Chavistas Take 17 of 23 States in Venezuelan Regional Elections as Opposition Cries Fraud

by Lucas Koerner

VENEZUELANALYSIS.COM | October 15, 2017

(Credit AVN) CNE announces the victory of officialism in 17 states in the 2017 regional elections

Caracas, October 15, 2017 (venezuelanalysis.com) – President Nicolás Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won 17 of 23 states in Sunday’s gubernatorial elections, the National Electoral Council (CNE) has confirmed.

According to CNE President Tibisay Lucena, 61.14 percent of Venezuela’s eighteen-million-strong electorate came out to vote, marking a record participation in the country’s regional elections, second only to the 65.45 percent turnout in 2008.

Venezuela’s Regional Elections: As they happen

VENEZUELANALYSIS.COM | October 15, 2017

1. The PSUV won 54 percent of the total vote, marking a significant recovery since the ruling party’s landslide defeat in 2015 parliamentary elections when it garnered only 43.7 percent of the vote. Opposition cries fraud…

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Javier Biardeau: Regional Elections Are Strategic Fight for Future of Chavismo

by Clodovaldo Hernández & Javier Biardeau – Supuesto Negado

VENEZUELANALYSIS.COM | October 13, 2017

Political columnist and university professor Javier Biardeau. (SupuestoNegado)

Renowned political columnist and university professor Javier Biardeau discusses Venezuela’s upcoming regional elections this Sunday.

What influence is the National Constituent Assembly [ANC] going to have on the regional elections process?

I think there is uncertainty because there are a lot of factors in the equation. There is the issue of the balance sheet of expectations people have towards the ANC. You’d have to look at what people think about which expectations have been fulfilled and which have not. This is a fundamental point. Obviously, the achievement of public calm [with the end of the violent anti-government protests] is an accomplished objective. But taking on economic problems continues to be a pending challenge, despite the speech by President Maduro in the ANC when he proposed the eight laws. I feel that, although some measures have been taken, there is still an interrupted discussion around what the ANC can or can’t do in the economic arena. That tension is exploding in the heart of the ANC. There is also a great expectation in terms of what the ANC will do on the issue of corruption following the conflict with [former Attorney General] Luisa Ortega Diaz. This is in process. In any case, the regional elections are characterized by many uncertainties. It’s an election with greater uncertainty than in the previous years. It’s a strategic election; it’s not a conventional set of regional races.

Henry Ford’s dirty history

by John Newsinger

Socialist Review | October, 2017

Ford receiving the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Nazi officials, 1938

Donald Trump’s reluctance to denounce neo-Nazis marching on the streets of the US has shocked many people. But there is a long history of US businessmen flirting with fascism, writes John Newsinger.

 

Donald Trump is by no means the first US businessman to flirt with the far-right and even fascism. In the 1920s and 1930s many American businessmen looked to fascism as a way to protect their interests.

Red scientist: two strands from a life in three colours

by Hilary Rose and Steven Rose

Verso | October 07, 2017

From Felix Topolski’s Conference Sketchbook: International Congress of Intellectuals for Peace (Wroctaw, Poland, 1948). Left to right: J.D. Bernal, Hyman Levy, Ivor Montagu, Hewlett Johnson (behind him, Julian Huxley), J.B.S. Haldane.

First published by Verso in 1999, J.D. Bernal: A Life in Science and Politics, edited by Francis Aprahamian and Brenda Swann, brings together 13 essays that survey the life and work of the pioneering Marxist molecular biologist and crystallographer. In the article below, Hilary Rose and Steven Rose trace the arc of Bernal’s career.

Marx’s Capital at 150: an invitation to history

by Radhika Desai

Red Pepper | September 30, 2017

‘Marx was the best hated and most calumniated man of his time,’ Engels remarked in his graveside oration, because he discovered two things that struck at the heart of capitalism. First, it was neither natural nor eternal. It rests on entirely unnatural historical processes forcibly or fraudulently separating the mass of humanity from access to the means of production, leaving it dependent on employment by the appropriators of those means. Such a contradictory and antagonistic social order had to end. The only question was whether it would take humanity with it, and that depended on the choices humanity made.

2 or 3 Things I Know About Late-Stage Capitalism

by Phil Rockstroh

Common Dreams | October 16, 2017

A view of New York City from the top of the World Trade Center in the mid-1980s. (Photo: Ralph Hockens/flickr/cc)

A number of recent, press articles, including an over 8000 word feature piece in the New York Times have asked, to quote the The NYT’s headline, “Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?”

Although the question was proffered, the reporters and editors responsible for the articles remain resolutely obtuse to the obvious: The bughouse crazy environment of late stage capitalist culture evokes classic flight or flight responses attendant to episodes of severe anxiety and panic attacks.

USA Today: “20,000 DACA Teachers at Risk — and Your Kids Could Feel the Fallout, Too”

America’s Voice | October 13, 2017

WASHINGTON – A USA Today story, “20,000 DACA teachers at risk — and your kids could feel the fallout, too,” highlights the fact that DACA recipients work in many different jobs that help Americans – including teaching children in our nation’s classrooms. This is yet another reason why Congress must act with urgency to resolve Dreamers’ status.  Excerpts below: 

Remembering Samar Sen in Centenary Year

by Chaman Lal

Frontier | October 15, 2017

I met Samar Sen only once in life in February 1980 on my first visit to Calcutta. But I knew his name from much earlier period, perhaps from 1969 or so, when I may have seen Frontier for first time at my home town Rampura Phul in Bathinda district of Punjab. I became regular reader of ‘Frontier’ from 1971, when I joined Panjab University Chandigarh as a student of M.A. in Hindi. Some of my friends in Chandigarh at that time were readers of Frontier, like Hindi poet Kumar Vikal. Frontier was available in those days in Chandigarh at English Book Depot or shop in Sector 22. It was famous shop in those days for intellectual gathering as well. Punjabi and Hindi writers of the city used to sit in Sector 22 Coffee house and visit English Book Shop nearby. There was a corner around the shop, which was perhaps called ‘Lovers Corner’ also, though it was used more by writers in evening. I knew in those days also that Samar Sen was a well-known Bengali poet, apart from being editor of Frontier, but his Frontier editor image over shadowed his poet image. His poetry was not easily available in Hindi or English and those were the days of ‘Spring Thunder’ and Frontier represented it most widely throughout the country.