The House Speaker Crisis and the Transformation of the Republican Party

By oaklandsocialist

The last two times members of the House of Representatives had to resort to multiple ballots to elect a House Speaker tell us a lot about the present crisis. Both times the crisis resulted from a major shift in US politics and either the rise of a new party or a major shift in the role of an already existing one.

1858-9

In 1858, the Republican Party, which had suddenly emerged, won a plurality in the House. It in effect replaced the Whig Party, which contained both pro and anti-slavery forces. But by 1858 the issue of slavery had become so hot that a party combining both sides of the issue could not survive. While the Republican Party was not overtly anti-slavery, it was the political center of anti-slavery elements. Because the Republicans didn’t have an outright majority, they could not elect their own Speaker without support from another party. This battle over House Speaker indicated a fundamental realignment in US politics. That realignment could only be settled by war – the US Civil War, and the Speaker battle was a warning of that coming Civil War.

COP 27 (Climat) – Victoire fossile à Sharm-el-Sheikh : il ne reste que la lutte

par TANURO Daniel

Quelque jours avant l’ouverture de la COP27 à Sharm-el-Sheikh, en Egypte, j’ai écrit que cette conférence serait un « nouveau sommet du greenwashing, du capitalisme vert et de la répression ». C’était une erreur. Le greenwashing et la répression étaient plus que jamais au rendez-vous sur les rives de la Mer Rouge, mais le capitalisme vert, lui, a subi un revers, et les fossiles ont remporté une nette victoire.

En matière climatique, on peut définir le capitalisme vert comme la fraction du patronat et de ses représentants politiques qui prétend que la catastrophe peut être arrêtée par une politique de marché qui incite les entreprises à adopter des technologies énergétiques vertes ou « bas carbone », de sorte qu’il serait possible de concilier croissance économique, croissance des profits et baisse rapide des émissions, et même d’atteindre le « zéro émissions nettes » en 2050. Ce volet, dit de « mitigation » du changement climatique, est alors complété par un volet dit « d’adaptation » aux effets désormais inévitable du réchauffement, et par un volet « financement » (à destination des pays du Sud, principalement). Sur ces deux plans-là aussi, les tenants du capitalisme vert estiment que le marché peut faire le job - ils y voient même une opportunité pour le capital.

The Uprising in China - Resisting lockdowns, repression, and precarity

by Yun Dong

Young, angry protesters in Shanghai confronted the police that encircled them, calling for freedom and shouting, “Aren’t you supposed to serve the people?!” Hundreds had gathered in the evening of November 26^th on Urumqi Road in Shanghai, which has served as the symbolic site to hold vigils to pay tribute to the victims of a fire at a high-rise residential building in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province.

The fire led to the death of at least ten people and injured nine others from several families. It took three hours to extinguish it. Protesters believe that the victims could have been saved had the residential complex not been under Covid lockdown, despite the government’s claims that the tragedy had nothing to do with the lockdown.

L’économie du football entre dans une nouvelle ère

par ARONDEL Luc

« L’hypermodernité » du ballon rond se caractérise par de fortes inégalités, des profils inédits d’investisseurs, les stratégies de mondialisation des grands clubs et l’arrivée de nouveaux diffuseurs.

L’idée que le football est le « miroir » de la société est souvent avancée dans les salons et s’avère plutôt exacte du point de vue de son économie. Branko Milanovic, spécialiste reconnu des inégalités et fin analyste du ballon rond, l’observe bien : « Le football a été un miroir de la société, où les inégalités se sont accrues de manière exponentielle au cours des trois dernières décennies », explique-t-il dans les colonnes du magazine Forbes.

Statement by Ukrainian Feminists in Solidarity with Iranian Women

by Collective

We, Ukrainian feminists, express our solidarity with Iranian uprising, triggered by the brutal murder of Mahsa Amini by the Iranian moral police. Thousands of women responded to this crime by going out on the streets, cutting their hair and publicly taking off and burning hijabs as a symbol of their oppression. What started as a protest against police brutality and obligatory hijab, quickly transformed into a general resistance of the Iranian people against the patriarchal and dictatorial mullah regime and the authoritarian form of capitalism that it represents. The grassroot mobilization is today being joined by schoolgirls, students, trade unions, ethnic minorities, and people from other social groups affected by the economic crises, high food prices, social cuts, and privatization. This new wave of struggles thus continues and expands the series of uprisings against socio-economic inequalities, political oppression and ethnic disctimination that shook Iran during the last decade.

The debt and climate crises : Why climate justice must include debt justice

by Tess Woolfenden , Dr Sindra Sharma Khushal

The CADTM supports the following text, which shows the link between debt and climate crises and contributes some relevant ideas on this issue. However, we do not believe that radical changes such as debt cancellations will come from major international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The CADTM considers that these necessary changes will come from the people, from social movements, from a citizen public debt audits. Moreover, we do not consider the debt swaps system to be a solution and advocate for debt cancellations combined with reparations paid by former colonizing countries, imperialist ones and creditors for all the damages (including environmental ones) they have been causing in the Global South.

Global Week of Action for Justice and Debt Cancellation

10 October by Collectif

We stand in solidarity with the millions of people in countless countries who have taken to the streets over recent months to demand an end to debt domination and the destructive policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and other global lenders. From 14-16 October, the IMF and World Bank will again hold their annual meetings to advance their neoliberal policy reforms, a typically wasted opportunity to take bolder actions in support of debt-burdened, climate-stricken countries in the Global South. The IMF has consistently imposed these reforms amid debt crises rooted in global inequalities and colonial legacies. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted and aggravated these long-evolving failures of our public health, social and economic systems, requiring a deep rethink of the practices and conditionalities of the IMF, which have frequently contributed to these failures. Almost three years since the UN declared Covid-19 a pandemic, the world faces a troublesome outlook, more deeply unjust, unequal and unsustainable than before.

After the floods, Pakistan needs reparations, not charity

by Farooq Tariq

At the time of writing, more than one-third of Pakistan is under water. Flash floods, generated by abnormal monsoon rains have so far claimed the lives of 1350 people. One million residential buildings are totally or partially damaged, leaving more than 50 million people displaced from their homes.

Crucially, the flood is expected to add $10 billion worth of damage to an already teetering economy. More than 793,900 livestock have died, and families across Pakistan of a critical source of sustenance and livelihood. , Around two million acres of crops and orchards have been impacted.

« Le canari dans la mine de charbon » :
La crise du Sri Lanka est une chronique annoncée

par Eric Toussaint , Balasingham Skanthakumar

La grave crise économique que traverse le Sri Lanka, la suspension du paiement de la dette souveraine et le soulèvement populaire de 2022 ont attiré l’attention du monde entier. Le Sri Lanka est décrit comme le « canari dans la mine de charbon », c’est-à-dire comme un signe avant-coureur de l’avenir probable d’autres pays du Sud. Éric Toussaint, porte-parole du Comité pour l’abolition de la dette illégitime (CADTM) a interviewé par e-mail Balasingham Skanthakumar, basé à Colombo, de la Social Scientists’ Association of Sri Lanka et du réseau Asie du Sud du CADTM. Les réponses en version préliminaire ont été améliorées par la révision d’Amali Wedagedera.

Queen and king. Trône et bouffons

Serge Vandepoorte

Les pornographes de l’émotion s’en donnent à cœur joie. En tête de gondole, les magazines « people » et toute la cohorte des médias qui prétendent encore faire œuvre d’information auprès du grand public. Logique. Vendre du papier et faire du chiffre en termes d’audience, leurs motivations se résument à cette trivialité.

Communiqué (France) : Face à l’urgence sociale et écologique, construire une large convergence

par Alternative, Attac France, CGT, Confédération paysanne, Convergence services publics, EELV, Fondation Copernic, FSU, LFI-Nupes, MAN, NPA, Oxfam, PCF, UNEF, Union syndicale Solidaires

La hausse des prix rend de plus en plus difficile la vie quotidienne de la grande majorité de la population. Les mesures prises par le gouvernement aboutissent à une baisse des revenus réels, alors même que le patrimoine des plus riches et les dividendes versés aux actionnaires ne cessent de croître et que de nouveaux cadeaux fiscaux pour les employeurs sont déjà programmés. De plus, le gouvernement prévoit de nouvelles attaques frontales contre la protection sociale que ce soit sur la question des retraites ou sur l’assurance-chômage, et contre les services publics.

L’abstraction contre le droit des peuples

À force d’abstraction, certain·es inventent une géopolitique dénuée d’êtres humains, et semblent, en particulier, oublier les Ukrainien·nes bombardé·es, massacré·es, déporté·es, réfugié·es et aussi résistant·es… C’est pourtant le présent et l’avenir des populations ukrainiennes qui devraient être au centre des politiques posées par le crime d’agression.

Comme hier les populations vietnamiennes, irakiennes ou libyennes assaillies et meurtries par les armées étasuniennes, les populations afghanes par les armées «soviétiques» puis américaines avant celles des talibans, comme les populations birmanes ou syriennes détruites par leurs propres dictateurs (avec, ne l’oublions pas, l’appui du gouvernement russe), les populations ukrainiennes agressées font face aux armées de l’État russe réellement envahissantes et criminelles.

Inside the Ukrainian Resistance

by LIASHEVA Aliona, PILASH Denis

Sotsialniy Rukh (Social Movement / Mouvement social) Ukraine

Tempest interviews Alona Liasheva and Denys Pilash about the Ukrainian Resistance, the state of war, the dynamics of class struggle and popular consciousness, and the tasks of the international Left in building solidarity with Ukraine. Alona Liasheva is a sociologist, researcher of urban political economy, and works at The Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen. She is a co-editor of Commons: Journal for Social Criticism and member of Ukrainian socialist group Sotsialnyi Rukh (The Social Movement). Denys Pilash is an activist and political scientist at Kyiv National University. He is part of the Ukrainian socialist group Sotsialnyi Rukh (The Social Movement) and member of the editorial board of Commons: Journal for Social Criticism.

Defeat of Macron and breakthrough of the extreme right: a fighting left is necessary and possible! [Release from the NPA]

The results of the second round of the electoral elections are a defeat for the ruling power. Emmanuel Macron is indeed very far from gaining an absolute majority of deputies, confirming his illegitimacy and status of "badly elected president". The defeats of several figures in Macron, from Richard Ferrand to Christophe Castaner and Amélie de Montchalin, who join Blanquer beaten in the first round, testify to the rejection that Macron and his supporters inspire.

Credit won’t work: Why Ukraine’s state debt must be cancelled

by YURCHENKO Yuliya

On April 10 the World Bank updated its GDP prognosis for Ukraine to state that the Russian invasion was to shrink Ukraine’s economy by 45% in 2022 alone.[1] But that is a very optimistic prognosis. As by March 29^th, the country’s direct one-time losses due to the invasion already exceed $1 trillion. Even prior to the invasions Ukraine already was one of the poorest and most indebted countries in Europe. Current budgetary expenditure on arms, humanitarian needs, and medical needs of the wounded have grown exponentially. That is why the IMF has already set up a fund to allow other countries steer more resources to Ukraine’s accounts following talks with Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance.

Olivier Besancenot : « Une forme de paralysie politique travaille la gauche française sur la guerre en Ukraine »

Comment penser le conflit en tant que militant anticapitaliste ? De retour d’Ukraine, Olivier Besancenot estime que les forces progressistes du continent européen se doivent de soutenir plus franchement le peuple ukrainien, victime de l’impérialisme russe. 

Laurent Geslin et Mathilde Goanec

Soutien de Philippe Poutou, le candidat du Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA) lors de la dernière élection présidentielle, Olivier Besancenot, était en Ukraine entre le 3 et le 8 mai dernier, en compagnie de représentants de divers partis de gauche européens, dont le mouvement Ensemble.

Pourquoi aujourd’hui se rendre en Ukraine, en tant que militant d’un parti politique ?

Olivier Besancenot : Nous répondions à une invitation du Mouvement social, une organisation de la gauche ukrainienne, en lien avec le Réseau européen de solidarité avec l’Ukraine et contre la guerre. Nous avons échangé avec des militants politiques et des syndicalistes. Nous avons aussi rencontré deux collectifs féministes (Feminist Worshop et Bilkis), qui ont évoqué avec beaucoup d’émotion le sort des femmes violées dans les zones d’occupation, ou celui de celles qui sont happées par des réseaux de prostitution lorsqu’elles fuient le pays.

Il y a aussi de nombreuses femmes engagées dans les combats, et elles témoignent des réflexes sexistes qui existent au sein des bataillons ukrainiens. Ces femmes ont surtout rappelé qu’il n’est pas question de « frères russes » qui s’attaquent à d’autres « frères ukrainiens », mais bel et bien de soldats russes qui s’en prennent à des hommes et à des femmes d’Ukraine.

Supporting the Ukrainian resistance. Six questions

by PIRANI Simon

Russia’s war on Ukraine is a nightmare – and for all who try to articulate our humanity actively, who not only hope for social justice and peace but try to do something about it, a test of all our ideas. The Russian government marshals young men to kill, rape and terrorise civilians … and we who live outside Ukraine feel pretty helpless. We go on demonstrations (as usual!), donate money, and support Ukrainian refugees as we have supported other refugees before. We who see the war as intimately bound up with global systems of social and economic injustice try to mobilise direct forms of solidarity to Ukrainians and anti-war Russians (see for example here, here and here).

Socialists like me, who try to frame our actions with our particular understanding of the world’s hierarchies and cruelties, have found ourselves in arguments about the character of the war (e.g. is there an “anti imperialist” side to it?), and about difficult political issues (e.g. are we “in favour” of supplying weapons to Ukraine? And what would it even mean if we are?).

“What must Russia do with Ukraine?” - A Russian blueprint for genocide

by PEREKHODA Hanna

A major Russian newsagency has published an article that explicitly calls for an ethnic cleansing of the Ukrainian population, reports Hanna Perekhoda. The article, by Timofei Sergeitsev was read 500,000 times in the first few hours after publication by RIA-NOVOSTI.

1. About the name ’Ukraine’:

The name “Ukraine” can not be retained as the title of any fully denazified state entity in the territory liberated from the Nazi regime.

2. About ethnical cleansing.

Anyone who resists should be killed: The Nazis who took up arms must be destroyed as much as possible on the battlefield. There should be no significant difference in treatment of the Ukrainian army and the so-called national battalions, as well as the territorial defense that joined these two types of military formations.

La répression des actions contre la guerre en Russie

par OVD-INFO

Le site OVD Info [1] a publié un long document de 33 pages sur la répression des actions contre la guerre en Russie. Ci-dessous le résumé publié sur le site de OVD Info.

Résumé

Au cours des deux premières semaines et demie de guerre en Ukraine et de répression des actions de protestation contre elle, 14 906 personnes ont été arrêtées en Russie dans plus d’une centaine de villes. On compte au moins 170 mineurs parmi les personnes interpelées.

For the Independence of Soviet Ukraine

by Zbigniew Marcin Kowalewski

Abstract: Written in 1989, this article tells the true but unknown and dramatic story of Bolsheviks faced during the civil war with an unexpected national revolution of the oppressed Ukrainian people, the conflict-ridden relationships between Russian and Ukrainian communists and the great dilemma of what should be Ukraine: a part of the Soviet but, as in the imperial past, “one and indivisible” Russia or an independent Soviet state?1

Despite the giant step forward taken by the October Revolution in the domain of national relations, the isolated proletarian revolution in a backward country proved incapable of solving the national question, especially the Ukrainian question which is, in its very essence, international in character. The Thermidorian reaction, crowned by Bonapartist bureaucracy, has thrown the toiling masses far back in the national sphere as well. The great masses of the Ukrainian people are dissatisfied with their national fate and wish to change it drastically. It is this fact that the revolutionary politician must, in contrast to the bureaucrat and the sectarian, take as his point of departure. If our critic were capable of thinking politically, he would have surmised without much difficulty the arguments of the Stalinists against the slogan of an independent Ukraine: “It negates the position of the defence of the Soviet Union”; “disrupts the unity of the revolutionary masses”; “serves not the interests of revolution but those of imperialism”. In other words, the Stalinists would repeat all the three arguments of our author. They will unfailingly, do so on the morrow. (...) The sectarian as so often happens, finds himself siding with the police, covering up the status quo, that is, police violence, by sterile speculation on the superiority of the socialist unification of nations as against their remaining divided. Assuredly, the separation of Ukraine is a liability as compared with a voluntary and equalitarian socialist federation: but it will be an unquestionable asset as compared with the bureaucratic strangulation of the Ukrainian people. in order to draw together more closely and honestly, it is sometimes necessary first to separate.2

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