“There were laws and legislation,” he said. “They were applied. When a demonstration took place without a permit, it was the duty of the police to disperse it. This is done everywhere.” Exactly the problem! In retrospect the Soviets should have perhaps worked with Dubček and helped both themselves and other parties introduce reforms that relaxed the no longer needed strictures imposed in the Stalin years. Dr. King told us “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” It takes a long time for the arc's bend to become visible and we now see the errors the Soviets made in 1968 caught up with them twenty years later. One injustice was overcome but from the detritus even greater have emerged and the arc resumes its glacial anfractuous Odyssey.
The opinions, views, thoughts, and ramblings of editors of PoliticalAffairs.net – and other stuff worth reading or viewing.
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Saturday, July 25, 2020
Financial Crisis 101
"The powers that policymakers have to deal with persistent vulnerabilities have been undermined by Trump administration officials who entered office seeking to weaken financial rules. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who leads a panel created by Dodd-Frank to identify financial risks, has moved to release big financial firms from oversight and abandoned an Obama-era working group that was examining hedge fund risks.The result is a still-brittle system, one in which financial players rake in profits in good times but the government is forced to save them or leave the economy to suffer when things go awry."
This is the backdrop for another major financial crisis such as erupted in 2006. The present government is run by crony capitalists (Mnuchin is a hedge fund veteran) and capitalists seek maximum accumulation of capital. Regulations were put in place after 2006 to prevent unsustainable risks being taken in the financial system. But the greater the risk the greater the profit.
The game is simple: the Trumpies thwart regulations and allow the big hedge funds to take great risks and make super profits but if the economy goes south and their risks don't pay off the whole economy could be in danger, so instead losing their profits the State steps in and bails them out with taxpayers money -- the working class majority bails out the capitalists (negative socialism).
No surprise here as Lenin pointed out the State is an organ by which one class oppresses another and the US state is a capitalist run state set up to oppress working people -- so the ruling class gets bailed out and welfare and food stamps get defunded.
Sunday, July 19, 2020
The Uighurs: Persecution or Propaganda
If the Uighurs are being persecuted that is certainly bad and against the principles of Marxism-Leninism subscribed to by the CPC. However, the evidence that this kind of persecution is actually going on has to to be stronger than guesswork and speculation and outrageous propaganda outbursts especially since the US (and therefore its satellites in NATO and EU) has taken the position that China is an adversary and is drumming up a new American sponsored Cold War to justify confrontations and increased military spending.
The Guardian's You Tube video shows Chinese police transferring some prisoners. That is all it shows. However the Guardian tells us they "appear to be" Uighurs and Muslims (but then they might not be). They also “ believe” the video was made in Xinjiang a year ago, but they don’t really know as the video was posted anonymously on You Tube. On the basis of this video and other speculations the Labour Party shadow foreign minister concluded that China was engaged in “genocide”— a term that even the Tory government is hesitant to use. Labour is still a trusted US ally.
It is true that there was a terrorist movement in Xinjiang and militants were organizing an Islamic jihad movement and killing civilians and the Chinese have responded in a way they claim is correct and proper and is an internal affair of the Chinese people. The US and its supporters claim the crackdown is disproportionate. Their own responses to “militant Islam” (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, etc) seem to belie
any genuine concern for the welfare of the Uighurs let alone any belief in “human rights.” Again I stress, if the Uighurs, or any group, is being persecuted then that is wrong and should be halted. My only concern is that the evidence coming from US government propaganda and the MSM is uniformly based on speculation, innuendo, and anti-Chinese sentiments and should not be taken as gospel.
any genuine concern for the welfare of the Uighurs let alone any belief in “human rights.” Again I stress, if the Uighurs, or any group, is being persecuted then that is wrong and should be halted. My only concern is that the evidence coming from US government propaganda and the MSM is uniformly based on speculation, innuendo, and anti-Chinese sentiments and should not be taken as gospel.
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
World Socialist Movement Needs Unity
"The party’s successes against security forces and its redistribution of land, coupled with its fierce resistance to big mining companies, has won support among deprived and alienated sections of society." Unfortunately the Maoists have an antagonistic contradiction with our comrades in the CPI-M when it should be the case that all parties fighting under the banners of Marxism-Leninism at most should have only non-antagonistic contradictions and be able to resolve them and to cooperate in the overthrow of capitalism. Just such antagonistic contradictions in the past between the USSR and PRC destroyed the unity of the world Communist and Workers Parties and allowed US Imperialism and it allies to become, for the time being, the dominant hegemonic world power. The two Communist Parties in Nepal, originally hostile, resolved their contradictions in a comradely fashion, merged, and now rule in that country. I hope this is a lesson learned by others: unity of the revolutionary forces and their allies, not sectarian bickering and hostility, is the road to victory victory.
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