CAPITALIST SYSTEMIC POVERTY

IGL—We spoke with Joti Brar, leader of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) Great Britain, about the escalating US-Israel attack on Iran and the wider geopolitical consequences.  In this interview, Joti Brar argues that Iran is responding to an imperialist war and that its struggle represents a broader anti-imperialist resistance in the Middle East. She also discusses why Western media narratives treat conflicts differently — condemning Russia in Ukraine while often justifying US military intervention. We also discuss the political mood in Europe and the UK, the declining public support for new wars compared to earlier US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and why sections of the international left struggle to support the Islamic Republic of Iran despite its role in resisting Western imperialism.

BRUCE LERRO—Calling a society a “liberal” democracy smuggles in other questionable assumptions. For example, it throws into question whether it is possible to have a “conservative” democracy. In their history reactionary conservatives have supported three institutions prior to and after the Great French Revolution – the king, the aristocracy and the church. These conservatives are far more honest than liberals about their class origins and their suspicions about democracy. Yet, they too have been swept up in the wave of democracy which crested at the end of the 19th century. Even conservatives have to mumble that they are democrats if they want to receive votes.

MICHAEL PARENTI—”Though reflexively labeled an “extremist” by capitalist apologists, Parenti never aspired to anything worthy of that label. As he himself put it in his book,  Dirty Truths: “Those of us designated as ‘extreme leftists’ actually want rather moderate and civil things: a clean environment, a fair tax structure, use of social production for social needs, expansion of public sector production, serious cuts in a bloated military budget, affordable housing, decently paying jobs, equal justice for all, and the like.” Such desires can be construed as ‘extreme,’ he explained, “only in the sense of being extremely at odds with the dominant interests of the status quo. In the face of such gross injustice and class privilege, considerations of social justice and betterment take on the appearance of ‘extreme’ measures.”

JULIAN MACFARLANE—There are many questions about the attack on Caracas, which also give us clues as to the state of the Union.

It is well-known that the CIA has been nurturing operatives in Venezuela for years, spending millions of US taxpayer money to bribe and blackmail, sometimes with impressive results such as the hacking of the national electoral system that almost got the Gonzalez / Machado ticket elected. The CIA is clever, exploiting every opportunity .

In the case of the Venezuelan attack, the foreign punditocracy thinks simplistically about the reasons for its success —assuming collusion between members of the Venezuelan military to account for the ease with which the Delta Forces were able to penetrate Venezuelan air defenses with only one aircraft damaged.

B. LERRO—Dugin begins by contending that by the end of the 20th century liberalism’s opponents –  conservativism, monarchism, traditionalism, fascism, socialism and communism – had all been defeated. Fascism emerged later than the other major political theories and vanished before them. Socialism and fascism positioned themselves as contenders for the soul of modernity and failed. Liberalism is the main enemy of the Fourth political theory.  Dugin claims it is the forces of “freedom”, the forces of the market which have lead humanity along the path of degeneration. He wants to pull the roots of liberal evil out of the structure of the modern world.