tweeted Engel on Monday. “A massive Russian convoy is about 30 miles from Kyiv. The US/NATO could likely destroy it. But that would be direct involvement against Russia and risk, everything. Does the West watch in silence as it rolls?”

“Strangest thing – entire world watching a massive Russian armor formation plow towards Kyiv, we cheer on Ukraine, but we’re holding ourselves back,” tweeted Watts less than two hours later. “NATO Air Force could end this in 48 hrs. Understand handwringing about what Putin would do, but we can see what’s coming.”

“Putin knows stop the West throw ‘nuclear’ into discussion and we’ll come to a stop, but the world should not be held hostage to a killer of societies, the west has nuclear weapons too, and Putin’s track record is clear, every war he wins is followed by another war,” Watts added.
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You’ve also got increasingly bold calls for no-fly zones and close air support from the western political/media class, which would also mean hot war with Russia.

​Now, theoretically, the actual decision-makers of the imperial war machine know better than to initiate a hot war with Russia because it would likely lead to an unthinkable chain of events in which everyone loses. But what these insane Strangelovian calls for nuclear armageddon do, even if they never come to fruition, is push the acceptable spectrum of debate far toward the most hawkish extremes possible.
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When you’ve got the hawks screaming that Putin is Hitler and calling for airstrikes on the Russian military while the doves are using extremely mitigated both-sides language and taking great pains to forcefully condemn Putin to avoid being shouted down and censored, what you wind up with is a spectrum of debate that has been pulled so far toward insanity that the “moderate” position becomes support for unprecedented acts of economic warfare and funding a brutal insurgency in Ukraine.

As a result, advocating for western powers to initiate de-escalation, diplomacy and detente becomes an extremist position, comparable to or worse than advocating for hot war with a nuclear superpower. In reality it’s the obvious moderate, sane position on the table, but taking that position unequivocally would be disastrous for the career of any mainstream politician or pundit in today’s environment, because the spectrum of debate has been pulled so far toward hawkish brinkmanship.

Noam Chomsky outlined this problem clearly when he said, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

And that’s exactly what we are seeing here. Look at this soup-brained take by comedian Tim Dillon, for example:

​Ideally this kind of insane extremist talk would get you chased out of every town and forced to live alone in a cave eating bats, but because the Overton window of acceptable debate has been dragged so far away from its center, people think it’s a moderate, heterodox position. Dovish, even.
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This spectrum of debate has been further shoved away from moderation with the help of pseudo-left narrative managers like  George Monbiot and The Intercept, who have both published obnoxious finger-wagging articles scolding leftists who’ve been insufficiently servile to the US/NATO line on Ukraine. As though there’s somehow not enough promotion of the State Department narrative on this subject by every single one of the most powerful governments and media institutions in the entire western world, rather than far, far too much.

The worst people in the world have their foot on the accelerator driving us toward escalations that should terrify anyone with gray matter between their ears, while those who want to tap the brakes get their foot immediately slapped away. This is not leading good places. And we know from experience how profoundly unwise the power structure overseeing all this can be.

Treasure each moment, my lovelies.

Originally published in Caitlin's website.

​For socialists, the fundamental understanding of imperialism goes back to World War I and is found in the pamphlet written by V.I. Lenin, “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.”
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Imperialism is not a policy chosen by one government and dropped by another. Imperialism is a system.

The first world war was the outcome of imperialism, Lenin wrote, an imperialist war waged for the political and economic exploitation of the world, export markets, sources of raw material, spheres of capital investment, etc. The imperialist powers raised huge armies and navies, not only to forcibly subjugate oppressed people in the colonies, but to make war against other imperialist countries competing for control.

According to Lenin, the world was already divided among the great capitalist powers when he wrote “Imperialism” in 1916. The war resulted from inter-imperialist rivalries to redivide the world.

The wars since WWI have changed circumstances. And World War II signaled a turning point in world imperialist relations. The United States emerged from WWII as the world’s most powerful imperialist country, gaining control of former European empires in Asia and Africa.

The overturn of the socialist Soviet Union and the breakup of the Soviet republics into individual nation states was a dismantling of a planned economy, resulting in capitalist economies that are under-developed. There has not been a sudden, almost magical appearance of an imperialist Russia.

Lenin thought that there were a few characteristics of imperialism, including the rise of finance capital and the export of capital, not just commodities. The U.S., for example, exports not just commodities but capital — mostly in the form of loans or investments. U.S. banks are at the center of world commerce.

Russia’s economy almost neocolonial

Today, capitalist Russia’s GDP is smaller than that of South Korea or India. Russia’s economy is almost neocolonial, dependent on the exchange of raw materials such as oil and ores. This is the classic economic relationship of a colony to imperialist finance capital. In the list of the top 50 banks in the world, not one is Russian. The ruble is not a currency of trade. Russia does not export capital.

During the Soviet period, Russia and the other republics that formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics made remarkable industrial progress. Indeed, between 1921 and 1988 there were no years of negative economic growth — no recessions — except for the World War II years.

The Soviet economy fell into recession only in 1989 as the Gorbachev government began to dismantle the planned economy.

Under Gorbachev and then even more drastically under the openly anti-communist, anti-socialist government of Boris Yeltsin in the Russian Federal Republic, and in the new non-Russian former Soviet republics including Ukraine, socialist industry was dismantled.

Yeltsin finished the job of dismantling the Soviet economy that Gorbachev began. The years of Yeltsin are now remembered as perhaps the worst period in Russia’s 1,000-year history. This was the greatest economic disaster any country has seen in modern times, in war or peace.

Ukraine had the second-largest economy in the USSR. “Independent” Ukraine is now the poorest country in Europe. By the end of 2020, some 45% of the population were in the poor category, according to a study by the Ptukha Institute. The deep poverty has created the conditions for fascist gangs to emerge.

Putin’s role

Putin, who was Yeltsin’s prime minister and chosen successor, took a more protectionist direction, unlike Yeltsin and Gorbachev, who had fawned on the West.

Does that mean Putin moved away from the policies of Yeltsin and Gorbachev that had oriented the economy to exporting raw materials? Did Putin adopt a policy of industrialization?

Under Putin, there has been little growth of Russia’s manufacturing production that had been demolished by the “perestroika” reforms. Manufacturing is the foundation of any successful modern economy. Yet, under Putin, Russia continues mainly as an exporter of raw materials.

Russia now accounts for about 6% of the global aluminum supply, 3.5% of the copper supply, and 4% of the cobalt supply. And Russia is the world’s largest producer of crude oil and second-largest producer of dry natural gas, after the U.S.

Russia is in the top 10 exporters of grain crops, including barley, corn, rye, oats and especially wheat. From 2017-2019, it was the biggest exporter of wheat, accounting for about 20% of the world market.

Russia is a capitalist state, but that does not make it imperialist. Not all capitalist countries are imperialist nations. For example, Mexico is a capitalist country with an economy that’s similar in size to Russia’s, but is Mexico an imperialist country or an exploited country? Saying that it is capitalist is not enough to know the answer.

Lenin named at least four characteristics of imperialism: concentration of production into monopoly; merging of bank capital with industrial capital, creating finance capital; the export of capital; the fusion of finance capital and the state.

The role of finance capital may be most important. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have taken over the economies of the world. The dollar (not gold) is the currency of world trade. Today almost every country is capitalist, and most of those are exploited by imperialism, by finance capital.

Mexico is capitalist but it is not imperialist. Russia, too, is an exploited country in relation to imperialism, like Mexico.

NATO targets Russia

Russia is the primary provider of gas and oil to much of Europe. The European Union imports 40% of its gas from Russia. That’s put Russia in competition with the U.S., the biggest producer of gas in the world. 

The U.S. has been on a drive to control the world market in oil and gas. This can be seen in its attacks, actually acts of war (sanctions), against Iran and Venezuela as well as its war on Iraq. These are countries that had sought national sovereignty over oil and gas.

Russia, too, has been a target, especially its Nord Stream 2 pipeline, but not just for that. 

Look at a map of NATO’s expansion since the breakup of the USSR. The countries put under NATO include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria.

In 2008, NATO put the inclusion of Ukraine and Georgia, both bordering Russia, on the table.

NATO war on Yugoslavia

Despite the war propaganda that’s presented as news these days, the first war in Europe since World War II didn’t just start. That war was launched by the U.S. and NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999. 

For 78 days, from March 24 to June 10, 1999, NATO bombers hit Belgrade, Pristina in Kosovo, Podgorica in Montenegro and several other cities. On the first day more than 20 buildings in Belgrade were leveled. 

Much of the U.S./NATO bombing hit civilian targets. A passenger train was bombed. Cruise missiles could be seen flying down the streets. The U.S. directly bombed the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Belgrade, killing three Chinese reporters.

Russia understood the lesson of Yugoslavia and told the U.S. and NATO “no” to expansion to Ukraine and Georgia, on Russia’s borders – 5 minutes by missile to Moscow.

The former U.S. ambassador to Russia, William J. Burns, who is now director of the CIA, said in a February 2008 embassy cable that Ukraine joining NATO constituted a security threat for Russia. Burns noted that to push for this “could potentially split the country [Ukraine] in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.”

The U.S. never withdrew the proposal to include Ukraine.

Maidan coup

In Ukraine, the so-called Maidan coup in 2014 that was openly supported and financed by NATO put in a government that made NATO membership a policy mandate. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly requested Ukraine’s entrance into NATO. On Feb. 19, Zelensky demanded, once again, entry to NATO, saying, “Eight years ago, Ukrainians made their choice [the Maidan coup].”

Actually, many Ukrainians resisted the Maidan coup, particularly in the working class. In the Maidan civil war, fascist gangs emerged as a force for the coup. Resistance to the coup was strongest in the eastern section of the country. In Odessa, a neo-nazi pro-Maidan gang targeted the Odessa House of Trade Unions, near the center of the resistance. The building was firebombed and at least 46 anti-fascists and labor activists were burned alive.

The resistance to the Maidan coup has continued from 2014 to today. The independent Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic were created when the people there voted overwhelmingly (89% and 96%) to secede from the Maidan regime. They have been subjected to continuous attack since then, particularly by the Ukrainian National Guard’s Azov regiment, a neo-nazi stormtrooper-like operation. More than 14,000 have been killed in Ukraine’s war on Donetsk and Lugansk.

As U.S. Ambassador Burns predicted, Russia was pushed into a corner by the unrelenting drive for NATO entry to Ukraine as well as the growing buildup of neo-nazi militias and the war on Donetsk and Lugansk. Ukraine had promised in the Minsk agreements it signed in 2014 and 2015 there would be a ceasefire, an end to all fighting, withdrawal of heavy weapons, release of prisoners of war, and the recognition of self-government in Donetsk and Lugansk. Ukraine fulfilled none of these promises.

Putin may not be an anti-imperialist leader, but the Russian military operation to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine and recognize the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic is a move against imperialism, U.S. and NATO imperialism.

​The closure of RT America follows effective censorship of the channel. The ultimate decision to close was made following a cut off of service by DirecTV and Roku. Big Tech firms were also increasingly targeting RT.

​Reuters reported: "Tech companies in recent days have moved to restrict Russian state-controlled media including RT and Sputnik in response to requests from governments and calls to prevent the spread of Russia propaganda." 
Many will try to argue that the developments in the U.S. are completely different from the European Commission recently banned RT and Sputnik. 
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But it more clearly highlights the congruence of government and major corporate agendas. And indeed, as with Big Tech censorship generally, sometimes the collusion is outright, see my interview last year with Nadine Strossen, former head of the ACLU. Contrary to the common mantra that Big Tech platforms like Google, Facebook and Twitter get to decide what content they want, Strossen argues "Private sector actors are directly bound by constitutional norms, including the First Amendment" if they are being coerced by or colluding with the government.

And direct censorship has been done by the U.S. government. For example, in 2020, the Trump administration seized the internet domain for the American Herald Tribune, claiming it was controlled by Iran. The following year, the Biden administration seized the domains for Press TV and over 30 others on similar grounds. The mechanism for this was sanctions that were placed on Iran -- thus, sweeping sanctions can be used effectively as an instrument against the First Amendment. 

Such compulsions go back. In 2008, a New York man who was trying to make Al-Manar, a TV station backed by Hezbollah in Lebanon, available to people in the U.S. was sentenced to at least five years in prison. There were at best minimal efforts to oppose this on First Amendment grounds. 

But RT America was different from many of these in that RT America reached a lot of people. I remember chatting with an elderly man several years ago in rural Maryland who I happened to strike up a conversation with in a store. After our talk turned to politics, he excitedly told me about this great outlet he was watching for news -- RT. 

In all honesty, I was surprised at first when I saw RT's substantial operations in DC. The U.S. government had shut down Press TV's offices in DC. But there RT's offices were -- rows and rows of producers and other workers. 

I began to suspect that RT and RT America were allowed to blossom in part because a pretext could always be found to pull the plug on them. 

I worked for a time in 2007 with The Real News, then based in Toronto, which aimed to be a genuinely independent media outlet. The Real News had relatively modest funding but a lot of promise. 

I thought The Real News at that point was a terribly important project -- what could challenge the power of the U.S. establishment more than an independent, vibrant 24/7 media outlet?

But part of a strategy of preventing the emergence of a global independent media outlet might have included allowing the emergence of national outlets which tapped into dissent and discontent in the U.S., but which could easily have the rug pulled out from under them at any time chosen by the U.S. establishment. So, did RT end up effectively syphoning off the viewers that could have helped build up The Real News?

In January of 2021, in explaining the lack of a vibrant independent media outlet in the U.S., I wrote: "The possibility of something emerging was ironically hindered by other nationalist outlets. After Al Jazeera dudded out, instead of people in the U.S. and elsewhere trying to build something, people turned to RT etc with obvious problems, I *suspect that RT was allowed to become entrenched by the U.S. establishment for exactly this reason -- its rise and funding helped preclude people from building a grassroots network and RT could obviously be dismissed when the establishment chose to do so."

Given the secretive nature of U.S. government institutions, it's virtually impossible to show that that's what happened, but regardless, clearly the U.S. establishment is now gunning for RT.

To be clear, beyond the obvious limitations, I have thought that RT, perhaps because of its governmental backing, was at times quite limited in its critique of U.S. government policy, see my piece "Stated Goals vs Actual Goals: 'CrossTalk' Lives Up to Its Name" from 2015. I end that piece: "We have these media outlets of various nationalities -- RT for Russia, France 24 for France, CNN for the U.S. establishment, Fox for the U.S. establishment rightwing, MSNBC for U.S. establishment corporate liberals, Al-Jazeerafor Qatar, Al-Arabia for Saudi Arabia, CCTV for China, etc.
"They all foster shallowness and ultimately prize hacks over real journalists.

"We desperately need a global, real network dedicated to real facts and meaningful dialogue between various viewpoints."

So, ironically, there may be a silver lining: The demise of RT America might in fact be an opportunity to build the global media structures we so desperately need.

Such an attempt, if it were even mildly successful, will likely face brutal attack.

In 2010, following pressure from then Sen. Joe Lieberman, VISA, Mastercard and Amazon pulled the plug on WikiLeaks, which had become a major sensation based on the "Collateral Murder" video.

When "Collateral Murder" came out, one could see the promise of WikiLeaks, getting direct support from millions around the world and developing a new type of journalism that could powerfully hold governments and corporations to account. But of course, WikiLeaks has been savagely attacked, such that most of their resources had to be directed at defending their founder. Still, the assaults on WikiLeaks have come at a cost for the U.S. government, exposing their tortured onslaughts on the group.

Given the seemingly ever more demented state of affairs, the lack of focus on the facts that people need to know, the manipulation of information by Big Tech, the lack of meaningful dialogue or debate on large media outlets and so many other obstacles, the need for an independent, global media outlet is more urgent than ever.