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A Strategic Nightmare Sneaks into Washington’s Political Agenda

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT A simultaneous war with China and Russia is a strategic nightmare that sober American strategists such as Henry Kissinger have been warning the US to avoid at all costs, and it is also a topic that some US media outlets have become more and more fond of talking about in recent years. […]
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Guns for Hire: America’s Crisis State Goes Global

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. — Theodore Roosevelt From being a nation in a permanent state of emergency, America’s crisis state has gone global. The military industrial complex, which has established itself as the “solution” to all of our worldly problems […]
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Cornel West Runs for President: You Can’t Be a Spoiler if the System Is Already Rotten
Under the less than inspiring implicit slogan of “You’re Stuck with Biden,” the Democratic Party has foregone presidential primary debates this election season. Not even bothering with the pretense of democratic people’s choice, naked bourgeois rule is offered to their captured constituencies. Joe Biden’s approval rating has sunk to a dismal 40.5%. USA Today asks: […]
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Degrowth: How Anti-Worker Would It Be?

The year 2023 saw the hottest Summer on record in the northern hemisphere while those in the southern hemisphere felt the hottest winter on record. It was followed by a Fall with terrifying storms and floods across the globe. The number of people attributing climate catastrophe to economic growth is mounting. Not all agree that […]
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A Message to Donald Rumsfeld’s Ghost About My Known Knowns

On February 12, 2002 at a Pentagon news conference, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was asked by Jim Miklaszewski, the NBC Pentagon correspondent, if he had any evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was supplying them to terrorists. Rumsfeld delivered a famous non-answer answer and said: Reports that say that something hasn’t […]
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How a Battle between Pirates and the British Navy off the Coast of West Africa Triggered the Spread of Chattel Slavery and Changed the Course of History for the United States and the World

An excerpt from a new book, Pirates of the Slave Trade: The Battle of Cape Lopez and the Birth of an American Institution, by historian Angela C. Sutton shows how a pivotal battle between the British navy and a notorious pirate crew, led by “Black Bart” Roberts, cleared the way for an explosion of the […]
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Humor in the Headlines over China in Latin America
As China arrives with a splash in Honduras, the US wrings its hands. — Washington Post, October 2, 2023 In a break from its hysterical coverage of the existential threat posed by Donald Trump, the Washington Post – house organ of the Democratic National Committee – cautions us of the other menace, China. “When the […]
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Ukraine as Another Neo-liberal Privatization Exercise
When considering the recent performances at the General Assembly of the United Nations this year, the echoes of “peace” resound through the plenary hall. Why should anyone want peace in the Ukraine more than any other place the Empire is waging war? My suspicion is that many of these calls are really for Russia to […]
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Flagging Support: Zelenskyy Loses Favour in Washington
Things did not go so well this time around. When the worn Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy turned up banging on the doors of Washington’s powerful on September 21, he found fewer open hearts and an increasingly large number of closed wallets. The old ogre of national self-interest seemed to be presiding and was in no […]