LIFE UNDER CAPITALISM

There are now almost 100,000 members of the Democratic Socialists of America. Because of this, the author of a critical biography of its founder is timely. The criticisms of Harrington are overwhelmingly true of the DSA today. Its anti-communism drives it to still support the Democratic Party in spite of the fact the party today is far more right-wing than it was in Harrington’s day. In Harrington’s day supporting Palestine was considered antisemitic. DSA’s support of Palestine today is more the effect of the brutal Israeli policy for decades than an internal change of heart on the part of DSA. —Bruce Lerro, Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism

JACQUES PAUWELS—Speaking of Vietnam, the American intervention in that country was a counterrevolutionary and intrinsically antidemocratic aggression, which cost the lives of two to three million Vietnamese. It is noteworthy that it was supported by US allies who were also supposed to be devotees of the democratic cause, such as West Germany, but opposed by the presumably undemocratic Soviet “satellites”, including East Germany. But this is not an anomaly from the perspective of the paradigm reflected in this book: as we have seen earlier, West Germany was far less democratic, and the “eastern bloc”-countries considerably more democratic, than we have been led to believe.

ERIC ZUESSE—The U.S. regime calls this “press freedom” and “national defense” against countries and news-sites that are ‘enemies’ of the U.S., even though America perpetrated the coup against Iran in 1953 that installed the fascist Shah there in order for America and UK to grab Iran’s oil, and Iran is simply trying to avoid becoming again a U.S. colony. Ukraine (after Obama’s 2014 coup there) now is a U.S. colony, but in 1979, Iran stopped being a U.S. colony. The U.S. regime is strangling Iran with sanctions in order to punish it for having freed itself, in 1979, from America’s billionaires.

MOA—ince December 2019 the United States has a Space Force as one of eight branches of U.S. Armed Forces. Each of those branches has lots of higher ranking officer positions. All people who are put into those want a lucrative board seat at some weapon manufacturer when they retire. They will only get one if they manage to create enough revenue for those manufacturers while they are still in uniform.

The new command therefore needs new weapons. Otherwise there will be no revenue for the weapon manufacturers and no lucrative board seats for retired officers. But spending tax dollars on weapons requires at least some nominal justification. There needs to be a threat that requires new weapons to counter it. Thus we are presented with an onslaught of UFO rumors and silly grainy videos.

An Associated Press spokesperson confirmed to SFGATE that Wilder “was dismissed for violations of AP’s social media policy during her time at AP,” but did not address any other issue Wilder raised, stating that the AP generally does not comment on personnel matters. Wilder said that because her editor originally noted that “everyone had opinions in college,” she sees her firing as selective enforcement against those who have expressed criticisms of Israel. “This is clearly a case of selective enforcement,” she said. “I don’t buy their convenient cover story at all because they never told me what specifically I did wrong, and in the termination letter, they said the harassment campaign prompted the review, and in that review they found supposed violations of their policy.