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Now, the president needs to clarify if the political kidnapping of protesters is part as well of the traditions, habits, customs and the laws he mentioned, and provide evidence of his claims. Otherwise, the president will ultimately answer for such violence, just as Mubarak did in Egypt.

It adopted an electoral path as the balance of power swung to moderate factions, and radicals associated with unconstitutional tactics were pushed to the margins.

US-based lobbies antagonistic toward the advance of Chávez’s socialism (and sympathetic to marginalised radicals) no longer saw these elements of ‘civil society’ as an effective oppositional vehicle and jettisoned them, deciding that a new tool for regime displacement had to be nurtured.  Students in private sector universities became the new vanguard of ‘democracy promotion’.

In 2008, the US-based Cato Institute awarded the US$500,000 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty to student leader Yon Goicoechea for his role in mobilising protests against the suspension of private broadcaster RCTV’s licence. At the same time, a sizeable amount of the US$45 million in funding provided annually by US institutions to Venezuelan opposition groups was channelled to ‘youth outreach’ programmes.

The current protests are important on two counts. First, they mark a coming together of the student movement and radical elements of the MUD. López and Machado have been organising with the student leadership,[5] in particular in relation to the February 12th demonstrations on Venezuela’s Day of the Youth, which commemorates the role of young people in the 1814 independence battle of la Victoria.

Despite claims that social media ‘democratises’ the media, it is clear that in Venezuela it has had the opposite effect, exacerbating  the trend towards disinformation and misrepresentation, with overseas media groups and bloggers reproducing – without verification – opposition claims and images of student injuries allegedly caused by police brutality and attacks by government supporters. In its reporting, the Guardian newspaper[8] cited tweets by opposition activists claiming pro-government gangs had been let loose on protestors.

The images disseminated, for example, to a Green Movement activist in Iran and then circulated to her thousands of followers with the tag line ‘pray for Venezuela’s students’, and to other democracy movements around the world show Egyptian and not Venezuelan police beating demonstrators. This same image was carried by the Spanish newspaper ABC.[9] Photographs and video clips of Chilean, Argentinian and Bulgarian police suppressing demonstrators and carrying out arrests (in their home countries) have been circulated and published as of they were assaults in Venezuela,[10] and one widely reproduced image shows Venezuela’s Policia Metropolitana corralling student protestors. The Policia Metropolitana was disbanded in 2011. Twitter has additionally been used to harangue commentators, including this author, who checked the accounts of her abusive critics to find most had only been tweeting for a day and in that space of time had accumulated around 40,000 followers.[11]

What’s more, the neo-fascist factions that played a leading role in the uprising are now calling for Ukraine to become a nuclear power again, having given up the Soviet nuclear weaponry on its territory in 1994. Indeed, hard-right leader Oleh Tyahnybok made nuclear re-armament one of the planks of his presidential race a few years ago. Now the party is sharing power in the Western-brokered government; will we soon see Ukraine added to the ranks of nuclear nations? With a bristling nuclearized frontier with Russia — like the hair-trigger holocaust flashpoint between India and Pakistan?

None of this justifies the heavy-handed muscle-flexing that Putin has been engaging in. But Russia, in post-Soviet times, with no trans-national ideology, has become a highly nationalist state.  Putin is an authoritarian leader who now bases his threadbare claims to “legitimacy” — and the dominance of his brutal clique — on his championing of Russian nationalism and “traditional values”.

the oligarchs and ideologues, the militarists and ministers involved in this episode of Great Gamesmanship don’t want power in any broader, deeper sense. What they want is dominance, to lord it over others — physically, financially, psychologically. Among those at the top in this situation, on every side, there is not the slightest regard for the common good of their fellow human beings — not even for those with whom they share some association by the accident of history or geography: language, nationality, ethnicity. The lust for loot and dominance outweighs all the rest, regardless of the heavy piety oozing from the rhetoric on all sides.

Sachs subsequently (and dishonestly) denied he played any such role — understandable given the calamitous results, notably in Russia — but the prescription called for off-the-shelf neoliberalism, applied without reference to any local realities, and Ukrainians are about to get their dosage.

Whatever happens, it seems certain that oligarchs — Western, Ukrainian, European or Russian, will continue to exercise dominance — although some who backed the losing side too prominently may be cast down. Then again, most oligarchs, in every nation, are usually expert at playing both sides, or changing sides as necessary.

Yet the fact remains that Omidyar’s wider operations — including those in Ukraine — sit uneasily with the image of an adversarial paragon and danger to the system. Putting aside the troubling circumstance of adversarial activism being dependent on the personal whims of a billionaire, there is the fact that Omidyar’s philanthropic vision lies largely in the monetizing of poverty relief efforts — of turning them from charitable or government-based programs into money-making enterprises which reward investors with high returns while often leaving the recipients worse off than before.

In this, Omidyar has partnered with Hernando de Soto, a  right-wing “shock doctrinaire” and one-time advisor to former Peruvian dictator, Alberto Fujimori; de Soto is also an ally of the Koch Brothers. Omidyar has also poured millions of dollars into efforts to privatize, and profitize, public education in the United States and elsewhere, forcing children in some of the poorest parts of the world to pay for basic education — or go without.

For instance, if one of First Look’s websites publishes some blistering expose on the nasty machinations of some other oligarch or corporate figure, I don’t think it will be unreasonable for people to look and see if the target happens to be a rival of Omidyar’s in some way, or if his or her removal or humbling would benefit Omidyar’s own business or political interests.

First Look — owned solely by a neo-liberal billionaire, who, as Jeremy Scahill has pointed out, takes a very active interest in the daily workings of his news organization — should be subject to the same standards of scrutiny as any other news outlet owned by the rich and powerful. But this doesn’t seem to be happening; quite the opposite, in fact.

Omidyar’s entire neo-liberal ideology is based on the ability of wealthy individuals to operate free from government control as they circle the world in search of profit. (And also, if it happens, some social benefits by the way; but if one’s profit-making initiatives turn out to drive hundreds of people to suicide, well, c’est la vie, eh?)

But I don’t think Omidyar’s enterprise has been set up to challenge the status quo or pose the “threat” to the system that its hero-worshippers are looking for. Indeed, even Greenwald calls only for “reforms” of the system, for “real oversight” of the National Security State by legislators — the same legislators bought, sold, cowed and dominated by Big Money. I honestly don’t think that the powers-that-be feel threatened by an enterprise set up by one of their number that confines itself to calls for “reform” from “within” — especially when its sole owner continues to cooperate with the Koch Brothers, hard-right ideologues like Hernando de Soto and indeed with the National Security State itself in subversive adventures overseas.

 Some fake photos of the recent protests in Venezuela were recently circulated and students’ movements and allied groups across the world were quick to react viscerally (and authentically, in that sense) in expressing solidarity with the right wing protestors there…even though the pictures weren’t real and the ideology behind each movement isn’t exactly compatible. Still, this sounds good on the surface, we can all support each other’s rights to protest without ulterior motives of political affiliation.

The ugly back story to the student protests in Venezuela is highlighted by a host of Wikileaks cables that reveal a staggering amount of U.S. involvement in training the opposition leader, infiltrating the student movement, and even overtly funneling U.S. taxpayer dollars into bringing down the anti-imperialist Venezuelan government.

Venezuela has long been a ground zero for the anti-imperialist struggle, but this may be changing. It may have in fact already changed. Imperialist forces have launched an almost unprecedented smear campaign on the collective geo-political movement of the global south. And by tentative accounts, it looks like they are winning.

We probably shouldn’t be surprised that some climate scientists are a little spooked by the radical implications of even their own research. Most of them were just quietly doing their work measuring ice cores, running global climate models and studying ocean acidification, only to discover, as the Australian climate expert and author Clive Hamilton puts it, that they “were unwittingly destabilising the political and social order”.

some of the governments that decided to chuck their climate commitments in favour of digging up more carbon have had to find ever more thuggish ways to silence and intimidate their nations’ scientists. In Britain, this strategy is becoming more overt, with Ian Boyd, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, writing recently that scientists should avoid “suggesting that policies are either right or wrong” and should express their views “by working with embedded advisers (such as myself), and by being the voice of reason, rather than dissent, in the public arena”.

Opposition leader Leopoldo López – competing with Capriles for leadership –has portrayed the current demonstrations as something that could force Maduro from office. It was obvious that there was, and remains, no peaceful way that this could happen. As University of Georgia professor David Smilde has argued, the government has everything to lose from violence in the demonstrations, and the opposition has something to gain.

It cannot be denied thatsucceeded in bringing together people that did not see themselves represented by established political organisations, which effectively was one part of the ‘critical mass’ mobilised against Compaoré. Furthermore, it also mobilised people around social issues (power cuts, state of hospitals, etc.). In that sense, it is an important movement. However, Balai citoyen had a tendency to consider fighting for Blaise Compaoré’s departure to be sufficient in itself; it considered organisations insisting on the exigency and necessity to create an alternative political and social project as not being separate steps but inseparable, and to be in fact adding fuel to Compaoré’s cause.

The fact that during the popular uprising no politician was called upon by the protesters is still a good indication of the credibility of the formal political opposition. In an opposition consisting of dozens of parties there is none that offers an alternative.

With regards to the Sankarist parties, understandably fighting for justice to be served for the assassination of Tomas Sankara, they cannot be considered to be carrying an alternative political project (economic, social, etc.). Judging by the mass of people identifying with Sankara and gauging from these parties’ low popularity, one has to recognise that they are not considered as his true heirs in terms of a political alternative, including the rejection of all external domination.

due diligence and sanctions for non-compliant companies could provide the necessary incentive structures for companies and the Congolese state to strengthen their regulatory agencies, clear the soldiers out of the mines and render the trade more accountable and transparent. That could then finally prompt companies to invest in industrial tin mining in the Kivus – the Bisie polygon in particular – which would in turn cut out a lot of the crooked middlemen and militias that currently benefit from the trade and who parasitize the Congolese state.

The important fact is not the size of the Congolese market to the global market. The important fact is the size of the companies affected by the legislation to the producers (exporters/processors).

On the second point, I think you missed a key component. There is a background constraint to the equations you did, which is what can be done by the US. ENOUGH worked on a policy that resonated with US constituencies AND was directly material to the US Congress AND could be implemented through US legislation. So they can’t just advocate for any policy at all, but policies that are relevant in the US. Importantly, you ignore that ENOUGH does campaign on all sorts of other issues, including support for peacekeepers. This is not absent from their campaign materials. It was absent from the legislation, because that clearly would not be material to a financial reform bill. This is also a matter of facts. We can see ENOUGH’s support for peacekeepers, and we will see that in the future. On point three, it is not a question of facts. It is clearly stated as a counterfactual. “What if Congress doesn’t pay attention to other important issues?” I’m not sure what facts one can appeal to. I also find it highly unlikely that this legislation will distract Congressional attention from other DRC issues in the future. I suspect it is much more likely that it will RAISE the profile of the DRC in foreign affairs issues for Congress as a result of extensive lobbying. The “advocacy space” is not fixed. In fact, it might be expanded by the result of lobbying. But regardless, there is no “fact” to appeal to resolve this argument. Finally, Jason is right that the legislation creates an incentive structure for responsible supply chains, which in the long run will likely be a good thing.

An unintended consequence of this legislation will be the increased cost of doing business and possible end of doing business with 9 other African countries who may transship some Congolese material but also produce their own. If economies in the 9 other African countries listed in this law are injured as a consequence and livelihoods reduced then instability and poverty are the results of this well intentioned and poorly crafted legislation. Instability and poverty that could well lead to increased civil conflict in those countries.

I don't know of any simple general answer to your question of how this will all turn out.  The problems are often not simple.  A great deal is at stake, not just for the people of the countries.  Resource extraction impacts a global environment that is increasingly at severe risk.

there is sometimes dramatic conflict between the developmentalists, like left president Correa, and the indigenous communities affected by mining and dams.  Also, Evo Morales, despite being hugely popular, recently had to deal with a very big general strike in Potosí.  What do you make of these dynamics?  What are the hopes and prospects in Latin America regarding raising living standards, the paths of industrialization, environmental considerations, the role of social movements, and avoiding state coercion?

You said, "It's quite striking that we and other western countries can't reach, can't even approach, can't even dream about the level of democracy they had in Haiti.  That's pretty shocking.  Here's one of the poorest countries in the world.  The population that organized to win that election is among the most repressed and impoverished in the world; they managed to organize enough to enter the electoral arena without any resources and elect their own candidate."  Praising Bolivia at the same time, you asked, "Is it believable that we can't do the same? . . . We can take lessons from them.  Anything they've done we can do a thousand times more easily."

a list of key structural features

culture of patronage

poverty, unemployment and low skill levels

deep culture of blind quasi-fanatical allegiance to the ANC

The potential of popular struggle lay in sheer numbers, guided by a new imagination and new methods of struggle.

Biko forged a vision with the potential to cut through these boundaries. Around that same time, another event occurred. It too signaled a fresh opening. This was the Palestinian Intifada. What is known as the First Intifada had a Soweto-like potential. Like the children of Soweto, Palestinian children too dared to face bullets with no more than stones.

Even though the Egyptian Revolution has come more than three decades after Soweto, it evokes the memory of Soweto in a powerful way. This is for at least two reasons.

First, like Soweto in 1976, Tahrir Square in 2011 too shed a generation’s romance with violence.

The second resemblance between Soweto and Tahrir Square was on the question of unity. Just as the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa had uncritically reproduced the division between races and tribes institutionalised in state practices, so too had the division between religions become a part of the convention of mainstream politics in Egypt. Tahrir Square innovated a new politics. It shed the language of religion in politics, but it did so without embracing a militant secularism that would totally outlaw religion in the public sphere. It thus called for a broader tolerance of cultural identities

But in order to succeed, the teachers will need the support of the country’s entire working class. The high levels of participation in the general strike called by the CGT (General Workers’ Federation) on April 6, as a result of massive pressure from its base, showed not only the population’s dissatisfaction with the course of the economy, but also its willingness to fight the government’s austerity plans.

We highlight how fields, hegemony and institutions approaches to elites in transnational policy networks focus on different aspects of elite replication and policy influence; including where elite’s influence on policy comes from; how it can be identified; and its overall out c om e s.

Second, elites affect transnational policy networks in institutionally complex ways. Transnational policy networks include actors from intergovernmental organizations like the World Bank, OECD, and others, but are not reducible to them. The library of work on intergovernmental organizations illuminates how public authorities are designed by states seeking to cooperate with or dominate each other, and how they have internal conflicts over political and technocratic interests (Kentikelenis and Seabrooke 2017).

In general, elites are actors who have disproportionately high levels of influence on their social structure.

Elites in transnational policy networks are those who have disproportionate influence over policy design and implementation on issues of global importance. This includes influence on agenda-setting, decisionmaking, and policy content. Policy includes explicit reform programmes, scripts for best practices, as well as regulatory norms and standards.

The first generation of this scholarship centred on moving ‘beyond reified entities (‘the State’) to analyse the role of elites, networks and agents’ at the transnational level (Cohen 2013: 103), including the formation of ‘transnational guilds’ (Bigo 2016).

A further complication in studying elites is identifying how they articulate power. Elite power is exercised through individual as well as organizational action that springs from micro- and meso-level processes (Scott 2008). T

Harrington and Seabrooke 2020), as well as how organizations, such as global accounting firms, replicate professional practices (Spence and Carter 2014; Spence et al. 2016).

Most recently, field-theoretic scholars have started paying attention to ‘transnational power elites’ that have created some autonomy from national states through meta-institutions such as the European Union (Kauppi and Madsen 2013, 2014), as well as organization beyond the control of the state such as international commercial arbitration (Grisel 2017).

more computational methods to trace its subjects of analysis, including the mapping of social networks to assist the identification of fields (Larsen and Ellersgaard 2017) as well as content analysis to distinguish positions within fields (Ban and Patenaude 2018).

Van der Pijl (1984) and Cox (1987: 271) were among the first scholars to talk about what became known as a ‘transnational capitalist class’ (TCC) (Carroll 2013).

Sklair also identified four intersecting fractions of the transnational capitalist class (1) TNC executives; (2) globalizing bureaucrats; (3) globalizing politicians and professionals; (4) consumerist elites (merchants and media).

The role of networks has been addressed in more contemporary research. Carroll and Carson (2003) located five top transnational policy-planning groups in the ‘larger structure of corporate power that is constituted through interlocking directorates among the world’s largest corporations.’ They found that the network was tied together by a few select ‘cosmopolitan managers’ that, via policy groups, ‘pull the directorates of the world’s major corporations together, and collaterally integrate the lifeworld of the global corporate elite’ to promote neoliberalism (Carroll and Carson 2003: 29).

The institutions approach to elites in transnational policy networks draws from a Weberian premise: that actors seek to propel their political and economic interests through institutions and organizations

This includes: World Polity models of how world cultural norms spread through rationalization processes; recursive theories of how organizations interact to produce transnational policy scripts; and theories on how professionals exert influence through networks. In all cases elites are treated as important for decision-making processes. Elites typically refers to political elites within organizations and governments or, more commonly, policy elites who are regarded as the expert authority on policy issues.

Melinda Janki

In your important intervention you speak of increasing authoritarianism as a current condition. Should we not be as concerned about newly empowered transnational corporations, debt-driving inter-governmental organizations and hollowed-out states?

Is there a recorded inflation rate for gold currency in the interior?  How is gold exchange value determined.

How might we revisit Fonlon's instruction and the focus on Aristotle, Plato and other imperial, or imperialized, philosophers?

recalling the danger of firing squads that have been frequently used against political opponents (note to reader: remember the end of the Grenadian Revolution in 1983).

The fundamentals of our differences come down to, how does one understand the question of the internationalism of the oppressed? In order to answer this, there are two basic principles we start with: (1)a concrete analysis of concrete conditions, and (2)the law and nature of contradictions. We will attempt to apply both in our reply.

During this period, the so-called Cold War, where the USSR, China and several other countries were frequently identified with the cause of socialism and where, in many cases, workers and oppressed classes had succeeded in overthrowing formal capitalism and foreign domination, much of the Left fell into the fateful habit of deciding upon what stand to take on international matters not based on a substantive analysis but based largely on which countries fell on which sides of particular issues.

Baraka is absolutely correct in emphasizing that there is a long and ignominious history of social chauvinism by much of the organized Left in the global North, to which I would add a history of social chauvinism by numerous otherwise progressive movements—beyond the Left—in the global North. The infection of imperial consciousness became clear even in the international Communist movement by the 1930s when many revolutionaries in the global South felt betrayed by the approach of communist parties in the global North (and by the USSR) when too many of those latter parties abandoned the struggle against colonialism in the name of building anti-fascist fronts against the Germans, Italians and, later, the Japanese. This sense of betrayal led to splits in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America and, in some cases, the creation of new revolutionary formations (with often complicated politics).

The elimination of the Soviet bloc and the victory of neoliberal hegemony created challenges for countries in the global South which were following what the late Egyptian Marxist theorist Samir Amin would call “national populist projects.” By “national populist projects” Amin was referencing those regimes that had emerged out of anti-imperialist struggles but were not committed—in any serious/consistent way—to a socialist path, sometimes asserting themselves as non-aligned between the two superpowers, e.g., Egypt under Nasser. Many such regimes were able to survive through playing one superpower off again another, though this did not always succeed.

the national populist projects which were already in crisis due to internal contradictions—including class struggle, women’s movements, ethnic contradictions, democratic governance challenges—fractured.

With the collapse of the second superpower and the rise of neoliberal globalization,  the national populist projects which were already in crisis due to internal contradictions—including class struggle, women’s movements, ethnic contradictions, democratic governance challenges—fractured

The legitimacy crisis was not simply a public relations challenge. Struggle was breaking out within these states against the regimes. Sometimes led by forces to the left of the regime; other times by forces to the right of the regime (and sometimes both), these struggles were asserting that the regimes were abandoning their base; abandoning the people. One example of the ramifications of the legitimacy crisis unfolded in what came to be known as the Arab democratic uprisings or the “Arab Spring.” These insurrections, all beginning peacefully, were a challenge not only to pro-Western regimes, e.g., Egypt, but also to regimes that had emerged from the national populist projects, e.g., Syria.

Silence. There is no reply other than to challenge the authenticity of those of us on the Left who argue for an anti-imperialist AND anti-dictatorial politics of emancipation.

The question of solidarity of the globally oppressed must begin with a focus on the oppressed themselves. Baraka focuses on the struggle between governments. I start from a different standpoint: the question of the people. It is flowing from the question of the people that one can situate the larger context. In looking at Syria, for instance, what were the nature of the demands of the mass movement? Why was it that the response of the Assad regime was bloody repression? What does that response represent?

This is highlighted because many in the US Left have abandoned the demands for any action by the USA government on the basis that there is nothing that the USA government can or should do (or worse, that we, on the Left, should demand nothing of the USA government other than to cease and desist). The irony here is that during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), the US Left was actively in favor of the USA, Britain and France providing direct, military assistance to the Spanish government against the fascists. It is important to remember that even with the danger of fascism, a threat to humankind, the demand for US assistance to the Spanish government came while the USA was still perpetrating crimes against the people of Latin America. A demand for a change in USA policy vis a vis Spain was not inconsistent with opposing the USA role in Latin America.

The main divide among anti-imperialists during the Cold War was rather caused by the attitude towards the USSR, which Communist Parties and their close allies regarded as the “fatherland of socialism”; they determined much of their own political positions by aligning with Moscow and the “socialist camp”—an attitude that was described as “campism.” This was facilitated by Moscow’s support for most struggles against Western imperialism in its global rivalry with Washington. As for Moscow’s intervention against workers’ and peoples’ revolts in its own European sphere of domination, the campists stood with the Kremlin, denigrating these revolts under the pretext that they were fomented by Washington.Those who believed that the defense of democratic rights is the paramount principle of the left supported the struggles against Western imperialism as well as popular revolts in Soviet-dominated countries against local dictatorial rule and Moscow’s hegemony. A third category was formed by the Maoists, who, starting from the 1960s, labeled the USSR “social-fascist,” describing it as worse than US imperialism and going so far to side with Washington in some instances, such as Beijing’s stance in Southern Africa.

Benghazi’s population implored the world for protection, while emphasizing that they wanted no foreign boots on the ground. The League of Arab States supported this request. Accordingly, the UNSC adopted a resolution authorizing “the imposition of a NFZ” over Libya as well as “all necessary measures…to protect civilians…while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.” Neither Moscow nor Beijing vetoed this resolution: Both abstained, unwilling to assume the responsibility for a massacre foretold.

As the Western left has become more aligned with their imperialist bourgeoisie in the destabilization of the Global South, the radical Black tradition provides a clear approach to “turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism."

The contradictory nature of that relationship has sharpened as a result of the current crisis of global capitalism and the U.S. led Western imperialist project fueled by two interconnected elements: the devastating social-economic conditions that workers and the laboring classes now face as result of monopoly capital’s neoliberal turn over the last forty years in both the imperialist center and global South; and the intensifying challenge to neoliberalism from states and social movements in the global South, with the corresponding response from U.S. and European capital that has ranged from economic sanctions meant to punish whole populations to direct and indirect political subversion and military interventions, all illegal and morally indefensible.

While U.S. and Western innocence was always a component of the propaganda to justify colonialist aggression, the ideas of humanitarian intervention and its corollary, the responsibility to protect, emerged in the 1990s as one of the most innovative ideological weapons ever produced since the end of the second imperialist war in 1945.

Of course, as I have said on many occasions, the reality is much more complex, with neoliberalism actually representing a more dangerous threat to colonized and working-class peoples in the U.S. and globally. This is because within the context of the U.S., Democrats have been successful in perpetuating the myth that they represent “progressivism.” This perception usually leads to substantial demobilization and actual liberal – left alignment with neoliberalism objectively when Democrats occupy the Executive Branch.

Restoring the historic alliance between the U.S. and Europe was announced by Biden as a major objective of his administration. His “America is Back” slogan was supposed to signify that the U.S. was ready to reassume its leadership of the Western alliance. Biden proudly identified himself as an “Atlanticist,” and indeed a number of the members of his foreign policy team were plunked from the “Atlantic Council.” Similar to the Council on foreign Affairs (CFA), the Atlantic Council is a neoliberal think tank that is funded by a cross-section of the ruling class but significantly by neoliberals associated with the democrat party.

The Atlantic Council was a severe critic of the Trump administration, not because of any concerns about its “racism” but because the Council opposed Trump’s unilateralist approach to foreign policy and his dangerous ideas like pulling out of NATO, a desire to draw down U.S. troops and his insufficient hostility to Russia. Plus, the Council and the neoliberal ruling class never forgave Trump for his scuttling of the Trans-Pacific Partnership because it pulled the rug out from under the Trans-Atlantic Investment Partnership that was supposed to be the next agreement after TPP and would have solidified the hegemony of U.S. capital in Europe for next few decades.Biden and the Council believed that unity among the G-7 nations during the current global capitalist crisis was imperative. Consequently, Biden’s aggressive stance toward Russia, Venezuela, blind support for Israel and general hostility toward the progressive governments in Latin America signaled that belligerent U.S. policy would continue, but with an Obama-like smile.What has been response from the U.S. and Western left to Bourgeois Destabilization in Global South? Bolivian President, Evo Morales, faced a right-wing coup and instead of unrestrained mobilization the left engaged in a debate about the Bolivian process. In Europe, the liberal-left parliamentarians in the European Union awarded their Sakharav human rights prize to the Venezuelan right-wing opposition, an opposition known for burning alive dark-skinned Venezuelans assumed to be “Chavistas.” Bernie Sanders declares Hugo Chavez a “dead communist dictator” and most respectable liberal-left elements in the U.S. would not get caught dead at a pro-Venezuela demo as long as the new “authoritarian dictator,” Nicholas Maduro, is in power. Gaddafi deserved to die, Assad is a bloodthirsty tyrant, China is capitalist, and a human rights violator, and Haiti is a S…hole country that does not merit much thought or energy, let alone mobilization for.

The anti-anti-imperialism of a Eurocentric armchair commentator like Gilbert Achcar neatly captures the inanity of this approach, dressed-up as nuanced and sophisticated analysis. Grounded in Western chauvinism and completely suspended from the contradictory structures and class forces in the specific, concrete realities of this historical moment, it condemns the left projects that don’t correspond to the imagery of Western leftists who see revolutionary change as some pristine project. These leftists do not seem to notice or don’t care that they are usually on the same side of an international issue as the international bourgeoisie.

To counter the collaborationism and opportunism of the U.S. and Western left, Black revolutionaries must re-center the anti-colonial struggle that addresses the dialectics of the national and class issues produced by the colonial/capitalist system. This re-centering of anti-colonial struggle is not new. It has been the broad theoretical framework for African/Black radical tradition for decades — from Black socialists in Harlem like Hubert Harrison and the African Blood Brotherhood in the teens and the 1920’s to the revolutionary Pan African tradition. It was also reflected in the articulations of Lenin on the “National Question” and the assemblies of colonial peoples leading to the 1928 declaration on the right to self-determination on the part of colonized peoples and the declaration that Africans in the U.S. constituted an oppressed nation with the right to self-determination.The radical Black tradition provides an invaluable approach for how a left should address its bourgeoisie.  We say that concretely it means that authentic Western leftists must join us to “turn imperialist wars into wars against imperialism.” Specifically for African revolutionaries in the U.S. we must build bottom-up organic black unity and an anti-colonial, pro-socialist movement anchored in the Black working class that must assert leadership of this movement and to the broader radical movement in the U.S.Biden and the neoliberal, neo-fascists are committed to countering the movements for national liberation and socialism by any means, including destroying the planet to maintain European imperialist power.The Western social-imperialist left that is still addicted to its material privileges and illusions of being a part of something called the “West” has a choice that it must make: either you abandon privilege and whiteness and join as class combatants against your bourgeoisie, or you will be considered part of the enemy.

we had not one conversation about how we economists induce harm and what ethical obligations follow from that fact.

That is, one cannot do any positive work with the concept, such as determining whether harm has occurred or measuring its extent, without the careful moral reasoning that defining harm requires.