The Red Review | Issue #10 (June 2024)
The Red Review | Issue #10 (June 2024)
Editor: Gary Porter
Managing Editor: Yener Kara
Federal Secretary: Barry Weisleder
Smash Zionist Genocide and Apartheid!
Socialist Action
The eyes of the world are on Palestine. After 7 months of a genocidal bombardment and invasion of Gaza, the Zionist state has killed over 35,000 people, including 22,000 children and women, leaving 78,500+ injured. Zionist pogroms in the West Bank massacred hundreds. Currently, the Israel Occupation Force is bombing and waging a ground assault in Rafah where over a million refugees are huddled. This horror did not begin with the October 7 Gaza prison break. The current slaughter and famine were preceded by 76 years of brutal Occupation and mass incarceration of Palestinians. The corporate obsession with Palestine arises from the vast reserves of oil in the Middle East. Capitalist energy giants seek to control the resources of the world. They try to crush any nation that stands in their way. Washington tried to overthrow the elected government of Venezuela, and it moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, proclaiming that the Zionist Occupation is permanent. To that scenario we emphatically say NO! Free Palestine! Student encampments at universities across Canada and the USA bravely decry academic and corporate complicity with genocide. The Yemini Houthis show how all Arab and Muslim states, indeed all governments, can and should block commerce with the Zionist state and its economy.
Canadian Democracy, Camouflage for the Dictatorship of the Capitalist Class
By Gary Porter
Canada is a class based society. Social classes are defined by their relationship to the means of production. The capitalist class owns the means of production plus the financial institutions and property. The working class apart from some personal possessions, own nothing but their labour power, which they must sell to the capitalists in order to live and raise their children. The capitalists, after paying the workers as little as they can get away with, take (alienate) everything the workers produce.
Federal Budget - Far from "Progressive"
by John Wilson
Liberal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland's April 16 federal budget offers little to the majority working class population. Still, there has been an orchestrated attack on it in the corporate media centered on one part that is ostensibly the most "progressive" item. That is the proposed increase in the tax on capital gains. According to the acolytes of the rich, in the high finance sector, this will ruin the economy, despite the fact that 99.87% of the public are unaffected by it. There is no wealth tax, no excess profits tax -- which is unsurprising to anyone who's been paying attention. The new tax applies only to capital gains above $250,000 for individuals. Don't we all wish that there was a similar provision for income tax! And the increase still falls short of the rates charged in many other wealthy imperialist countries which do have this kind of tax.
The Rising Student Movement In Solidarity With Palestine
By Barry Sheppard
Prior to the police action on campus, Columbia suspended three women students from the University’s historically largely female Barnard College — Isra Hirsi, Maryam Iqbal, and Soph Dinu — for participating in the encampment. Isra Hirsi is the daughter of representative in Congress from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Ilan Omar, one of two Muslim members of Congress (the other being Rashida Tlaib) and the first woman of color to be elected from Minnesota.
Michael Roberts – Further thoughts on the economics of imperialism
Cross-posted from Michael Roberts’ blog
Back in 2021, Guglielmo Carchedi and I published a paper in Historical Materialism called The Economics of Modern Imperialism. The paper focused exclusively on the economic aspects of imperialism. We defined that as the persistent and long-term net appropriation of surplus value by the high-technology advanced capitalist countries transferred from the low-technology dominated countries. We identified four channels by which surplus value flows to the imperialist countries: currency seigniorage; income flows from capital investments; unequal exchange (UE) through trade; and changes in exchange rates.
We did not deny other aspects of imperialist domination of the majority of world i.e. in particular, military power and political control of international institutions (UN, IMF, World Bank etc) and the power of ‘international diplomacy’. But in the paper we focused on the economic aspects, which we argued was the ultimate determining factor driving these other extremely important, but determined traits, like military and political domination, as well as cultural and ideological pre-eminence.
80 Percent of Global CO2 Emissions Come From Just 57 Companies, Report Shows
A new analysis released last week by the international non-profit InfluenceMap reveals an overwhelmingly unequal share of fossil fuel pollution worldwide. From 2016 to 2022, 80 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions were produced by just 57 companies.
Shared in the think tank’s Carbon Majors Database, which is authored by some of the world’s top climate researchers, the report names the leading state-controlled entities and investor-owned companies driving the climate crisis and global warming.
U.S. Military Being Forced to Withdraw Troops From Niger
By Eric Schmitt
Reporting from Washington
Published April 19, 2024
More than 1,000 American military personnel will leave Niger in the coming months, Biden administration officials said on Friday, upending U.S. counterterrorism and security policy in the tumultuous Sahel region of Africa.
In the second of two meetings this week in Washington, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt M. Campbell told Niger’s prime minister, Ali Lamine Zeine, that the United States disagreed with the country’s turn toward Russia for security and Iran for a possible deal on its uranium reserves, and the failure of Niger’s military government to map out a path to return to democracy, according to a senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic talks.
Two Environmental Activists Convicted for Civil Disobedience
Peter Fairley 3 May 2024 The Tyee
Two climate activists who argued that the threat of climate change justified their efforts to block highways, banks and airports were convicted today in a Nanaimo court.
Provincial Court Judge Ronald Lamperson rejected the precedent-setting defence of necessity from Melanie Murray and Howard Breen, which was based on their claim that the urgency of the climate crisis required them to break the law.
“I’ve no doubt on the evidence that climate change constitutes an existential threat to life in Canada and everywhere else in the world,” Lamperson said. “This fact is established by widely accepted current science and has been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada.
The Demise of the Emperor of New Brunswick
by Christopher Wanamaker
Arthur Irving, the billionaire chairman emeritus of Irving Oil, has died at 93. Tributes are pouring in. He is described as a man who achieved the status of corporate top dog at his family oil company, as someone with endless energy and dedication, known for giving 110 percent to his hometown of Saint John, New Brunswick; a lifelong Saint Johner who oversaw the growth of his father’s oil company into a multinational energy firm... with "tremendous" contributions over the years.
