Tag: Capitalism

[1999] Philippines: The Great Left Divide

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A SPECTER is haunting the revolutionary movement in the Philippines — the specter of seemingly interminable splits.

In the seven years since Armando Liwanag issued his “Reaffirm our Basic Principles and Rectify Errors” document, the Left — or more appropriately, the Left of the national democratic (ND) tradition — has gone through an unprecedented period of metastasis. The once monolithic movement that at its peak in the mid-1980s commanded 35,000 Party members, 60 guerrilla fronts, two battalions and 37 company formations, and foisted ideological and organizational hegemony in the progressive politics during the Marcos dictatorship is now history. Out of it have emerged fragments of disparate groups — eight at least — that continue to wage “revolution” in similarly disparate forms.


The Great Left Divide

Related:

Philippine Socialism Archive

Banned or Suppressed Publications in the Philippines

Sean Gervasi, 1992 lecture: The US Strategy to Dismantle the USSR

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Sean Gervasi, 1992 lecture: The US Strategy to Dismantle the USSR

Related RAND Corporation documents:

Economic factors affecting Soviet foreign and defense policy: a summary outline

The Costs of the Soviet Empire

Sitting on bayonets : the Soviet defense burden and the slowdown of Soviet defense spending

Moscow’s Economic Dilemma: The Burden of Soviet Defense

Exploiting ‘fault lines’ in the Soviet empire: an overview

The Foreign Policy of the Russian Revolution

Ms. Cat
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No idea could be more erroneous or harmful than to separate foreign from home policy. The monstrous falsity of this separation becomes even more monstrous in war-time. Yet the bourgeoisie are doing everything possible and impossible to suggest and promote this idea. Popular ignorance of foreign policy is incomparably greater than of home policy. The “secrecy” of diplomatic relations is sacredly observed in the freest of capitalist countries, in the most democratic republics.

The Foreign Policy of the Russian Revolution

U.S. Pushes to Shape Israel’s Rafah Operation, Not Stop It + Washington sends Israel more city-busting bombs to level Rafah

Ms. Cat

U.S. Pushes to Shape Israel’s Rafah Operation, Not Stop It

Rafah has been at the center of a growing rift between Israeli and U.S. political leaders. Those tensions boiled over on Monday, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a visit to Washington by top aides to discuss U.S. concerns over the planned offensive on Rafah, where Hamas fighters are making a final stand. The tit-for-tat move was in response to the U.S. abstaining from a United Nations Security Council resolution that called for an immediate cease-fire while also demanding the release of hostages.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, however, proceeded with his meetings at the White House and Pentagon on Monday and Tuesday, which had been previously scheduled. Gallant is part of Israel’s three-member war cabinet that includes Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, the prime minister’s chief political rival.

…

Both sides also agreed that the Hamas battalions in Rafah must be dislodged so that the militants cannot attempt a comeback or continue to smuggle weapons into the enclave, which are prerequisites for ending the war and paving the way for a new political authority in Gaza. And that means trying to find ways to work with Israel on its Rafah strategy, for lack of better options.

Related:

Washington sends Israel more city-busting bombs to level Rafah

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Throwing Washington Overboard.

Ms. Cat

The present war days are furnishing an opportunity to study the spirit of capitalism at close range. Much that we have said about the inner make-up of the capitalist system must have seemed “theoretic”; the historic facts upon which we based our arguments not having fallen within the personal observation of the masses, our conclusions were disregarded. Now, however, the facts are at hand; all can see, hear, feel, smell them.

Throwing Washington Overboard.

Lessons From Legalization: The Problem Isn’t Cannabis, It’s Capitalism

Ms. Cat

420 FILE – The United States government is likely to end the designation of marijuana as a dangerous narcotic sometime this year, potentially marking one of the biggest federal decisions on the classification of the drug in decades. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration determined that marijuana is less harmful than, say, opioids and other substances, prompting the Biden administration to announce it would “reschedule” cannabis from a Schedule I—which is what the most dangerous drugs are classified as—to a Schedule III drug, commensurate with anabolic steroids and ketamine.

Lessons From Legalization: The Problem Isn’t Cannabis, It’s Capitalism

FYI, I’m not against cannabis for medicinal purposes. Especially since I can’t even get a prescription for any painkillers. I could rant about it, but I won’t.

The Protectionists, the Free Traders and the Working Class

Ms. Cat
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The protectionists have never protected small industry, handicraft proper. Have Dr. List and his school in Germany by any chance demanded protective tariffs for the small linen industry, for hand loom-weaving, for handicraft production? No, when they demanded protective tariffs they did so only in order to oust handicraft production with machines and patriarchal industry with modern industry. In a word, they wish to extend the dominion of the bourgeoisie, and in particular of the big industrial capitalists. They went so far as to proclaim aloud the decline and fall of small industry and the petty bourgeoisie, of small farming and the small peasants, as a sad but inevitable and, as far as the industrial development of Germany is concerned, necessary occurrence.

The Protectionists, the Free Traders and the Working Class