IMPERIALISM

ATILIO BORON—That October 18, 2019 was a blow that, in one fell swoop, brought down the deceptive facade of the conservative regime and inaugurated a new stage in the history of Chile. The enormous injustices maintained and deepened during the very slow (and failed) “democratic transition” initiated in 1990 were exposed. The explosive combination of free-market without anesthesia and a democracy lacking in substance and completely delegitimized -thus becoming a rapacious plutocracy- was able to stay afloat thanks to the resignation, demoralization and apathy of the citizenry, skillfully induced by establishment politicians and the media oligarchy, partners of the ruling class. The spell was broken on October 18. The governmental response revealed the bloodthirsty nature of a regime that did not hesitate for an instant to fiercely repress popular protests in order to preserve the intangibility of its irritating privileges.

GARY OLSON—Although I also lived in Minnesota and South Dakota, my formative years were spent in Fargo, North Dakota along the Red River of the North on the eastern border of the state. The city was named for William Fargo, an owner of the Wells-Fargo Express Company and one of the directors of the Union Pacific Railroad whose tracks ran through the center of town and held up traffic three times a day.  When UP engineers and surveyors first arrived, they were accompanied by U.S. Army officers. This continuing symbiotic partnership between the capitalist state and big business was exemplified by Congress granting rail companies 10 million acres of free public land in Minnesota, amounting to 20 percent of the state’s land area. It was, of course, in the interest of railroad officials to lure immigrants to the region because it increased the value of their line. The construction of Fort Abercrombie in 1857, just thirty miles south of Fargo and the first fort in North Dakota, helped prompt immigrants to surge into the region through the “Gateway to the West” and stake their claims. Fort Abercrombie was followed by six more military bases across the state in the 1860s and early 1870s.

Ah, karma, what a bitch. Thankfully, Russia never got her Mistrals and that was a huge blessing in disguise, but then again, as I state in my video, it is about both the shrinking financial pie of the combined West and about dropping the non-Anglo-Saxon “ally” of France in favor of the increase in the “cohesion” of Anglo-Saxondom in the face of a lot of geopolitical centrifugal forces exacerbated by Washington’s desire to “counter” China. 

It is the first time to occur in Iran, that sitting in the first row (of the attendees), along with the presidents (of world states) – and there were two presidents seated, the president of Iraq and the president of Afghanistan – the former and current presidents of the (Islamic) Republic of Iran; the head of the Guardian Council; the Chief Justice of Iran; the main Islamic Revolutionary Guards commanders and the main commanders of the security forces. In that same row sat the leaderships of the Resistance (Axis) i.e. that of Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Hashd al-Shaabi (PMU) etc.

STALKER ZONE— On September 8, the Riga District Court confirmed the decision of the Vidzeme District Court that human rights activist and scientist Aleksandr Gaponenko committed a criminal offence by spreading anti-fascist statements. For these “crimes”, the court punished the scientist with 10 months in prison. He was awarded a suspended sentence and two years of probation.

This is a landmark decision, since previously anti-fascists in Latvia were persecuted only by the secret police and they did it surreptitiously. The decision of the Riga Court of September 8 means that the state has resorted to institutional means of reprisals against anti-fascists. Indirectly, the court’s decision recognised that fascism is a key element of the state ideology, an element that cannot be criticised under the threat of criminal punishment.