EDITOR—Socialist activist Kshama Sawant lays out a new, better formulated strategy for third parties seeking to demolish the reigning and stunningly corrupt duopoly: Not to act simply as “alternative parties,” but as “oppositional parties” at all times. The 2024 election, with its horrific historical backdrop of two major wars (one an indisputable and revolting genocide in Palestine supported by the US political and media establishment), imploding governance in the US and much of vassal Europe, and an incurable economic crisis detonated by imperialism’s inability to resolve the overproduction crisis, offers third parties like Jill Stein’s Green Party a unique opportunity to test this approach by helping defeat the candidacy of Democrat party nominee Kamala Harris, says Kshama Sawant. And we think she is absolutely right. People who regard themselves as on “the left” must completely abandon the duopoly, and avoid the Democrat Party curse, the proven historical graveyard of all progressive movements.
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PAUL EDWARDS—It’s not complicated. The Empire, like every empire before it, does nothing—absolutely nothing!—for its impotent people. It sucks all the money out of the country, curtails and cripples all opportunity and benefit, contributes nothing to the general welfare (promised in the Constitution), cons and diddles its citizens with idiot “entertainment”, and offers them only reflected glory from the mass murder its War Machine inflicts on the world.
When you have a government that does nothing but cheat its people, and lie to them as if they were defective children; one that does nothing to elevate or support them; one whose chief aim is to exploit their labor and energy and keep them down; one whose whole purpose is to deceive them into idolizing their abusers, and paying for that privilege on their knees, then you have no government at all: you have baldfaced, brutal tyranny.
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EDITOR—Garland discusses the increasingly toxic relationship between the US empire and its vassals around the globe, disciplining the EU, for example, where Washington blatantly ordered the destruction of the Russo-German Nord Stream 2 pipelines, ordered a detachment and active hostility toward China, and has insured the economic and political subjugation of the continent using local and regional straps (Macron, Schultz, von der Leyen, etc.). Garland stresses that Washington has maintained a firm grip on Western Europe (including its “Eastern European” zones, such as Poland, the Baltics, etc.) despite the apparent surge of leaders and parties seeking political independence and sovereignty. Brexit, he reminds, was an effort for the Brits to regain their sovereignty from the EU machinery clearly dominated by the US, but now they see that the problem is much more serious and deeper, as things have significantly gotten worse after Brexit and the downfall of the Tories.
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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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AL JAZEERA—When two young American Jews raised to support Israel unconditionally witness the way Israel treats Palestinians, it changes their lives. They join a movement of young American Jews campaigning to redefine Judaism’s relationship with Israel and reveal a deepening generational divide over modern Jewish identity. Israelism sparked huge debate on American campuses even before the events of October 7, 2023. It follows Simone Zimmerman, who visited Israel as a teenager, and Eitan who joined the Israeli army after graduating from high school as they discover the reality for Palestinians and radically revise their views. It includes interviews with academics and political activists, including Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Lara Friedman and a former director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abe Foxman. Contributors suggest the narrative that young American Jews are fed almost entirely erases the existence of the Palestinians through education and advocacy, sometimes involving groups that organise free trips to Israel partially funded by the Israeli government. This film describes how influential this narrative is in shaping attitudes to Israel, not just in the United States but across the world.
