The U.S.’ longest war in history—spanning four presidential terms, two Republican and two Democratic—finally ended on August 30th, having accomplished none of its goals and leaving Afghanistan’s population of nearly 40 million people, if anything, worse off than when it began.
The account of this disastrous August, when temperatures and drought reached record-high levels even for a warm and dry country like Greece, is literally tragic…
The underlying relative decline in US manufacturing and even services competitiveness with first Europe, then Japan and East Asia and now China, has gradually worn away the strength of the US dollar against other currencies as the supply of dollars outstrips demand internationally.
The J&J vaccine was supposed to be one of Africa’s most important weapons against Covid. Instead, at least 32 million doses have been shipped out of South Africa to the E.U. as millions suffer and die.
The general quiet of the current Chicago labor scene has been broken by two important events: the auto mechanics’ strike and the Naperville teachers’ contract battle.
The fact is that over twenty years, the US has failed to build anything that might redeem its mission. The brilliantly lit Green Zone was always surrounded by a darkness that the Zoners could not fathom.
If Biden were correct in saying the US war objective in Afghanistan had been met, there would be no justification (nor is there) for bombing the Taliban as they retake power in the country.
While the criminal blockade has been very real and seriously damaging, it has been relatively less important in creating economic havoc than what lies at the very heart of the Cuban economic system: the bureaucratic, inefficient and irrational control and management of the economy by the Cuban government.
Ordinary people see the rich and powerful looting and stealing all around them. They see them talking about it on TV. Meanwhile, ordinary working-class life is a life of crisis. Everything is a crisis: jobs, housing, services, education, income, food, healthcare, security.
In 1999, after spending 17 years on death row for a crime he did not commit and within hours of execution, activists and attorneys won a stay of execution giving time for investigators to find the people who did the crime.
Biden’s “limited achievements must be put in context of what both science and justice require to avoid the worst impacts of the climate and extinction crises,” said the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund.
We agree that it is crucial for the US left to oppose economic sanctions and the interference of US imperialism against countries that go out of its orbit, as in the case of Venezuela. But, at the same time, we warn that in order to do this there’s no need to support the Venezuelan government…
“The parliamentarian offers advice which the president and the Senate are free to take or reject. This is Biden throwing the undocumented under the bus and claiming, wrongly, he has no other choice.”
Cubans need to regain hope and to have a possible image of their future. If hope is lost, the meaning of any humanist social project is lost. And hope is not recovered by force.
The reality is that this strategy has failed. The person who the union leadership has been endorsing and donating to led the charge against the union.
