During the hyper-masculine clown car that was the Republican National Convention, Trump and his VP nominee, J.D. Vance, spewed absurd anti-migrant accusations and supposed pro-worker policies. Journalist and author Jonathan M. Katz breaks down the reactionary rhetoric of MAGA Republicans and argues that Vance’s populism is anything but worker-friendly, given his well-established ties to Silicon Valley.
In part 2, French-Palestinian sociologist Dr. Sari Hanafi discusses right-wing movements in France and Italy and the misuse of the descriptor “hard left” or “extreme left” to misrepresent the platform of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed.
Against all expectations, the left coalition, aptly calling itself the “New Popular Front,” was able to win the most seats – 182 out of 577 seats – in the final round of the French parliamentary elections. French-Palestinian sociologist Dr. Sari Hanafi explains how the left quickly formed a political alliance to keep Marine Le Pen’s far-right party, the National Rally, from gaining enough seats to govern in the French parliament. He delves into the weaponization of antisemitism to smear Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of France Unbowed, which is the largest leftist party within the New Popular Front.
A recent Reuters investigation uncovered a scandalous Pentagon operation that sought to discredit the Chinese Sinovac vaccine and sow distrust among the population in the Philippines towards China. Col. Larry Wilkerson discusses previous unlawful Strategic Information Operations (SIOs) launched by the Pentagon and the particular depravity of this operation initiated in Spring 2020 under President Trump’s administration, at a time when countries such as the Philippines did not possess their own vaccine manufacturing capacity and were accepting a free supply of vaccines from China.
As the war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine continues to exact a catastrophic death toll for civilians and military forces alike, the prospect of a lasting peace remains elusive. Latvian politician Igor Pimenov denounces President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, calling it a colonial war that also adversely affects the Russian population. Pimenov lays out his proposal for a multilateral peace agreement between Ukraine, Russia, and its European neighbors.
In recent EU parliamentary elections, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party won 31.4% of the vote, while the coalition representing President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party garnered an embarrassing 14%. Renaud Lambert, journalist at Le Monde Diplomatique, contextualizes the rise of the far-right, and how President Macron’s decision to call snap legislative elections on June 30 and July 7 has prompted the left to form the New Popular Front, an unlikely coalition of four left-wing parties. Will this left alliance garner enough support to torpedo a far-right victory in the French parliament?
As Israel continues its campaign of destruction in Gaza, the situation in the West Bank has deteriorated, with the Israeli Defense Forces as well as settlers killing over 500 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7. Holocaust and genocide studies scholar Dr. Omer Bartov unpacks Israel’s genocidal strategy in the Gaza Strip, and describes the surge of settler violence towards Palestinians. Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has not only armed the settlers but has been incorporating them into Israeli forces operating in the West Bank.
In part 2, political scientist Dr. Saeed Rahnema discusses his experience in the workers’ council movement leading up to and during the Iranian Revolution of 1979-1980 and addresses the Islamic Republic’s opposition to unions. He also contends that modern-day working classes in the West are ideologically and culturally segmented and that the left has failed to mobilize at numerous historical junctures.
The workers’ council movement took shape in several forms across Europe, Russia, Tito’s Yugoslavia, Algeria, and Iran. Political scientist Dr. Saeed Rahnema discusses the failure of workers’ councils in these different historical contexts and traces out the tensions between workers’ control and workers’ participation under capitalism. Is real workers’ control feasible under capitalism, and do struggles for increased workers’ participation and higher wages necessarily lead to workers’ control?
The Biden administration has denounced ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan for seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismael Haniyeh, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri. Middle East analyst Assal Rad underscores the U.S. government’s complicity in Israeli war crimes in Gaza by arming Israel despite numerous ICJ rulings calling for Netanyahu’s government to adhere to its commitments under the Genocide Convention, and most recently, to immediately halt its operation in Rafah. She also discusses the potential implications of the recent deaths of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
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