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Latin America: The Pendulum Swings to the Right
James Petras
Introduction
Clearly the pendulum has swung to the right in the past few years. Numerous questions arise. What kind of right? How far right? How did they gain power? What is their appeal? How sustainable are the right wing regimes? Who are their international allies and adversaries? Having taken power, how have the rightist regimes performed and by what criteria is success or failure measured?
While the left has been in retreat, they still retain power in some states. Numerous questions arise. What is the nature of the left today? Why have some regimes continued while others have declined or been vanquished? Can the left recover its influence and under what conditions and with what programmatic appeal.
We will proceed by discussing the character and policies of the right and left and their direction. We will conclude by analyzing the dynamics of right and left policies, alignments and future perspectives.
GOP Tax Cut Heist Heads Toward Enactment
Stephen Lendman
Following deficit hawk Bob Corker’s about face, Americans for Tax Fairness issued the following statement:
“Hypocrisy rules in Washington. With Bob Corker’s reversal, the myth of the deficit hawk is now dead.”
“Next year when Republicans propose deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid under the guise of deficit reduction, we will all remember that they increased the deficit by $1.5 trillion in order to give tax cuts to millionaires and big corporations.”
“If this bill becomes law, it will be a travesty for working families, and a slap in the face to principles.”To avoid needing 60 Senate votes for passage, Republicans must claim their bill won’t exceed a $1.5 trillion deficit.
According to David Stockman, it’s “not even close,” adding “(i)f you adjust for all of these front-loaded cuts, one-time payfors and sunset cliffs, the total cost of the bill is $2.5 trillion or more…on an honest accounting basis…”
Putin’s Annual Tour de Force News Conference Underway
Stephen Lendman
Nothing in the West matches it, unimaginable for a US or other Western leader to spend hours answering scores of questions.
Putin does it annually in televised events, answering questions from journalists and others, his straightforward style always refreshing.
Questions include ones asked live from the audience, submitted online, through text messages and by phone - responding candidly like always, polar opposite standard practice by duplicitous Western politicians.
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said interest in this year’s Q & A session was “huge,” the event to “be special” in Putin’s last year of his current term, intending to run for reelection next March.
Putin and Trump Speak Overnight Friday
Stephen Lendman
It’s routine for world leaders to speak to one another, not when it involves Putin and Trump. Western media bash them both, instead of urging improved bilateral relations.
A brief White House statement said both leaders discussed “working together to resolve the very dangerous situation in North Korea.”
"President Trump thanked President Putin for acknowledging America’s strong economic performance in his annual press conference.”Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said they “spoke out in favor of building dialogue and contacts with North Korea and agreed to exchange information and initiatives in this regard, focusing on ways to resolve the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.”
Both leaders remain world’s apart on dealing with the DPRK. Putin urges responsible dialogue, along with suspending provocative US, South Korean, Japanese military exercises Pyongyang calls rehearsals for war.
Putin to Run for Reelection
Stephen Lendman
In a Tuesday article, I discussed Russia’s electoral process. It shames America’s money-controlled sham system, fantasy democracy. Russians have the real thing.
I noted a Kremlin source saying Putin would announce his candidacy and register as required as late as possible - likely this month, no later than the January 6 deadline.
An anti-imperial peace champion, I earlier called him the world’s preeminent leader - along with Sergey Lavrov, eminently deserving of Nobel Peace Prize recognition, notably awarded to warmakers, not peace advocates.
Both officials have gone all-out for peace and stability in Syria and Ukraine. Washington’s agenda is polar opposite under GOP or undemocratic Dem. leaders - supporting terrorism, Russia under Putin effectively combating it.
Rise and Decline of the Welfare State: Class Struggle and Imperial Wars as the Motor Force of US History
James Petras
Introduction
The American welfare state was created in 1935 and continued to develop through 1973. Since then, over a prolonged period, the capitalist class has been steadily dismantling the entire welfare state.
Between the mid 1970’s to the present (2017) labor laws, welfare rights and benefits and the construction of and subsidies for affordable housing have been gutted. ‘Workfare’ (under President ‘Bill’ Clinton) ended welfare for the poor and displaced workers. Meanwhile the shift to regressive taxation and the steadily declining real wages have increased corporate profits to an astronomical degree.
What started as incremental reversals during the 1990’s under Clinton has snowballed over the last two decades decimating welfare legislation and institutions.
The earlier welfare ‘reforms’ and the current anti-welfare legislation and austerity practices have been accompanied by a series of endless imperial wars, especially in the Middle East.
Trump Continues Obama’s Wars Against Democracy
Eric Zuesse
U.S. President Trump’s bold support for the apartheid dictatorship of Israel against that theocratic-racist nation’s non-Jews, fits into a larger picture of the supremacist nation that America itself has increasingly become. His immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, had repeatedly referred to the United States as being the only indispensable nation — that all others are “dispensable” — such as when President Obama addressed America’s future military leaders, at West Point, on 28 May 2014, by telling them:
The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come. … Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums. … It will be your generation’s task to respond to this new world.
Electoral Coup in Honduras
Stephen Lendman
It’s standard practice in banana republics and elsewhere.
The late Edward Herman explained how it works in his book titled “Demonstration Elections,” covering sham ones in the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Vietnam.
They occur regularly elsewhere in countries like Egypt and nations America occupies.
Herman explained “elections held under conditions of military occupation and extensive pre-election ‘pacification’ ” aren’t free at all.
Their aim is getting an occupying force’s puppet choice installed to rule with influence wielded more by bullets than ballots to create “stability.”
Electoral fraud occurs in Western nations, notably in past US elections. Most recently, GW Bush lost to Al Gore and John Kerry, yet served two terms as an illegitimate US president.
China, Saudi Arabia and the US: Shake Up and Shake Down
James Petras
Introduction
Major changes are roiling the states, societies and ruling classes of the biggest industrial economies, oil regimes and military complexes.
China is re-allocating its economic wealth toward building the most extensive modern infrastructure system in history, linking four continents.
Saudi Arabia is transferring a trillion dollars of pillage from princes to princes, from old business parasites to up-to-date versions, from austere desert mirages to fantasies of new mega-cities.
The United States is emptying the swamp of the Capital’s corruption and immediately replenishing it with the scandal of the day.
One Cabinet Secretary is fired; another Secretary is hired; one enemy is embraced; an ally denounced; the stock market flourishes and trade agreements are abandoned. One tax is sliced and pleases the powerful; another is spliced and chokes the consumers.
Turmoil, some would say; chaos, others would claim. And the stouthearted argue, that’s the way the world turns round.
But for all the world’s current ‘shaking’, there is substance and direction: There are models for the shaking-up and paradigms for the shaking down.
America’s Electoral Choices: Liberal Fascism, versus Conservative Fascism
Eric Zuesse
In U.S. elections between the two political Parties for federal offices — Congress, and the Presidency — the choice that’s offered to the voters is almost invariably between two fascists; so, the meaning of “fascism” is first crucial to understand, in order to understand today’s America, and that it’s fascist:
Benito Mussolini, who originated fascism and named his Party after that ideology, alternatively referred to it as “corporationism,” and meant by that term, as he explained it (quoted in George Seldes’s excellent 1935 book, Sawdust Caesar, about Mussolini and fascism) Corporationism is disciplined economy, and from that comes control, because one cannot imagine a discipline without a director. Corporationism is above socialism and above liberalism. A new synthesis is created. It is a symptomatic fact that the decadence of capitalism coincides with the decadence of socialism. All the Socialist parties of Europe are in fragments.
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