EDITOR—Laith and Garland comment on current events in the Middle East, the Ukraine, and US politics. Laith and Garland’s shows are being severely censored—shadowbanning and other forms of “algorithmic deletion”—are being applied, with the result that their platforms have lost considerable traffic. Only after some energetic protests did the invisible censors in charge of YouTube, Twitter, etc. relented some, but the ultimate outcome is still obscure. Commenting on the war in Gaza and Lebanon, Laith offers invaluable news and clarifications not found on regular media channels. He notes that key information and political personnel of pro-Palestinian and Hezbollah organisations continue to be assassinated, Israel’s favourite way of fighting. He also notes that America’s special envoy, Hochstein, who expected a complete cave-in by Lebanese leaders, a surrender, was practically given the finger by Lebanese authorities and went home empty-handed. Laith stresses that the IDF is not making much headway into Lebanon, despite their massive use of firepower, etc. Meanwhile, Israel’s campaign to invade and occupy Lebanon is costing Tel Aviv (and Washington) dearly in terms of equipment and personnel. The Axis of Resistance continues to attack Israeli targets, while the Zionist/American alliance increases its pressure on all parties in hopes of breaking the anti-Zionist forces.
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EDITORS—Joti tracks the reasons for the Dems’ recent embarrassing defeat at the polls, and the UK Laborites’ dismal performance.
TOPICS: UK/US working class apathy and alienation from the political establishment and taking part in elections, a fact that worries the ruling elites as elections serve to legitimate their rule. • Trump’s MAGA people may represent the last contingent of true believers in the US promise of an actual popular democracy, notes • Joti describes in detail how WOKISM (identity politics) is nothing but a shameless ruling class tactic to disarm the working class by introducing issues that serve to divide it, while presenting the state (in the hands of one or another wing of the plutocracy) as their saviours. Insofar as identity politics replaces the actual class struggle, in which economic factors play the preponderant part, it buries the possibilities for revolutionary social change. This is seen in issue after issue. Radical bourgeois feminists, for example, taught women in the 1980s that their “natural” enemy was men, not the ruling elites. Bourgeois feminism ended up subverting women’s power. • Same with the “woke” anti-racist movement. Capitalism, in fact, needs racism; it is one of the ideologies fuelling and justifying colonialism and the ruthless expropriation of people around the globe, often using racist imperial soldiers who come from the exploiting country’s working class. -
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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EDITORS—Discussion focuses on a variety of topics: Ukraine’s “Kursk Invasion”, essentially a border crossing that has gotten gradually larger, with the involvement of a special forces brigade. With no actual strategic value, the incursion is widely believed (on both sides of the dialog) to be an exercise, once again, in optics, a p.r. stunt to get Kiev in a better negotiating position, raise morale for a virtually collapsing army, etc. Maybe it’s “Kursk 2.0” for the Germans. • EU tightens the garrote on Hungary and Slovakia, seen as “deviants” from the Western “globalist script”. • Another topic of attention is whether Ukraine is really near collapse, in which case its military capability should dissolve before 2025, or if the country, with stubborn support from Western neocons, will be persuaded or forced to fight on, and whether or not Europe is willing to sacrifice itself for the sake of the globalist capitalist class. • Meantime, the UK riots point to the threat and promise of the rising right movements and parties, many of which may refuse to be incorporated into the anti-Russia project, while still holding contradictory views toward Israel, which even hardcore neonazis seem to support. Still, dark rumblings across many Western countries, the riots in the UK, etc., signal that the near future may see mass challenges to the West’s puppet elites, whose rule, for the benefit of Washington, and the growing economic insecurity caused by capitalism, underscores the lack of pervasive sovereignty of the entire continent.
