Imperialism, Multipolarity and Palestine

By Greg Godels

It is a continuing source of frustration that an important segment of the left holds the view that weakening the United States’ long-established grip on the top rungs of the hierarchical system of imperialism is– in itself– an attack on imperialism.

Many of our friends, including those who claim to aim at a socialist future, mistakenly see an erosion in the US position as the imperialist system’s hegemon as necessarily a step guaranteeing a just future, lasting peace, or a step towards socialism.

Does China have an internationalist foreign policy?

By Greg Godels

A number of observant commentators have raised questions about Peoples’ China’s Belt and Road Initiative and more broadly, the foreign policy of the PRC.

Reliable left observers like Ann Garrison, writing in Black Agenda Report, have voiced concerns about Chinese investments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, based on Siddharth Kara’s book, Cobalt Red, How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. Kara contends that Chinese are engaged in a brutal competition to acquire a raw material essential to battery manufacturing, participating in the highly exploitative practice of artisanal cobalt mining. 

Some clarity on Imperialism today

By Gred Godels

Imperialism is not the creation of any one or of any group of states. It is the product of a particular stage of ripeness in the world development of capital, an innately international condition, an indivisible whole, that is recognizable only in all its relations, and from which no nation can hold aloof at will… 

 - Rosa Luxemburg, The Crisis of German Social Democracy (1916)

Multipolarity and BRICS, once more...

By Greg Godels

The debates over “multipolarity” and the significance of an allegedly multipolar BRICS grouping continue. In an opinion piece in People’s Voice (Canada) (“Multipolarity, BRICS+ and the struggle for peace, cooperation, and socialism today”, June 16-30, 2024) writer Garrett Halas mounts an earnest defense of multipolarity and the BRICS+ “as a positive step towards socialism.” 

Fascism: What's in a word?

 By Greg Godels

The word “fascism” is a lightning rod. No one wants to be called a fascist.  Everyone is ready to call someone else a fascist. Like many highly charged words, the more common its usage becomes, the more inexact its meaning becomes.

Today, Trump is a fascist, Putin is a fascist, Modi is a fascist, Radical Islam is Islamofascism, the House and Senate members who passed the FISA renewal are fascists, Ukraine is a fascist country, political correctness is fascism, anti-Zionists are fascists, Zionists are fascists, and so on….

Is There a Future for the Left?

By Greg Godels

"…the Left narrative, no matter how accurate and intellectually powerful it may be, cannot expect to catch the imagination of the citizenry without including a vision for a real alternative future. Moreover, working-class institutions need to be reinstituted for the enhancement of class consciousness and authentic socialist parties need to be rediscovered for the Left narrative to become politically effective. Social movements are important, but their actions rarely have lasting effects. Only political parties can succeed in forging the Left narrative into the policy agenda and turn it into a programmatic plan for social change.