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Reflections on the Green New Deal

Finally, the climate change deniers have about as much credibility left as the flat earth society. The evidence is too overwhelming. The scientific data is clear: if man continues to produce and consume in a way that releases massive amounts of greenhouse gasses into the air, we are headed for a catastrophe that might be more destructive than all the wars of past centuries combined. Already, we see rising seawater levels threatening low lying areas, more devastating storms, more giant floods here and monster fires there; mass extinction of animals, spread of tropical diseases, a mounting drinking water crisis, drought that turns fertile areas into wasteland and provokes mass migration, microplastics in the ocean, in our food, in the rain that falls on our head…the list of disasters goes on and on. No wonder that this trend worries more and more people. Especially young people, who will inherit a planet that may become to a large extent uninhabitable. The movement of school kids striking for climate which began in Sweden and spread all over the world is thus a welcome sign. It expresses a rising sense of urgency of fundamental change. But what must change?  

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Introduction to Between the Devil and the Green New Deal

In 2009, Internationalist Perspective published a lengthy article entitled “Capitalism, Technology and the Environment.”

In the article, looking at the relationship between capitalism and the environment, E.R. wrote:

Capital’s relationship with nature has a history of its own; it has a trajectory of development, of ‘advancement’, of ‘progress’. But, we need to ask, an advancement and progression toward what? Capitalism has transformed nature over the years no less than it has transformed labour and the working class. Capital has to such an extreme extent, by today’s advanced stage in its historical development, interfered with, appropriated, manipulated, in a word, messed with the earth’s overall natural environment that it is in fact increasingly difficult any longer to find any feature, any aspect, any part of it that hasn’t been changed in one way or another as a result. This change, this messing with nature by capital has by now done such catastrophic damage to the natural, evolving, inter-connected, highly complex and self-sustaining ecosystems and processes of the planet that the question of sustainability itself in regard to capitalist economic processes in interaction with the natural environment has become an increasingly important concern for the capital class itself (at least at the political level).  

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No, a good year it wasn’t. 2018 was a year of gathering thunder clouds. On all levels: economic, ecological, political and social.

It became painfully clear that climate change is not just a problem for our grandchildren. Climate disasters were on the rise, including in the US where in the midst of forest fires and floods, the president continued to claim that nothing was going on, that no drastic change is needed, that on the contrary more coal has to be consumed. And the new president of Brazil is giving a green light for a wholesale clear-cut in the Amazon rain forest. Hallucinant. What is done to the causes is so ridiculously little compared to the scale of the threat that one can expect that the weather will not be less extreme this year and perhaps even more disruptive.

On the social level, one of things that struck me the most was the visible growth of the gap between rich and poor. In New York, I see more beggars almost every day as more and more shiny towers scratch the clouds, with luxury apartments sometimes sold for over a hundred million dollars. In Los Angeles I saw tent camps of homeless people occupying endless sidewalks.  

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At 4:30 PM, Mon., Jan. 14, Mac Intosh, of Internationalist Perspective, will be speaking on: “The Communist Left, Class Lines, and the New Reading of Marx.” An open discussion will follow.

Please join us at Victrola Cafe, 411 15th Ave. E., Seattle.

About the talk:

The historical Communist Left traces its origins to the revolutionary wave that erupted in 1917-1918, and then proceeded theoretically and politically to the theoretical-political critique of the emerging counter-revolution in Russia, culminating in the emergence of Stalinism and the so-called Bolshevization of the communist parties across the globe. The very class lines separating the fundamental and historical interests of the working class from those of capitalism have been clearly drawn by the communist left over the past century. Those class lines and their political underpinnings, have their own theoretical bases in the works of Marx, his analysis of the value form and its fundamental role in shaping the very modes of subjectivity of the working class, and the obstacles to its overcoming of the reified social forms to which capitalist social relations subject it. The new reading of Marx based on the publication of all the manuscripts and drafts of Capital, and their analysis, has provided a theoretical basis for understanding and politically confronting the power of capital; a basis for clearly drawing the class line.  

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(The article below is written by a comrade of the ‘Cercle de Discussion de Paris. The original text is on our french page)

Not so long ago it was often said that the class struggle was practically doomed, if not almost extinct. In fact, this reflected above all the reality of an exploited class which for decades has been under the steamroller of “neo-liberalism”, that is, the policy driven by the systematic and violent search of lower labor costs, the policy which uses unemployment and the threat of unemployment to impose social submission. It was as if the working class was laying on the ground with the foot of the ruling class planted on its neck. The movement of the Yellow Vests appears first and foremost as an awakening, a massive refusal of this situation. Everyone agrees today: the rising fuel prices were only the trigger.

 

Like virtually every major social movement under capitalism, it was born spontaneously. It was neither foreseen nor organized by the political and trade union apparatus that are usually charged with “commanding their troops”. What’s more, the rejection of any control by these institutions has not only been clearly, repeatedly and loudly claimed from the onset, it remains a major feature of its DNA nearly a month later.  

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Nous saluons le mouvement tres important des “gilets jaunes” en France. Nous y reviendrons bientot. Pour maintenant, nou republions, sur notre page “en francais”, une analyse du site “Grand Large”, qui est animé par des camerades qui ont quittés PI, malheureusement sans nous expliquer pourquoi.

We salute the very important movement of the “yellow vests” in France. We will soon come back to this subject. For now, we republish, on our french page, an analyis from the website “Grand Large”, which is animated by comrades who left IP, unfortunately without telling us why.

RED WAVE, BLUE WAVE:

EITHER WAY,

THE WORKING CLASS IS GOING TO GET SOAKED!

Among the clearest signs of capitalism’s obsoleteness, at least from the standpoint of humanity, is the  growing dislocation of people caused by its crisis, by the poverty, the wars and the hopelessness it creates.  The story is horrific from beginning to end.  Horrific circumstances at home prompt ever more people to flee. Horrific travel circumstances cause many of them to die. And when they do reach their destination, many are locked up and many are deported, while many others remain stuck on the lowest  rungs of society. Most are considered “illegal”.  Increasingly, they are terrorized by the state. The influx of refugees is used, like the threat of “terrorism,” as a lubricant for the militarization of society, a license for more state control and surveillance. It is also politically very useful. Power can be gained by scapegoating immigrants (especially Muslim immigrants who can be linked to terrorism); by giving even the poorest compatriots the satisfaction of standing above someone else.

If you can’t offer real hope to the masses, you have to give them at least that.

At least for now this strategy works, as the electoral victories of Trump, Orban and other creeps show.  The success of the populist right has also pushed more traditional parties in Europe towards “tougher” policies on immigration.  

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The centennial of the October Revolution has been a rather subdued affair. There were no parades in Red Square or Tiananmen, no demonstrations or festivities.  Even leftists gave it sparse attention, with the exception of those who dream that October will repeat itself, this time with themselves in the role of the Bolsheviks. To the minimal extent that the mass media mentioned the anniversary, it was to comment that communism had mercifully collapsed. Some gave it a bit more space.  The New York Times Book Review, in its edition of October 22, devoted seven articles related to the subject. Remarkably, for what was meant as a critique of totalitarianism, they all said the same thing. Communism is a failed experiment, we live in the best of all possible worlds. No debate. One of the authors was Francis Fukuyama, famous for his claim that the end of the “communist” regime in Russia heralded “the end of history”: inevitably the whole world would become capitalist and democratic. The alternative is gone.

Such scant attention is remarkable since, from any point of view, the October Revolution was an earthquake which left deep imprints on the course of history.  IP has published several articles about it in the past [1] but we don’t want to let this centennial pass without a few remarks on its relevance today.  

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Charlottesville was not the first time in recent memory the Nazis, the Klan and other “white nationalist” organizations have marched in the streets brazenly proclaiming their vile creed of white supremacy, anti-Semitism and race hatred. Yet, the events in Charlottesville seemed to mark a qualitative difference: A torch light rally accompanied by openly Nazi slogans of “Blood and Soil” and “Jews will not replace us” on August 11 was followed by a daylight rally of hatred which culminated in James Fields, a neo-Nazi who was photographed marching with the Vanguard America group, ramming a car into a crowd of counter-protesters murdering a protester, Heather Heyer.

The Klan was once a powerful force in American politics boasting over 4 million members with senators, governors and even a supreme court judge among its members. However a decades-long decline has reduced the Klan to squabbling factions; explicitly Nazi organizations have never been more than a momentary blip on the news feed. Yet, here were  emboldened rightists, seemingly in ascendance. What could account for this resurgence? Perhaps the belief that one of “their” supporters was in the White House. Former Klan Imperial Grand Wizard David Duke, who was present in Charlottesville, remarked that the neo-Nazis were in Charlottesville to “To take our country back.  

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