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Analysis Global Economy World

Forecast 2024: Stagnation, elections and AI

To get a step-change in the profitability of global capital would require a major cleansing (slump) to remove the weak (zombies) and raise unemployment in low-value sectors.  So far, such a ‘liquidation’ or ‘creative destruction’ policy has not gained support in the mainstream or in official policy circles.  ‘Muddling through’ is better.

Analysis Middle East World

Palestine solidarity: Perspectives and debates

The current wave of Palestinian solidarity demonstrations is the biggest opportunity  for rebuilding the revolutionary left in years. It’s no secret that the past decades have been cruel ones for the revolutionary left. Our organizations have divided and shrunk. The dissolution of the International Socialist Organization in this country and the bitter split of the New Anticapitalist Party in France are only the best known examples of our retreat.

Analysis Middle East World

New stage in Israeli offensive

Israel is now turning its attentions to the southern part of Gaza. Of course, this is the part of Gaza that the Israeli government urged Palestinians to flee to as a “safe zone”. Now the “safe zone” itself is under heavy attack. This fact alone decisively dashes any illusion that Israel has any concern whatsoever for “civilian casualties”.

Analysis Middle East World

The Zionist genocidal war and its accomplices

The truth is that the current aggression against Gaza constitutes, in the clearest possible form, a genocidal war that includes mass murder and “ethnic cleansing”, two crimes against humanity in the classification of international law. These crimes exceed qualitatively everything committed by the Zionist armed forces since 1949 until today and are comparable to what happened during the Nakba.

Analysis Imperialism United States

Good fucking riddance: HK finally kicks his bucket of blood

As U.S officials laud an “elder statesman” and “erudite strategist,” the rest of us, and surely millions of brown-skinned people, celebrate the end of an “iconic napalm rights advocate” whose lies, hubris, towering inhumanity and many blood-soaked foreign policy follies left a legacy – in Vietnam, Chile, Cambodia, Argentina – of an “enormous pile of corpses” that may number four million.

Analysis Europe World

Far-right electoral victory in the Netherlands

That the right-wing won the recent Dutch elections was no surprise. What was surprising was how decisive the share of the far-right was in the overall right-wing victory. For Geert Wilders, the leader of the far-right Freedom Party (PVV), years of patience paid off while the incumbent right-wing party gambled and lost.

Analysis Middle East World

A new milestone on the Nakba road

The Israeli state wishes to use the current military campaign to make real progress in its long term project to remove all Palestinians from Gaza. It may well not succeed in immediately expelling every single current resident from Gaza; however, Tel Aviv could certainly make important strides towards that end.

News Reports

A snapshot of a new movement: Report on Chicago Palestine demonstration

The organizers of the current wave of Palestine demonstrations have put together a movement that is drawing in thousands of new young people; a movement that is effectively organized; a movement that is clearly focused on solidarity with Palestine; a movement that uses tactics and slogans that reach outward to new layers of potential support; and a movement that totally rejects antisemitism.

Analysis Movements United States

UAW strike ends in victory: UAW update 6

Fain expressed his hope that the union’s victory will be, “a turning point in the class war that’s been raging in this country for the past 40 years.” The contracts are consciously timed to expire on April 30, 2028. This means that the next strike could be on May Day, the international day of workers solidarity. All this is new ground in the American labor movement.

Analysis Economy United States

US economy expanding?

Changes in business investment have always been an indicator of future growth in output and employment – not vice versa, as Keynesians argue.  And in Q3, business investment came to a standstill.  In previous quarters it was investment in new structures (offices, manufacturing plants etc) that kept business investment contributing about 1% pt to quarterly growth.  But in Q3 that has evaporated.