EDITOR—Joti Brar demolishes the carefully cultivated myth that bourgeois democracy and periodic elections can possibly improve the lot of the working class, or eventually hand over power to the actual producers instead of the (ever-fewer) billionaires. Topics: History of elections and electioneering in capitalist nations. Joti reviews the record of capitalism as far back as 1820 • Overproduction, the incurable illness of capitalism • Election time circus in the US • The looting of the Soviet Union could not solve global capitalism’s problems • Inexorable impoverishment of the vast majority of humanity under global capitalism. • Constant instability and war.
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EDITOR—Israel’s latest airstrike on Iran does not impress Ray McGovern. In this chat he explains his reasons, and why he thinks the power equation in the Middle East has changed or is about to change—for the better. Ray came to Washington from his native Bronx in the early Sixties as an Army infantry/intelligence officer and then served as a CIA analyst for 27 years, from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. Ray’s duties included chairing National Intelligence Estimates and preparing the President’s Daily Brief, which he briefed one-on-one to President Ronald Reagan’s five most senior national security advisers from 1981 to 1985. Ray is an expert in Russian history and culture, and a man who chooses to live by honouring moral integrity, which he does not see his compatriots in high places doing now or even when he was young and thought they did.
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FEMI AKOLAFE—o, we are not Russian bots and are not persuaded by Russian propaganda, even though I feel entitled to be swayed by whatever I choose.
It is the 500+ years of unremitting violence and destruction that people of the European Stock have inflicted on the rest of humanity that makes some of us cheer Putin as he struggles to end the hegemonic domination of the World by Westerners.
I am no expert on biology, much less on genetics, so I cannot offer opinions on what exactly makes people of European extraction find it impossible to live and let live. Why do they have an insatiable desire to dominate and control?
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CHARLES MCKELVEY—But the future is not dark. Expansion in photovoltaic energy, already in process, combined with the increased national production of crude oil, will enable the system to attain energy sovereignty and stability without depending on the importation of fuel oil, the availability of which is shaped by imperialist sanctions and international conditions.
The threat posed by the blackout has been contained, as a result of the dedicated day-and-night work of the electrical workers, accompanied by the Cuban people, who supported each other in difficult conditions, living without electrical service and water, and who passed on the opportunity to participate in politically immature protest.
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PAUL EDWARDS—War between Israel and Iran with the participation of The Empire cannot be contained, and all potential combatants know it. If The Empire assists Israel to ravage Iran, Russia will enter the war on Iran’s behalf. If this occurs, it will threaten the entire world.
The morally cowardly world runs less risk in uniting to stop Israel’s mass murder now, based on international law, than in watching passively as Netanyahu attacks Iran. Uniting to stop the murder can and should be done forcefully and diplomatically, thereby greatly lessening the risk of war.
The Empire would have to be confronted, but not militarily. It could still opt for world war if Israel attacked Iran massively but, facing united opposition to that lunacy, it would have to act in defiance of the wishes of the nearly united world. Even our jejune, shallow, reckless minders would have to give that decision grave thought, or their defective version of it.
