IV502 - November 2016

IVP 502 November 2016 PDF magazine

We must imagine the world at the time: the Cold War in full swing and Stalinism freezing the international workers’ movement. The Cuban revolution would unblock this situation by creating a new hope.

Before Donald Trump was elected, stock markets went down every time he improved in the public opinion polls. Finance capital did not want him to win. But since his surprise election, stock markets have not slumped. On the contrary, they have risen substantially along with a strengthening dollar. It seems that ‘the Donald’ could be a good thing for Capital after all.

Images of Fidel fill the newsreel of our lives: Dishevelled and defeated after the bloody attack on the Moncada barracks; walking free from prison into exile in a smart suit; interviewed by a US journalist in his mountaintop hideout in 1958; triumphantly marching into Havana with Che, Cienfuegos and the other young bearded warriors; announcing the confiscation of US capital and the socialist nature of the revolution to hundreds of thousands; at the front line at the Bay of Pigs with those big black rimmed glasses leading the victory over the CIA invasion force; announcing the fall of Che in Bolivia in a packed Plaza de la Revolucion in Havana; embracing Brezhnev in Moscow; meeting his people in the factories and sugar cane fields; presenting the machine gun to Allende months before the coup in Chile; welcoming back the soldiers from Angola after their victory over Apartheid South Africa; greeting Ortega, the leader of the Nicaraguan revolution in 79; the grim announcement of the austere special period following the fall of the Berlin wall in 89; welcoming Chavez and then other reforming Latin American leaders in the new century… and then his withdrawal into not quite retirement, a tracksuited old man with a whitening beard who was still sought after by radical leaders or personalities like footballer Diego Maradona.

Updated version of article originally entitled “Boycott Robertson’s winery!” Robertson is a small South African town situated in the Breerivier valley, two hours’ drive from Cape Town. It has been nicknamed the wine and roses valley and vine growing plays an important economical role there. 61% of the 28,000 inhabitants are “coloured” to keep to the South African terminology, 23% are black south africans and 15% are white. It goes without saying that “coloured people” don’t live in the pretty Edwardian style town centre but inhabit the out of the city “townships”.

On November 8, voters in the United States narrowly elected an openly racist, misogynist and nativist candidate for president. Donald Trump succeeded in defining himself as an anti-establishment candidate who will end dynastic rule in Washington, D.C., by elites who care little for “forgotten Americans.” The grain of truth in this rhetoric masked an ideological appeal to a “white identity” that Republicans have long cultivated — in this instance, focusing on fear of immigrants, Muslims and people of color. The facts go against the liberal media’s narrative that “poor white people” were the primary force behind Trump’s rise. We must understand “Trumpism” as a cross-class white nativist alliance; the median family income of the 62 percent of white voters who supported Trump was higher than that of Hillary Clinton voters and wealthier than Bernie Sanders’ primary base.

In June 2016, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette filed a lawsuit against Veolia North America (a subsidiary of the French multinational Veolia) and the Texas law firm Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam (LAN). The lawsuit charged the two firms with “professional negligence, fraud, and public nuisance.”

“It’s morning again in America” – Ronald Reagan’s signature 1984 campaign commercial;

“And the Pterodactyls have come home to roost” – Jeffrey St. Clair, Counterpunch magazine.

In this interview for the Greek website Ela Liberta at the end of October, Joseph Daher explains his position on the Kurdish movement in Syria in detail.

“Our uprising has nothing to do with the collar-and-tie pantomime artistes who govern us. It was the visible expression of an invisible force. It was the public manifestation of a drive for life. It came from gut feeling and from the heart. You do not subject gut feeling to balance sheets. You do not lock up the heart in accounting columns.”