President Chavez: A 21st Century Renaissance Man
James Petras
Introduction
President Hugo Chavez was unique in multiple areas of political, social and economic life. He made significant contributions to the advancement of humanity. The depth, scope and popularity of his accomplishments mark President Chavez as the ‘Renaissance President of the 21st Century’.
Many writers have noted one or another of his historic contributions highlighting his anti-poverty legislation, his success in winning popular elections with resounding majorities and his promotion of universal free public education and health coverage for all Venezuelans.
PermalinkPASOK: Pan Hellenic Socialist Kleptocrats
James Petras
“George Papandreou is not bought, he is rented. He sells public enterprises to the multinationals. He reduces wages, pensions and employment at the behest of the IMF. He turns over the public treasury to the European banks. He supports NATO’s war against Libya. He directs the Greek Coast Guard to enforce Netanyahu’s blockade of Gaza.” - According to a demonstrator in Syndigma Square, Athens, July 3, 2011
Introduction
A self-proclaimed “Socialist” Government in Greece is imposing by ballots and clubs the most far reaching reversals of wages, pensions, jobs, educational, health and tax programs in the history of Western Europe.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn: The Colonial Predator Legacy
James Petras
The attempted rape and sexual abuse of an African cleaning woman by the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) embodies, in microcosm, the entire historical and contemporary legacy of colonial neo-colonial relations. Efforts to portray this criminal act as an individual obsession or a personal failing or a “Latin idiosyncrasy” fail to take account of the ‘deep history’ in which these psychological pathologies are embedded.
The first clue is evident on the very surface – skin deep – of the antagonists: On the one-hand, a powerful white European politician representing the collective will of an organization representing the global capitalist class, one with the financial resources to severely punish poor and indebted countries that disobey its prejudicial economic fiats; on the other, a single mother, a black working woman from a former French colony in West Africa (Guinea), which was ‘stripped clean’ by the departing French colonial officials for daring to assert its independence and subsequently forced to submit to endless ‘neo-colonial’ economic impositions ensuring its stagnation and subordination.
The Economic and Social Losses On The Way
By Emily Spence
At present, numerous environmental researchers are warning of future resource shortages. The list of them is large and includes water, oil, a variety of minerals and metals, as well as other materials.
Yet, most people carry on as if they do not hear the message at all. They refuse to cut back in their dreams of continuing economic growth.
In relation, part of the problem with them is perhaps an inability to make connections. For the most part, they seem to have little or no idea about the collective consequences of their individual behaviors.
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