Celebrating the Life of Samir Amin

REMEMBRANCE 

September 4, 1931 – August 12, 2018

Lau Kin Chi

MR Online | September 04, 2020

Contributor Index

• Lau Kin Chi (Lingnan University; Global University for Sustainability)
• Wang Hui (Tsinghua University, China)
• Wen Tiejun (Renmin University of China, China)
• Huang Ping (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China)
• Dai Jinhua (Peking University, China)
• Lu Aiguo (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China)
• Sit Tsui (Southwest University, China)
• Wang Ping (China Society of Economic Reform Journal Agency, China)
• Yan Xiaohui (Global University for Sustainability, Hong Kong, China)
• Muto Ichiyo (People’s Plan Study Group, Japan)
• Alexander Buzgalin (Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia)
• Gustave Massiah (Centre for Development Research and Information, France)
• Michael Hudson (Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends, USA)
• Patrick Bond (University of the Western Cape, South Africa)
• Paulo Nakatani (Federal University of Espírito Santo, Brazil)
• Pedro Páez Pérez (The Central University of Ecuador, Ecuador)
• Víctor Hugo Jijón (Commission for the Protection of Human Rights, Ecuador)
• Wim Dierckxsens (International Observatory of the Crisis, Holland/Costa Rica)
• More on Samir Amin

A man lives so many different lengths of time

Lau Kin Chi

For Samir Amin’s anniversary on Sept 4, Global University for Sustainability invited Samir’s friends to reminisce their interactions with Samir and celebrate the very rich life that Samir lived.

FACE OF AN ECONOMY: U.S.: Millions of People Face Evictions and Possible Power Cuts

FACE OF AN ECONOMY 

A Journal of People report

In the United States, many people have lost jobs on the pretext of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of them now face evictions from their homes, and possible power cuts. tens of millions may be affected. 

A Time report – “A ‘Tidal Wave’ of Power Cuts May Be Coming as Electric Companies Resume Shutoffs” – said on August 31, 2020:

“For people who lost jobs or income during the pandemic, life has been a series of terrifying deadlines. There was July 24, the end of a federal eviction moratorium from government-backed housing, which had protected about one-third of renters. There was July 30, when a program providing an extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits expired, reducing the incomes of tens of millions of Americans.

What Can We Learn from Cuba? Medicare-for-All Is a Beginning, Not the End Point

CUBA 

Don Fitz

Green Social Thought | August 29, 2020

As a coup de grâce to the Bernie Sanders campaign Joe Biden declared that he would veto Medicare-for-All.  This could drive a dedicated health care advocate to relentlessly pursue Med-4-All as a final goal.  However, it is not the final goal. It should be the first step in a complete transformation of medicine which includes combining community medicine with natural medicine and health-care-for-the-world.

Contrasting Cuban changes in medicine during the last 60 years with the US non-system of medical care gives a clear picture of why changes must be all-encompassing.  The concept of Medicare-for-All is deeply intertwined with attacks on Cuba’s global medical “missions” and the opposite responses to Covid-19 in the two countries.

Decades Later, America’s Meddling in Colombia is Still Costing Lives

U.S IMPERIALISM 

Alan Macleod

MintPress News | August 28, 2020

On a warm Tuesday morning earlier this month in Llano Verde, an eastern suburb of the city of Cali, five Afro-Colombian children decided to leave their homes to take advantage of the fine weather to spend some time outside. They would never return. Only a few hours later, they were found dead; their bodies burned, cut to pieces with machetes and riddled with bullets, dumped in public for all to see.

The residents of Llano Verde are no strangers to violence; the majority of them are refugees, displaced from the fighting in Colombia’s civil war. The local press reported that the boys, Luis Fernando Montaño, Josmar Jean Paul Cruz Perlaza, Álvaro Jose Caicedo Silva, Jair Andrés Cortes Castro, and Leider Cárdenas Hurtado, were members of the vibrant local art scene and had gone to fly kites — such an innocent activity in a land of the guilty.

Canada’s Regime Change Efforts in Nicaragua Rife with Hypocrisy

IMPERIALISM 

Yves Engler

Canada is supporting US efforts to overthrow Nicaragua’s government.

A recently leaked USAID document highlights “the breadth and complexity of the US government’s plan to interfere in Nicaragua’s internal affairs up to and after its presidential election in 2021.” The stated aim is to replace president Daniel Ortega with “a government committed to the rule of law, civil liberties, and a free civil society.” Highlighting Washington’s aim, Ben Norton notes, “the 14-page USAID document employed the word ‘transition’ 102 times, including nine times on the first page alone.”

Recently Canada’s representative to the Organization of American States, Hugh Adsett, joined five other countries in calling on the OAS’ Secretary General to organize a special session focused on human rights and democracy in Nicaragua. At the recent OAS meeting Adsett criticized Nicaragua, saying the Covid-19 pandemic “should not be used to weaken democracy”.

Mainstream Macroeconomics—Pandemic Edition

ECONOMICS 

David F. Ruccio

Occasional Links and Commentary | August 31, 2020

Right now, the United States is mired in an economic depression, the Pandemic Depression, not dissimilar to what happened in the 1930s and again after the crash of 2007-08.

Real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product contracted by an annual rate of 31.7 percent in the second quarter of 2020 (according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis) and at least 27 million American workers are currently unemployed (counting workers continuing to receive some kind of unemployment benefits, according to my own calculations).* By all accounts—from both macroeconomic data and anecdotes reported in the media—the current situation is an economic and social disaster equivalent to what the United States went through during the first and second Great Depressions.

The question is, does mainstream macroeconomics have anything to offer in terms of insights about the causes of the current crises or what should be done to solve them?

For a Safe Climate, We Need to Tear Up the Corporate Death Warrant

CLIMATE CRISIS 

Peter Boyle

Green Left | September 03, 2020

Graphic: climateaccountability.org

Climate activist Greta Thunberg has argued that one clear reason why we need system change if the world is going to avert catastrophic climate change is that fossil fuel corporations have already planned production to 2030 that will exceed by 120% the carbon budget required to have a chance at keeping climate change to 1.5° Celsius.

Capitalists have already signed a climate death warrant for life on our planet.

Lebanon Struggles to Rebuild After Beirut Blasts

CRISIS IN LEBANON

Peoples Dispatch | September 03, 2020

Lebanon has a new prime minister in Mustapha Adib but to many, he is part of the same corrupt and inefficient old leadership that created the crisis in the country.

Kerala Rises Against Political Murder of Communist Youth Activists

INDIA

Tens of thousands of people took part in the protest against the murder of two Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) activists Haq Muhammed and Mithilaj in the Indian State of Kerala.

Peoples Dispatch | September 03, 2020

On September 2, people across the Indian State of Kerala marked a day of protest against the murder of two activists of the Communist youth organization, Democratic Youth Federation of India. This is the latest in a series of murders of communist activists in recent times.

Being kind? Jacinda Ardern’s government and COVID-19 in New Zealand

COVID-19 AND NEW ZEALAND 

Bronwen Beechey

Green Left | September 04, 2020

COVID-safe greetings. Authors: Siouxsie Wiles and Toby Morris. From: thespinoff.co.nz Creative Commons license

Aotearoa New Zealand, and particularly its Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, has been widely praised in the media for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The government announced a state of emergency and Alert Level Four – the highest on the COVID-19 alert system – on March 24, meaning that the country’s borders were closed to all but returning citizens, who are quarantined on arrival; schools and all non-essential businesses closed; and all workers other than those in essential services were required to work at home if possible.