Month: June, 2021
Russia-China the Endgame
worker | June 30, 2021 | 7:45 pm | China, Russia | Comments closed

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/202106291083266685-russia-china-the-endgame/

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The consolidation of the Russia-China alliance this week spells the endgame for Western imperialism and the never-ending wars that it spawns.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and China’s leader Xi Jinping celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Friendship, first signed in July 2001. The hallmark of that historic accord is a mutual commitment to peace, prosperity and global stability.

As Putin commented, the alliance between Russia and China is a vital source of “stability at a time of increasing geopolitical turbulence”. The latter remark is an oblique reference to the US-led Western states which are driven by ratcheting up antagonism and tensions with Moscow and Beijing using all sorts of spurious complaints.

The attempt by Washington (whether Republican or Democrat) and its Western minions to make trouble with Russia and China has become almost frenetic. Step back from the daily headlines in Western media and it is glaring just how much the agenda has become irrationally hostile towards Moscow and Beijing. Week after week there are unfounded allegations about aggression, security threats, cybercrime, interference, Covid-19, and so on. It’s like a mad cacophony to wind up tensions. Nevertheless, the deranged attitude of Western ruling cliques is but the death throes of a world order that has reached its expiration.

Russia and China’s partnership has hugely transformative geopolitical significance. Both these giant nations straddle the continents of Asia and Europe, connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic, ranging from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. Both are committed to a vision of a multipolar world where nations cooperate for mutual development. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) linking Eurasia with Africa and the Americas is the vision of the future, and Russia is a key partner in implementing that ambitious win-win project for global peace and prosperity.

This vision stands in stark contrast to the prevailing Western capitalist paradigm which operates through dominance, control and exploitation for American and European profiteering. That kind of centuries-old system necessarily involves imperialist conduct whereby natural resources of foreign nations are commandeered by brute military force, conflict, subjugation, subterfuge, skulduggery and other machinations.

The multipolar vision of global relations advocated by Russia and China is the nemesis of the Western imperialist system. And that explains why the Americans and their European vassals make every effort to demonize and distort Russia and China.

But the geopolitical potential of Russia and China is unstoppable. There is a force of natural justice that all nations will inevitably subscribe to as the only reasonable, feasible and sustainable way forward. It’s about people-centered development versus profit-driven disorder.

Moreover, the partnership between Russia and China is a geographer’s wonder study. Russia is the world’s largest national territory by landmass. With over 17 million square kilometers, it covers 11 time zones out of the world’s total of 24. The abundance of natural resources that Russia possesses is astounding, from reserves of natural gas, oil, metals and minerals, to forestry, agriculture and fisheries. It also can boast of highly advanced technology in multiple sectors. And it shares a long land border with China for easing trade.

Meanwhile, China has a population of 1.4 billion people, ten times that of Russia. With highly advanced technology and manufacturing, China is not only a vast market for Russian resources, it is also a gateway to the world economy. China has already become the world’s biggest economy over the United States according to some measures.

The US and Europe are post-industrial economies that are also post-peak of their prime. Their “prime” was always based on an extractive predatory relationship with the rest of the world that was predicated on inflicting conflict and poverty on others.

As China and Russia build on their strategic partnership for mutual prosperity and peace the upshot will inevitably entail the endgame for Western imperial powers which are atrophying from massive inequality, indebtedness, moral decadence and social decay.

Fortunately, too, and this is crucial, Russia and China have military defenses from new generations of hypersonic weaponry that make them impregnable against any warmongering notions by the United States. A failing empire like the US and its Western satellites is always a dangerous time as it tries to prevent the inevitable collapse, but starting a war with Russia and China is not an option.

The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

How did the Communist Party of China (CPC) grow from an organization of just over 50 members to the world’s biggest political party with more than 91 million members during the past 100 years?
worker | June 29, 2021 | 7:57 pm | China, Communist Party of China | Comments closed

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-06-27/Explained-Why-China-chooses-CPC-and-socialism-11r9lVziDSg/index.html

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Explained: Why China chooses CPC and socialism
CGTN

A sign marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC is seen in Shanghai, east China, June 21, 2021. /CFP

How did the Communist Party of China (CPC) grow from an organization of just over 50 members to the world’s biggest political party with more than 91 million members during the past 100 years? What are the reasons behind its creation, development and success? A recently released short video by China Daily explored the answers.

The five-minute video, released days ahead of the CPC’s centenary, reviewed China’s struggles for independence, development and modernization amid a series of crises in the 19th and early 20th centuries and the CPC’s role in the process.

Since China’s defeat in the Opium War in the 1840s, generations of Chinese patriots made a number of attempts to transform the country. “They tried to push for reform and build a constitutional monarchy, but it failed. They were able to build a democratic republic through revolution (the Xinhai Revolution in 1911), but it did not last long,” the video noted.

“The Chinese people were very motivated,” said Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China. “When facing the external pressure, they made many attempts, but most of them failed.”

“In the end the people chose the strong leadership of the Communist Party of China because they have a goal of modernizing China,” Jin added.

A screenshot of the China Daily video

Early Communist groups started to sprout up in Chinese cities with a large working class during the May Fourth Movement in 1919, when students and workers protested the government that caved in to demands by imperialist powers after World War I. During the protests, intellectuals influenced by Marxism after the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 were touched by the power of workers in the fight to save China.

The CPC was founded in July 1921 amid Chinese Communists’ efforts to find a way out for the country.

“From the day of its foundation the CPC was determined to reach out to the lower strata of society, to the toiling masses who made up the vast majority of the Chinese population and to mobilize them,” said Zhou Kun, a researcher at the Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee.

Led by Mao Zedong, the CPC worked to mobilize peasants – the silent majority of the Chinese people at that time, paving the way for its unique revolutionary strategy of surrounding cities from the countryside and eventually established the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

A screenshot of the China Daily video

“The only thing that draws people together is by addressing majority people’s concern,” said Fred Engst, son of Sid Engst and Joan Hinton, an American couple who came to China in the 1940s and witnessed China’s revolution and socialist development.

“When you sided with the overwhelming majority of the people, the peasantry, the workers, people in lower, you will get their support,” he said.

“The path of socialism chosen by China is a choice made by history and by the people,” the video said in the end, quoting the words of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

Jarvis DeBerry: The tax breaks for jobs scheme isn’t working out for Louisiana
worker | June 29, 2021 | 7:54 pm | Economy, Local/State | Comments closed

https://www.nola.com/opinions/article_fc87f8fa-d45c-11eb-8666-130fce735f95.html

Jarvis DeBerry: The tax breaks for jobs scheme isn’t working out for Louisiana

marathon oil refinery 2019_001.jpg
The Marathon Petroleum refinery in Garyville, La. Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019.

You, I and every other American taxpayer helped out Marathon Petroleum during the worst of the pandemic. Then, the same year it secured its $2.1 billion in federal tax benefits — the most of any U.S. oil company — Marathon let go almost 1,920 employees.

The “reductions,” to use Marathon’s word, included 45 workers at Marathon’s refinery in St. John the Baptist Parish who probably don’t say “reduced” when describing what the company did to them.

Marathon grabbed up our money but let go our neighbors. “Understanding the benefits that Marathon received to presumably stimulate them into maintaining full employment,” one of the laid-off workers told reporter Chris Staudinger, “it’s frustrating to have still been chopped.”

But in Louisiana, it’s not uncommon for industry to get government help — most often tax exemptions from the state — only to cut workers. The mere promise of jobs is enough to make state officials genuflect before the companies offering them.

Even when a company says up front it’s going to double the amount of pollution — consider Formosa’s plan to emit 800 tons of toxic air pollution each year in St. James Parish — we are told to pipe down lest we chase away potential jobs.

Robert Taylor, the 80-year-old leader of Concerned Citizens of St. John, made it clear in a phone interview that no number of jobs justifies people breathing air that’s killing them. When Taylor’s wife was diagnosed with cancer, he moved her out of state. His daughter also left because, according to Taylor, she and three other Black women in St. John developed an autoimmune disease that only one in 5 million people get.

Taylor lives closer to the Denka plant (formerly Dupont) than to Marathon and mostly blames that plant for his family’s poor health, but he says none of the companies in St. John that boast about job creation provide evidence.

“All these companies, they guard their personnel records with their lives,” Taylor said. “There’s no access to anything about the demographics of employees. We’ve been fighting with (Marathon) as well as with DuPont/Denka to give us the statistics to let us know — since they brag about all the jobs. We’re always trying to find out what percentage of the population that has been impacted by them the most are they employing.”

But again, who cares?

“I would not trade off the health of the people here for any job at all,” Taylor said. “What good is a job going to do you if you’re dying? I know a guy who has retired (from Marathon); he got his son on. Both he and his son contracted the same form of cancer, but they are better able to deal with it and get the right medical care. They both survived the cancer, but the average person that lives here, which is 99% of us, we don’t have the kind of medical insurance and care that Marathon can give to the few token Blacks that they do hire.”

On the last day of the legislative session, state Rep. Royce Duplessis (D-New Orleans) asked the Louisiana House to extend the current 5% federal earned income tax credit by five years, calling it “good policy that … serves working people at the bottom of the totem pole.” state Rep. Blake Miguez (R-Erath), the leader of the Republican Caucus, objected to the projected cost of $20.5 million a year.

“This institution,” state Rep. Barry Ivey (R-Central) said in defense of Duplessis’ bill, “gives everything away for corporate, for business. We give it away. We don’t even think about it…. But when it comes to the people of our state, we’re going to have these unbelievable philosophical questions and concerns about whether it’s the right thing to do.”

In May, Ivey expressed dismay at his House colleagues who approved a bill that would have let companies getting tax breaks to create jobs keep private the salaries they pay their hires. That bill died in the Senate, but the message was still sent that, just like the feds, Louisiana doesn’t care much what corporations do after taking our money.

That’s one of many reasons we know the U.S. Supreme Court was wrong when it ruled in 2010 that corporations are people. People are capable of shame.

The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China on Friday released a white paper titled “China’s Political Party System: Cooperation and Consultation.”
worker | June 29, 2021 | 7:50 pm | China, Communist Party of China | Comments closed

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-06-25/Full-Text-China-s-Political-Party-System-Cooperation-Consultation-11njwrsmR56/index.html

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Full Text: China’s Political Party System: Cooperation and Consultation
Updated 11:51, 27-Jun-2021
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Whither the Democratic Party?
worker | June 29, 2021 | 7:17 pm | Political Pandemonium, political struggle | Comments closed
– from Greg Godels is available at:
http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/
If you do not wish to receive these notices, e-mail: zzsblogml@gmail.com with “unsubscribe” in the subject box.
Instead, the Democratic Party has been transformed by the contradictions inherent in its construction into something entirely new. Within the context of the evolution of US capitalism, it has undergone a profound rebuild no longer capable of serving the interests of those who formerly found hope in its success… To read more, please go to: https://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2021/06/whither-democratic-party.html
Cultural program from opening of KKE Congress
worker | June 29, 2021 | 7:14 pm | Communist Party Greece (KKE) | Comments closed
After the opening speech (in Greek) the cultural program begins at 1:02:00.  Songs in english begin at
1:13:45
US Infowar’s New Front
worker | June 24, 2021 | 8:28 pm | China, Iran, Russia | Comments closed

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/202106231083222508-us-infowars-new-front/

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The shutting down of dozens of Iranian news channels by the US government this week is a daring new offensive against free speech that is only one part of Washington’s global information warfare.

The US authorities claim the forced internet closure of Press TV and other affiliated online news services was based on alleged violation of American sanctions. The sites have since come back online by deftly switching to other internet domains beyond US control.

Nevertheless, the temporary blackout of a nation’s news channels is a deeply sinister sign of how far Washington is prepared to go in pushing information warfare under the guise of “complying” with sanctions probity.

If the United States designates foreign nations as “enemy” or “terrorist” – which it has done with regard to Iran – then, of course, it follows logic under pseudo-legal sanctions for such draconian actions to be taken in censoring public broadcasting from that nation.

But there’s a bigger picture. The latest American move against Iran can be seen as a gambit for a much broader front in information warfare against other nations. In particular, Russia and China.

Both of those nations are increasingly labelled in hostile terms as enemies, allegedly posing threats to American national security and the security of “allies”. Indeed, the hostile rhetoric is intensifying and becoming ever more frenetic, accusing Russia and China of endangering “rules-based order” and the very foundations of “Western democracy”.

What really galls Washington and its Western vassals in the European Union and the NATO military axis is that Russia and China have both developed impressive news media services that operate internationally and in English and other major languages. Those media outlets have broken the Western monopoly on information available to the world.

For decades, Washington and its allies could loudly proclaim this or that through their controlled news media and there was little chance to challenge or correct.

 

That media monopoly is no longer. Western narratives on international events are contradicted by alternative perspectives from Iran, Russia and China. Oftentimes the Western narratives, for example, the war in Syria, are shown to be completely false and exposed as propaganda masquerading as “news”.

Such competition for news and views should be seen as a healthy democratic choice. But it is intolerable to the United States and its Western lackeys because such alternative information fatally undermines imperial agendas for foreign intervention. In fact, furthermore, Western governments can be seen by their own citizens as acting criminally in violating international law, for example, in imposing crippling sanctions against Iran’s people.

This, by the way, is why brave truth-tellers like Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are persecuted. It is another example of Western powers censoring sources of critical information that illuminates their war crimes and other imperial vices.

Iran’s news channels and regional affiliates have provided informative coverage on a swathe of issues, ranging from the international nuclear accord which Washington sabotaged and is wrangling over with criminal sanctions, to the war on Yemen in which the United States, Britain and France are implicated for complicity in war crimes.

The Americans and their Western partners cannot argue against the truth which exposes their depredations and sordid machinations.

So, the only line of action is to shoot the messenger in order to delete the indicting message.

This has been going for some time already, whereby US big tech and social media companies have been surreptitiously censoring alternative foreign and domestic news services under the cynical guise of “community standards” and other bogus pretexts. That can be seen as American information warfare conducted in the private commercial realm.

But now the American government is openly wielding blanket censorship by closing down Iranian news services on the internet.

Washington’s increasing belligerent logic towards Russia and China is formulating a rationale for the same draconian censorship against these two nations.

 

The US empire wants to criminalize Russia in order to justify NATO military expansion and to sabotage Moscow’s relations with Europe. And America’s minion-politicians in Europe are colluding in their own self-sabotage.

Perhaps more than this, the US empire is desperate to undermine China’s ascent to economic and geopolitical power by criminalizing Beijing over an array of allegations, including the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic.

For Washington to succeed in its agenda it needs to win what it would call the information war. And that means shutting down news and views from Russia and China.

That’s why the latest American media offensive against Iran could be just the opening of a much bigger front.

The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.