BILL VAN AUKEN—The entire rescue effort has been characterized by an outpouring of human solidarity and concern for the fate of the young people trapped beneath the earth, together with international collaboration and the deployment of immense resources to achieve the aim of bringing them out alive.
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DECADENT HOLLYWOOD STRIKES AGAIN: Ocean’s 8: A “gender-swapped” caper
CARLOS DELGADO—The creatively bankrupt Hollywood studio machinery, which seems increasingly incapable of doing anything but churning out sequels, remakes, “reboots,” and “reimaginings” of commercially successful franchises, has of late made appeals to identity politics by creating “gender-swapped” versions of popular films, where women inhabit roles that had previously been played by men. Far from being an attempt to showcase the talents of the performers involved, much less appeal to the broad mass of women whose experiences are excluded from the cultural landscape, such efforts are cynical and nakedly mercenary attempts to squeeze blood from the stones of once-lucrative franchises.
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Peace is a cliché: When the West cannot control the world unopposed it means war
ANDRE VLTCHEK—he West likes to think of itself as a truly “peace-loving part of the world”. But is it? You hear it everywhere, from Europe to North America, then to Australia, and back to Europe: “Peace, peace, peace!” It has become a cliché, a catchphrase, a recipe to get funding and sympathy and support. You say peace and you really cannot go wrong. It means that you are a compassionate and reasonable human being.
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America’s War against the People of Korea: The Historical Record of US War Crimes
MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY—The Korean War (1950-1953) was the first major military operation undertaken by the US in the wake of World War II, launched at the very outset of what was euphemistically called “The Cold War”. In many respects it was a continuation of World War II, whereby Korean lands under Japanese colonial occupation were, from one day to the next, handed over to a new colonial power, the United States of America. At the Potsdam Conference (July–August 1945), the US and the Soviet Union agreed to dividing Korea, along the 38th parallel. There was no “Liberation” of Korea following the entry of US forces. Quite the opposite.
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The Lebanese style of democracy of no winners or losers
GHASSAN KADI—The irony here is that even though the outcome of the “War on Syria” was reflected in the outcome of the recent 6th of May 2018 Lebanese elections, and even though the Saudi cohorts in Lebanon have lost many seats and were considered to be “losers”, Lebanese President Aoun, who is pro-Syria, has appointed current Prime Minister, pro-Saudi, Hariri to form the new government. This is democracy Lebanese style. At its best, democracy can stink, especially Western Democracy that turns the whole freedom of choice into a charade of two parties dictating who they choose as leader.
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Antifa or Antiwar: Leftist Exclusionism Against the Quest for Peace
DIANA JOHNSTONE—Historically, Westernizers in Russia have repeatedly gained influence and then lost out, because their overtures to the West were rebuffed on one pretext or another. (The British geopolitical tradition, based on the timeless dictum divide et impera, has traditionally favored policies to keep the continent divided) This merges easily with the Brzezinski doctrine of maintaining separation between Western Europe as a whole and Russia to maintain U.S. global hegemony. Western rejection of Russia naturally favors a rise of the Slavophiles. It also obliges Russia to look to Eurasia rather than Western Europe. This is happening again.
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The 75 Years’ War Against the Soviet Union
STEVEN JONAS—”The Hungarian Uprising of 1956 is always presented in the West as failed revolt by democratic forces against the communist government of Hungary. From the perspective of the Hungarian Communist side, however, the picture was rather different (The Truth About Hungary: Facts and Eyewitness Accounts, Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1957). From that perspective, it was a neo-fascist revolt by the forces that had ruled Hungary from 1919 to 1945 (first under the world’s first fascist dictator, Admiral Miklos Horthy, at the end under the even-more vicious Arrow Cross, who were hanging known communists from street lamps in downtown Budapest). That had to be put down, even it meant calling in Soviet tanks…”
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