The Red Review | Issue #7 (March 2024)
It May Be Genocide, but It Won’t Be Stopped
By Chris Hedges, Scheer Post.
The Ruling By The International Court Of Justice Was A Legal Victory For South Africa And The Palestinians.
But it will not halt the slaughter.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) refused to implement the most crucial demand made by South African jurists: “the State of Israel shall immediately suspend its military operations in and against Gaza.” But at the same time, it delivered a devastating blow to the foundational myth of Israel. Israel, which paints itself as eternally persecuted, has been credibly accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinians are the victims, not the perpetrators, of the “crime of crimes.” A people, once in need of protection from genocide, are now potentially committing it. The court’s ruling questions the very raison d’être of the “Jewish State” and challenges the impunity Israel has enjoyed since its founding 75 years ago.
Biden Cuts Off Life-Saving Aid to Palestinians
By Michael Arria, Mondoweiss.
Based On Israeli Unproven Allegations Against UNRWA.
The State Department has paused funding for UNRWA after the Israeli government accused 12 employees of being involved in the October 7 attack. But US continues funding Zionist Genocide
The State Department paused additional funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) after the Israeli government accused 12 UNRWA workers of being involved in the October 7 Hamas attack.
A press statement from State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the Biden administration was “extremely troubled by the allegations.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “to emphasize the necessity of a thorough and swift investigation of this matter.”
The Real Artificial Intelligence Fight is About Who Gets the Gains
By Hamilton Nolan, In These Times.
It’s Not Labor Against Technology.
It’s shared progress versus inequality.
AI is a labor issue. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it will prove to be a marginal labor issue. Or maybe it will prove to be an existential, epochal labor issue on par with industrialization or globalization, each of which revolutionized their own eras of work. Before we get completely immersed in the battle over how AI will affect workers, though, it is important to frame the playing field correctly. This is not a fight between a backwards-looking labor movement on one side, and technological progress on the other. Rather, this is a question of where the wealth and efficiency gains created by AI will flow.
The Nuclear Power Quandary: Climate Protector or Existential Threat?
In the battle against fossil fuels, is nuclear energy a magic bullet, a necessary lesser evil, an expensive, slow, and potentially dangerous distraction, or a technology to avoid at all costs?
With the planet teetering on the brink of climate disaster and the goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 rapidly slipping away, the need for alternatives to polluting fossil fuels has never been more evident. Should nuclear power be part of a safe and reliable electrical supply solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Canada?
There are many thorny questions yet to be resolved. Is nuclear power too dangerous? Is it too expensive? Does it present too much of a security risk? Is the problem of finding a safe way of storing nuclear waste insurmountable? Is it scalable soon enough to make a meaningful difference in the battle against climate change? Is it a distraction from investing in renewable energy?
A Racist, Zionist Cabinet Minister, Selina Robinson, in David Eby's BC NDP government was Fired for Her Public Defense of Zionist Apartheid and Genocide in Palestine
by Gary Porter
Calls continued to mount for the B.C. Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills to resign after making racist remarks about Palestine during a panel discussion sponsored by B'nai Brith, a prominent Zionist organization.
“They don’t understand that it was a crappy piece of land with nothing on it, ” said Salina Robinson in a Jan. 30 online panel of Jewish public officials
The former minister’s comment was part of an answer to a question, which included her saying that there is an “entire generation of young adults who don’t know about the Holocaust.”
How Socialists Fight Religion
by Leon Trotsky (1924)
It is perfectly evident and beyond dispute at the present time that we cannot place our anti-religious propaganda on the level of a straightforward fight against God. That would not be sufficient for us.
We supplant mysticism by materialism, broadening above all the collective experience of the masses, heightening their active influence on society, widening the horizon of their positive knowledge, and in this field we deal also, where necessary, direct blows at religious prejudices.
China versus the US
Cross-posted from Michael Roberts’ blog
The US economy grew 2.5% in 2023 over 2022, according to the first estimate of real GDP for Q4 released this week. This was greeted with rapture by Western mainstream economists – the US is motoring and the ‘recession forecasters’ have been proved badly wrong. Earlier in the week, it was announced that the Chinese economy grew 5.2% in 2023. In contrast to the US, this was condemned by Western mainstream economists as a total failure (with China using probably faked data anyway) and demonstrated that China is in deep trouble. So China grows at double the rate of the US, the best performing G7 economy by a long way, but it is China that is ‘failing’, while the US is ‘booming’.
The Passing of Ed Broadbent
By Barry Weisleder - I knew Ed Broadbent, who passed on January 12 at age 88. He was a plain-spoken fellow, and a decent man. The injunction against speaking ill of the dead is usually a good guide (although exceptions like Margaret Thatcher come to mind), but it does not imply an oath of silence. The establishment does not deserve to have the last say.
Women in Pakistan are Fighting Enforced Disappearances and Killings
By Esha Mitra, Waging Nonviolence
From A Protest Encampment In Islamabad, Hundreds Of Women From Balochistan Are Demanding The Return Of Their Missing Loved Ones Amid Staunch Government Repression.
As hundreds took to the streets of Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, on Jan. 12, a sea of mostly female protesters continued screaming “Balochistan wants justice,” even as they were met with a heavy police presence.
Meanwhile, back in the restive but beautiful southwestern province of Balochistan, thousands more swarmed the streets. Their protest against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in their province was just the latest mobilization for a movement that has grown exponentially over the past month.