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Venezuela
After Venezuela’s elections: defeat for the right, challenges for the leftAt the beginning of October, much of the world’s media descended on Caracas hoping to report on the end of an authoritarian regime. “Too close to call” was the refrain on almost every network. Market analysts at places like Barclay’s Capital urged investors to pile into Venezuelan debt on the assumption of an opposition victory. Months earlier Robert Zoellick, then still head of the World Bank, revelled in the certainty that Chavez’ days were numbered. Better still, Chavez’ defeat would put a stop to Venezuela’s subsidies to Cuba and Nicaragua and spell the end for those ’regimes’ too, bringing “an opportunity to make the Western Hemisphere the first democratic hemisphere”. When those pictures came out a week before the poll, of tens of thousands at the final opposition rally, it seemed they might be right. Many of us had forgotten that the Venezuelan opposition turned out dozens of equally massive rallies and marches back in 2002 to 2004. Even among left activists there were more and more of us mumbling about whether there was really much to save in the Bolivarian revolution. -> read article... |
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Germany
What now for the radical left?The arrogance of German chancellor Angela Merkel reflects the self confidence of the dominant elite. The Bundeswehr, the army of German imperialism, is ready to intervene at any point of the globe. In ten years, the annual income of the richest has increased by 50%. And despite some scandals, the poles of résistance remain very circumscribed (the anti-nuclear movement, opposition to the new railway station in Stuttgart, actions against the neo-Nazis, “Blockupy” in Frankfurt); nothing seems really capable of disturbing the game of trade union co-management and the alternation of the traditional parties in the management of governmental affairs. -> read article... |
China
Bureaucratic capitalist?Terry Conway interviewed Au Loong Yu, the author of the forthcoming book China’s Rise Strength and Fragility (Resistance Books, IIRE, Merlin Press) for Socialist Resistance -> read article... |