OLIVER BOYD-BARRETT—Considerable controversy continues to swirl over the issue of whether Israel did or did not inflict significant damage on Iran on October 26. I trust the voices of Crooke, Ritter, Macgregor, McGovern and Johnson more than I trust Israeli claims or those of the Pentagon. Iran is a technologically advanced entity, a country of 100 million people with powerful alliances and major historical grievances with the rules-based order. Its enemies do not seem to understand that.
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MAIN EDITORS—Profs Michael Hudson and Richard D Wolff, both among the most original and articulate critics of globalism (aka Neoliberalism, Free Marketism, etc.), offer an incisive view of Western civilisation in its global imperial phase as the US Empire and its satellites struggle to keep the system’s hegemony afloat in the midst of incurable structural issues, and an indefensible foreign policy grounded in reckless chaos creation.
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MAIN EDITORS—Garland and Scott talk about “Operation Dawn Brunch” (Sunday, Oct 27, 2024) in Tudor City (45 Tudor City Place, NY 10017), an event with many of today’s most articulate antiwar, free speech, anti-imperialist and pro (genuine) democracy activists. The brunch cum panel discussions will feature, among others, Garland Nixon, Scott Ritter, Russell Dobular, Jimmy Dore, Danny Haiphong, Dennis Fritz, Diane Sare, Jose Vega, and others of equal merit.
In this episode of Warrior Update with Scott Ritter (#78), Scott explains the plight in Ukraine as the war inexorably winds down to a huge defeat for the US-supported Kiev Banderista regime and its NATO sponsors. As the regime collapses, chaos and violence spread, and winter takes its toll, many Ukrainians may want to flee to the EU, creating an enormous refugee crisis in a continent already swamped with African and Middle Eastern immigrants, most of them product of the economic and social dislocations triggered by the US empire’s intrigues and regime change operations. Furthermore, notes, Scott, Ukrainian neo-Nazis may not be embraced by the rest of Europe. Ukrainians are not very well liked by many people in Europe, including in Germany. They will likely end up filling the bottom ranks of a highly stressed labour market, at a moment when the EU’s economy is rapidly tanking due (again) to America’s hegemonist policies. Many of the men, accustomed to violence and relative lawlessness, may end up choosing lives of crime, while many women may simply become prostitutes or be victimised by sex traffickers profiting from the chaos and the breakdown of civil society. -
SL KANTHAN—The world is corporatized – banks, food supply chain, healthcare, education, utilities such as water and electricity, infrastructure technology, media etc. are all run by giant corporations. (China is an exception where many critical industries are run by state-owned enterprises. Russia also has a similar structure for oil and gas companies. This is one reason why the US hates China and Russia so much). More importantly, all these corporations are deeply interlinked in terms of the largest shareholders and boards of directors. Thus, there is a “swarm effect” and they all work in tandem, similar to how birds of a large flock fly in unison.
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SL KANTHAN—The barefoot doctors integrated Chinese and Western medicine. Thanks to the Patriotic Health Campaigns and barefoot doctors, China eradicated or significantly controlled many diseases such as smallpox, plague, malaria, cholera, tuberculosis, parasitic infections etc. This revolutionary program was so successful that the UN’s World Health Organization and UNICEF considered recommending it for all developing nations.
Mao was also a feminist who emancipated Chinese women from many societal injustices. He famously said that “women hold up half the sky.” Mao got rid of child marriage, arranged marriage, prostitution, and concubines, while ensuring that girls had equal access to education and women had not only the right to work but with equal pay. By the time Mao died, the female labor force participation rate in China was 80%.
