BRUCE DIXON—In my May 30 column, Why Our Green Parties Haven’t Taken Off, I noted that the GP does get a few important things absolutely correct, and briefly discussed some of its defects and difficulties as well – foggy politics, no organizing methodology, addiction to the models of Democrats and Republicans, and more. It’s a work in progress, often way more work than progress. Some of us are committed to transforming the Green Party into a 21st century left and socialist party, eventually capable of partnering in labor and other organizing ventures and competing for actual power.
READ ONCategory: ABOMINATIONS
Freedom Rider: Democrats Unhinged by Korea
MARGARET KIMBERLEY—The Democrats like war, interventions and United States hegemony. They always have. If anyone wants proof they need only look at their collective hissy fit regarding the Trump and Kim summit. Part of the reaction is caused by fear of Trump getting credit for a foreign policy achievement. But Democrats are also true believers in imperialism. The last thing they want to see is any reduction in the American military presence in Korea or anywhere else.
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American Analyst Calls Trump’s Advisers ‘War-Loving Psychopaths’
“Trump’s advisers are all war-loving psychopaths, so the logical conclusion is that this is the first step toward some sort of conflict….either with the DPRK or with Iran,” John Steppling, who is based in Norway, told the Tasnim News Agency in an interview
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BAR Book Forum: Stephen Gowans’ “Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom”
ROBERTO SIRVENT—US foreign policy largely shaped what Korea is and has become since 1945, and it is impossible to understand Korea without first understanding US foreign policy. US foreign policy is set, not by the broad public acting through its elected representatives to serve broad public interests, but by an elite based in the business and especially finance and banking communities to serve their sectional interests.
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Nikki Haley: Damn the UN Human Rights Council and the Rest of You Too
ANN GARRISON—The UNHRC is composed of 47 members elected to three year terms within five geographic groups: Africa, Central America and Caribbean, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Western European and Other States including the US and Australia. The seats are rarely contested; nations from the various groups just swap votes and take turns. Only the Asia Pacific seat was contested this year.
UNHRC resolutions are neither legally binding nor enforceable, so it’s just a forum, but occasionally it makes news. This year the UNHRC story in the headlines has been that the US might quit the Council over its “anti-Israel bias”—as it now has— before its three-year term expires in 2019.
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US Navy planning to build military camps to jail 120,000 immigrants
ALEC ANDERSEN—The release of detailed plans for the construction of military detention centers throughout the western and southern states, with the capacity to detain massive numbers of undocumented workers fleeing the violence and economic devastation that American imperialism has produced in Central America, represents a new stage in the ruling class’s turn toward authoritarian rule.
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WAR & REVOLUTION2
An interview with Dr. John Ackerman – professor of law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), columnist with La Jornada newspaper and Proceso Magazine, and a frequent contributor to international media such as The New York Times, Le Monde Diplomatique and Foreign Policy – regarding the myth of the transition to democracy in Mexico, the imminence of fraud in the upcoming presidential election, and the promise of a progressive government led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
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