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Bolivian ex-President Anez jailed for 10 years for mounting coup

Ex-President Jeanine Anez found guilty of orchestrating a coup that brought her to power in 2019.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/11/bolivian-ex-president-anez-jailed-for-10-years-for-mounting-coup

The latest Zionist terrorist strike on Syria has rendered Damascus International Airport inoperable, which could last weeks or even months. No one, least of all those who loudly proclaim their concern for the wellbeing of the Syrian people, in the West gives a damn.

Freed prisoners in Afghanistan bombed by U.S. military

Bagram Prison is located at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan's Parwan Province, and was operated by the U.S. military for more than a decade. On August 15, 2021, the Afghan Taliban took over Bagram Prison and released all its prisoners. However, China Media Group reporters visited the prison recently and revealed that on that very day in 2021, the released prisoners and many local people who had come to greet their relatives and friends were hit by U.S. airstrikes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFcfxuzXUc8

The author is too harsh towards what they call the heterodox school and not harsh enough to Mandel and Bettelheim (though they are the least relevant now), but I think this is a decent introduction to the topic:

An Overview of Theories of Unequal Exchange

https://anti-imperialist.net/2022/06/14/an-overview-of-theories-of-unequal-exchange/

I'd add that Michael Roberts and Guglielmo Carchedi, who the author differentiates from what they call the heterodox school, unambiguously agree with the conceptualization of unequal exchange as applying to trade and entailing a vast value transfer from the periphery to the core. That Roberts has critiqued aspects of Cope and Smith's work doesn't make mean they agree with Barry Finger's critique of Smith's Imperialism that was written before it was fully published and makes arguments that are completely incoherent to anyone who read it, like this idea that Smith is just taking mainstream economic data at face value (a large portion of the book is about how this data often obfuscates the reality of value transfer). This article from Roberts and Carchedi demonstrates these points very clearly:

https://brill.com/view/journals/hima/29/4/article-p23_2.xml?language=en

Zulanka in NK wrote:

I'd add that Michael Roberts and Guglielmo Carchedi, who the author differentiates from what they call the heterodox school, unambiguously agree with the conceptualization of unequal exchange as applying to trade and entailing a vast value transfer from the periphery to the core. That Roberts has critiqued aspects of Cope and Smith's work doesn't make mean they agree with Barry Finger's critique of Smith's Imperialism....

I follow Roberts' Wordpress blog quite often (though I have only skimmed some of his work with Carchedi), and have read some of his posts that approach critiquing concepts of super-exploitation, etc. One of his posts that has stuck with me is that he rejected the idea of superexploitation and used the Nordic social-democracies as examples of where workers in the core had "won" benefits and explicitly rejected the idea that they profited off of exploitation in the periphery; where do you think that fits in with their (Roberts + Carchedi) understanding of unequal exchange? Recognizing the existence of unequal exchange but then rejecting the idea that it has had positive aspects on the core's working-class seems (to me, at leas) to reduce their understand of unequal exchange to the bourgeoisie in the core profiting with little else affecting the core. Am I missing something?

US targets Chinese, UAE companies in new Iran sanctions

US official says absent return to nuclear deal, Washington will use sanctions to limit Iranian petrochemical exports.

Prices skyrocketing and recession inbound, the imperial hand still reaches out to assert itself as it withers. Iran asks two things, an end to sanctions and the lifting of IRGC as a designated terrorist organization. The United States replies with more sanctions targeting oil and petrol products.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/16/us-targets-chinese-uae-companies-in-fresh-iran-sanctions

Libertasnia wrote:

I follow Roberts' Wordpress blog quite often (though I have only skimmed some of his work with Carchedi), and have read some of his posts that approach critiquing concepts of super-exploitation, etc. One of his posts that has stuck with me is that he rejected the idea of superexploitation and used the Nordic social-democracies as examples of where workers in the core had "won" benefits and explicitly rejected the idea that they profited off of exploitation in the periphery; where do you think that fits in with their (Roberts + Carchedi) understanding of unequal exchange? Recognizing the existence of unequal exchange but then rejecting the idea that it has had positive aspects on the core's working-class seems (to me, at leas) to reduce their understand of unequal exchange to the bourgeoisie in the core profiting with little else affecting the core. Am I missing something?

Could you link the post talking about Nordic social democracies? Quickly rereading Roberts on superexploitation linked in the anti-imperialist.net post (https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/imperialism-and-super-exploitation/), his issue with Smith's work seems to be mainly around emphasis. Roberts acknowledges superexploitation in the periphery and even the core (which does happen still, particularly to oppressed nations in settler-colonial regimes) but doesn't think this is a determining factor of modern imperialism, appealing both to orthodoxy with Marx and the notion that superexploitation isn't sustainable. Roberts seems to avoid discussing benefits workers in the core get from imperialism but things he links to the functioning of modern imperialism like seigniorage have benefits to all Americans - the profits made from this arrangement aren't just earmarked for military spending or directly put into the accounts of capitalists here. Being able to run huge deficits obviously impacts how the US funds social programs as well as consumptive behaviors here - the latter is a point Cope makes near the end of part I of Divided World, Divided Class.

Zulanka in NK wrote:

Could you link the post talking about Nordic social democracies? Quickly rereading Roberts on superexploitation linked in the anti-imperialist.net post (https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/imperialism-and-super-exploitation/), his issue with Smith's work seems to be mainly around emphasis. Roberts acknowledges superexploitation in the periphery and even the core (which does happen still, particularly to oppressed nations in settler-colonial regimes) but doesn't think this is a determining factor of modern imperialism, appealing both to orthodoxy with Marx and the notion that superexploitation isn't sustainable. Roberts seems to avoid discussing benefits workers in the core get from imperialism but things he links to the functioning of modern imperialism like seigniorage have benefits to all Americans - the profits made from this arrangement aren't just earmarked for military spending or directly put into the accounts of capitalists here. Being able to run huge deficits obviously impacts how the US funds social programs as well as consumptive behaviors here - the latter is a point Cope makes near the end of part I of Divided World, Divided Class.

This is the article (https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2019/11/14/hm2-the-economics-of-modern-imperialism/). Rereading it, I misremembered the nature of it. He does not reject superexploitation as an extant concept, but rejects it as a "new form" of capital. The bit on Nordic social democracy comes in the last paragraph, and I admit it is a rather small and insignificant addendum that I misremembered as well:

"To suggest, as some do, that the welfare state, pensions and national health services in the North were only possible because of the imperialist exploitation of the South is economic nonsense. After all, the great period of imperialist exploitation was in the neo-liberal period of globalization since the 1980s, when the welfare and wage gains of workers in the North were taken back. Globalisation of the late 20th century was a response to falling rates of profit in the North (as it was in the late 19th century). It is also a political insult against the class struggles made by Northern workers to achieve those gains in the first place. Both the workers of the South and the North are exploited by capital. It is capital that is the enemy of both."

It's not a major part of the article, but it seems here that he is rejecting the idea that workers in the Global North benefit at all from super-exploitation (something I that I would think is incorrect as far back as Marx and Engels' observations on the "bourgeois proletariat" of Britain benefiting from imperial possessions).

I often find myself annoyed by people reducing anti-imperialism to America. US this, US that. When they do so, they are really just making Nordic social fascism seem acceptable.

I strongly take issue with portraying the EU, Japan, or South Korea as victims of the US, or reducing proletarian internationalism to great power politics. I don't want China to simply replace America as the guarantor of the EU's predatory imperialism; it would vindicate its harshest critics if it did so.

hello

QUESTION:
We all know that the media tends to outright lie about the so-called 'Dictatorships' of the east, Stalin, Hoxha, Gaddafi etc. And while of course many of them were in fact democratic to a significant degree, my question is, why is so much of their apparatus centered around them. I know that there needs to be a centralized state in order to protect itself, but my problem is with the idolization of the heads of state.

For example, all of the portraits and propaganda posters depicting Stalin, Hoxha, Mao, like I get it, they are heads of state and are the representatives of the working-class. But my problem is that shouldn't it be more idolizing the working-class rather as a whole than the representative of the working-class or at least the party in general?

Northfell wrote:

QUESTION:
We all know that the media tends to outright lie about the so-called 'Dictatorships' of the east, Stalin, Hoxha, Gaddafi etc. And while of course many of them were in fact democratic to a significant degree, my question is, why is so much of their apparatus centered around them. I know that there needs to be a centralized state in order to protect itself, but my problem is with the idolization of the heads of state.

For example, all of the portraits and propaganda posters depicting Stalin, Hoxha, Mao, like I get it, they are heads of state and are the representatives of the working-class. But my problem is that shouldn't it be more idolizing the working-class rather as a whole than the representative of the working-class or at least the party in general?

For Stalin, the portrayal of him and his so-called "cult of personality" was entirely against his will. Even anti-Stalinist historians like Roy Medvedev (much of whom's work is outright fictitious) acknowledge this. For example, in his "Letter to Comrade Shatunovsky, Stalin says this:

"You speak of your 'devotion' to me. Perhaps it was just a chance phrase. Perhaps. . . . But if the phrase was not accidental I would advise you to discard the "principle" of devotion to persons. It is not the Bolshevik way. Be devoted to the working class, its Party, its state. That is a fine and useful thing. But do not confuse it with devotion to persons, this vain and useless bauble of weak-minded intellectuals."

There are other examples at party meetings where Stalin ridiculed the accolades given to him, constantly reiterating that he was simply a follower of Lenin. Aside from the WWII period, in which Stalin's image was used as a tool for war time propaganda against the Nazi menace, Stalin virulently fought against this trend. In response to a propaganda book aimed at children discussing his childhood, Stalin said this:

"The important thing resides in the fact that the book has a tendency to engrave on the minds of Soviet children (and people in general) the personality cult of leaders, of infallible heroes. This is dangerous and detrimental. The theory of "heroes" and the "crowd" is not a Bolshevik, but a SR theory. The heroes make the people, transform them from a crowd into people, thus say the SRs. The people make the heroes, thus reply the Bolsheviks to the SRs. The book carries water to the windmill of the SRs. No matter which book it is that brings the water to the windmill of the SRs, this book is going to drown in our common, Bolshevik cause. I suggest we burn this book."

For Mao, the issue is more nuanced. He personally detested the cult of personality, but saw it as a necessity to carry out the Cultural Revolution. By 1971, after the more contentious period of the GPCR had run its course, Mao reiterated that view in his 1971 interview with Edgar Snow. From his point of view, he seemed to fear that without some sort of image, it was possible for the movement to fall to nihilism and destroy itself due to the history of emperor worship in China (whether his view is correct or not, of course, is open to debate).

I am not well-versed in the history of Albania or Hoxha's rule, though I would not doubt if it was similar to both Stalin and Mao, especially considering that an Albanian version of Hua Guofeng's "Two Whatevers" was essentially emulated in relation to Hoxha by Ramiz Alia after Hoxha's death.

Ah, thank you Libertasnia for clearing that up for me. Oh, um, sorry to bother you again, but do you mind giving us your position on whether or not these leaders should have had 'term limits' on them, as that's something I don't hear a lot about in Marxist circles.

Northfell wrote:

Ah, thank you Libertasnia for clearing that up for me. Oh, um, sorry to bother you again, but do you mind giving us your position on whether or not these leaders should have had 'term limits' on them, as that's something I don't hear a lot about in Marxist circles.

I think these leaders, more or less, have had practical term limits if not totally enshrined into law. After Stalin, Khrushchev was essentially given a term limit when he was voted out by the Presidium. A similar thing happened to Mao after he was relegated to symbolic duties after the Great Leap Forward, although he was able to regain power through the Cultural Revolution. Aside from the USSR, Albania, China, the DPRK, and perhaps Romania, most socialist states cycled through leaders fairly quickly. Heads of state and government were replaced often in the GDR, Communist Czechoslovakia, the PRL, etc. The Polish People's Republic, for example, went through about the same amount of PZPR First Secretaries as the US presidency did in the same period. The GDR cycled through more presidents that West Germany did in the period of their existence.

Whether there should be official term limits, is perhaps a good question. There is some evidence that, with his attempts to resign and their rejections by the Central Committee, Stalin was perhaps forced to remain in his position as leader of the USSR longer than he truly wanted or felt capable. But I think we also have to consider the political turmoil many of these socialist states went through during these longer serving leaders. For Stalin and the USSR, WWII and the Nazi invasion; for the Chinese, the Civil War, Korean War, Vietnam, and the continued occupation of South Korea, etc., etc.

I would certainly be comfortable with and support term limits in a modern socialist state, yes. But I'm not sure my opinion as a person living in the imperial core really counts for much.

Ecuador's military vows to stop protests from damaging "democracy"

QUITO, June 21 (Reuters) - Ecuador's armed forces on Tuesday said they would not allow ongoing protests against President Guillermo Lasso's economic policies to damage the country's democracy, as road blockades continued ahead of more planned demonstrations.

Rather than address the root causes of indigenous and proletarian dissatisfaction with the neoliberal policies of the Lasso regime, as I noted earlier, President Lasso declared a "state of exception." Now, after "security forces" have invaded university campuses early this morning to suppress protests, the Ecuadorian military has revealed its allegiance to international capital. Rather than recognizing the cause of the protests in neoliberalism and capitalist hegemony, Defense Minister Luis Lara has blamed "violence" on drug trafficking and organized crime. This has been a constant refrain in countries affected by the imperialist "War on Drugs," particularly in Latin America.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/ecuadors-military-vows-stop-protests-damaging-democracy-2022-06-21/

Colombia will soon have its first leftist president, Gustavo Petro. I'm not expecting much given what has happened with Pedro Castillo in Peru (and the neoliberal regime in Colombia is even more entrenched). But I see people rushing prematurely to declare that this second pink tide is overblown. I for one have often found myself pleasantly surprised by AMLO in Mexico and Alberto Fernandez in Argentina.

Ecuador police officers missing after protest attack
QUITO - Ecuador on Wednesday refused protesters' demands to lift a state of emergency and said 18 police officers were missing following an attack by Indigenous groups on a police station.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/2332333/ecuador-police-officers-missing-after-protest-attack

Thousands march in Quito after night of Ecuador protest violence
Thousands of Indigenous protesters held a peaceful march through Ecuador's capital, Quito, on Wednesday to demand that President Guillermo Lasso address price rises that have ignited 10 days of demonstrations across the country.

https://www.france24.com/en/video/20220623-thousands-march-in-quito-after-night-of-ecuador-protest-violence

Death toll rises to three amid indigenous protests in Ecuador
(AFP) - Three people died and almost a hundred were injured in eleven days of intense indigenous protests in Ecuador against the rise in fuel prices, according to a balance this Thursday from human rights organizations.

https://www.france24.com/es/minuto-a-minuto/20220623-sube-a-tres-el-balance-de-muertos-en-medio-las-protestas-ind%C3%ADgenas-en-ecuador

Fierce indigenous and proletarian resistance continues against the neoliberal regime and policies of the Lasso government in Ecuador. As protestors are killed and death tolls are starting to be counted, the neoliberal regime is quick to continue demonizing protestors as violent, condemning the "disappearance" of policemen whilst ignoring the repressive "state of exception" and policies these individuals are carrying out which has led to the violence. The extractivism and neoliberal policies of the Lasso government, colluding with imperialism, is a constant violence against the people of Ecuador. But it is the disappearance of a few repressive agents which the imperialist press seizes as evidence of their false charges and slander against the masses.

Millions of women in America have lost access to fundamental health care today. It has been decreed that the states can force women to bear children against their will. Even if you were told to expect and accept this outcome, nothing prepares you for the sting when it dropped. Can we tolerate the fact that ALL women and girls now face being treated and legally classified as nothing more than breeders for men and a male supremacist society? Can we tolerate the terrible future for all people in this society that this ruling opens the door to? For make no mistake, the logic that overturned abortion can be used to “justify” going after the rights of LGBTQ people, including marriage equality, as well as inter-racial marriage and even the right to use birth control.

The oppression of women is built into the system of capitalism-imperialism. Into the streets! Forced motherhood is female enslavement.

Be politically incorrect: https://i.redd.it/jym18yy5k9791.jpg

Comrades, what are your views on the role of the lumpenproletariat?

Ecuador's government has lifted a state of emergency amid an Indigenous-led strike
QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso on Saturday lifted a state of emergency he'd imposed in six provinces amid an Indigenous-led strike, a surprise move that came as lawmakers in the National Assembly heard an opposition petition to remove him from office.

After weeks of protest and a mere 8 days of "state of exception," the neoliberal Lasso government of Ecuador has been forced to bow to the pressure of the masses amid the indigenous-led general strike. While the move appears to have been taken after left-wing parliamentarians from the Correaista UNES (Union for Hope) moved a petition to have Lasso removed from office, we must take note that these events have only been set in motion by mass organizing and action taken outside of the trappings of bourgeois democracy by the proletarian masses.