GLOBALIZATION or CORPORATIZATION

Richard Medhurst:  There is no real Left in America. The Democratic Party is not a workers’ party, nor is it a leftist party. Anywhere else in the world they would be a right-wing party. Moreover, what you have in the United States is a one-party system where the two factions – Republicans and Democrats – come together to fuck over the working class. They appear to be at odds with each other on a handful of issues. However, when it comes to maintaining the interests of the American empire through war, sanctions, bailouts and corporate handouts — miraculously they seem to agree with each other and “reach across the aisle.” Their sole purpose is to serve the oligarchs to whom they’ve prostituted themselves, and to give people the illusion of choice. This way they can pacify the working class and prevent revolt.

PETER KOENIG—In some European countries, covid-unrest already clearly visible, i.e., Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Spain – and of course, in the very Germany. Civil and societal unrest is also boiling hot in France, currently one of the most repressive regimes in the western world.

CHRISTOPHER BLACK—Reasonable people ask what can be done about the aggressive policies of the United States leadership. Russia and China talk about containment of the threat, renew calls for peaceful diplomacy, support dialogue with Iran to reduce the imminent danger of war in the Persian Gulf, with Venezuela, with respect to all the nations attacked occupied or threatened by the United States. But the Trumps and Obamas, the Bushes and Clintons of the American world, respond with all the more arrogance and fall all over themselves as to who among them is the most bellicose, the most ready to go to war to “make America great again, the most able to “support the spread of democracy,” that is, their rule over the world.

French President Emmanuel Macron successfully defuses a police-organized “Black Wednesday” protest, agreeing to gradually raise police officers’ wages by an average of 120 euros (US$136) per month and up to 150 euros (US$170) for the most senior officers by the end of 2019. French officials met with police trade union leaders Wednesday to work out a deal that will soothe the anger and discontent among law enforcement.

RAMIN MAZAHERI—Without access to North Korea’s rare earth metals China will have perhaps as great a chokepoint on the modern global economy as any OPEC nation save Arabia (which I refuse to call “Saudi”, as only Western governments believe/want the house of Saud to be synonymous with the People of Arabia). Furthermore, due to their educational advancements, North Korea can obviously serve the same function for South Korea as East Germany did for West Germany upon their reunification: cheap but smart labor.