World future

Gordon M Hahn March 9, 2022 One of the ideational-cultural causes of the NATO-Russian crisis is what one author has called American hubris. This is a neo-imperial attitude engendered in the U.S. as a result of America’s post-Cold War status, now waning, as the lone superpower. Originally posted on Gordon Hahn’s homepage on March 3rd, 2022 A classic example of such hubris is the American view that Russia has no ‘right’ to a sphere of influence. The deception attached to this is that there is no threat to Russia from NATO expansion, a policy that will deprive Russia of a sphere of influence along its western borders. Of course, possession of a sphere of influence – which the U.S. actually claims globally – is not a right that one is given by God or fate, but it is won by the exercise of power and effective diplomacy. Ambition to a...

Edward Curtin February 11, 2022 Despite its pedigree as a fundamental element in civilization’s greatest stories, nostalgia has come to be associated with treacly sentimentality, defeatism, and spurious spiritual inclinations.  Homer, Vergil, Dante, the Biblical writers, and their ilk would demur, of course, but they have been dead for a few years, so progress’s mantra urges us to get on with it.  This is now. Originally posted on Transcend Media Service on February 11, 2022 But now is always, and like its twin – exile – nostalgia is perpetual.  The aching for “home” – from Greek algos, pain + nostos, homecoming – is not simply a desire for the past, whether in reality or imagination, time or place, but a passionate yearning for the best from the past to be brought into the future. Nostalgia may be more a long ache of old people, but it is also a feeling that follows...

Sergey Vinograd, Unsplash Richard Falk TFF Associate February 7, 2022 The post below is my stimulus essay for a Forum sponsored by Great Transition Initiative, a project of the Tellus Institute, dedicated to the exploration of humane and ecologically resonant adjustments to the challenges and threats posed by the onset of the Anthropocentric Age. The text of the full Forum can be found by clicking here. It contains many wise and illuminating responses to my reflections, including by leading thinkers of our time. The Forum closes with my effort to respond to the responses, but due to space limitations, in a very truncated manner. Also, the Forum format conveys some information about the underlying philosophy that guides this ambitious undertaking. Global Solidarity: Toward a Politics of Impossibility  A Captive Imagination As the COVID-19 pandemic slowly subsides, it is not clear what lessons will be drawn by political leaders and publics around...

Please read this carefully because it is essentially important and not on the front page of all media – while Djokovic, Britney Spears, Epstein/Maxwell and the latest Netflix series you just must see all are: “UNITED NATIONS, Jan 17 2022 (IPS) The numbers are unbelievably staggering: the world’s 10 richest men more than doubled their fortunes from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion —at a rate of $15,000 per second or $1.3 billion a day, according to a new study from Oxfam International. These phenomenal changes in fortunes took place during the first two years of a Covid-19 pandemic that has seen the incomes of 99 percent of humanity fall, and over 160 million more people forced into poverty—60 million more than the figures released by the World Bank in 2020. “If these ten men were to lose 99.999 percent of their wealth tomorrow, they would still be richer than 99...

None Dare Call It “Encirclement” Washington Tightens the Noose around China Michael Klare Since he published “War Without End: American Planning for the Next Vietnams” in 1972, Michael Klare has established himself as one of the world’s leading experts on US military foreign policy, warfare, weapons, military intervention, energy policies and the nexus between militarism and climate change. I’ve known and followed him during all these years. Within the last few weeks, Michael has written two analyses pertain to the one-sided US Cold War on China that are frightening. They provide you with cool documentation of the systematic planning and the impossible-to-understand sums the US has now allocated to this destructive – also self-destructive – project for the years ahead. Western mainstream media will keep you in the dark about this perversely world-endangering policy. I call it that for the simple reason that the problems humanity faces which must be...

Photo © Jan Oberg “Boy Looking Back” – 2018 Charles Hampden-Turner, Peter Peverelli and Fons Trompenaars November 23, 2021 This is Chapter 9 of a new book “Has China Devised a Superior Path to Wealth Creation? The Role of Secular Values” by three leading experts on China, cultural dimensions of societies and culture for business. Almost nothing does China more harm in the estimation of the world than the accusation that it is not a democracy and has no announced intention of becoming one. It is accused of totalitarianism. This is profoundly disturbing to the world for several reasons. First China has the largest population on earth at 1.4 billion and it suggests that large populations may not be able to cohere democratically. In a world population that is exploding this is bad news. India has the world’s second-largest population and democracy there shows signs of morphing into Hindu nationalism...

Carlos Martinez November 16, 2021 Since the launch of Obama’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ in 2012, the US has prioritised China containment over all other foreign policy commitments. This includes steadily increasing its presence in the South China Sea and encouraging China’s neighbours in their various territorial claims. Obama also initiated an expansion of US military, diplomatic and economic cooperation with other countries in the region. The overarching strategic goal of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was to isolate China and to draw East and Southeast Asia back into the US economic – and ideological – orbit. The Trump administration, while dropping the TPP due to its domestic unpopularity, escalated the Pivot in other respects: launching a trade war in January 2018, imposing a ban on Huawei, attempting to ban TikTok and WeChat, spreading conspiracy theories about the origins of Covid-19, and turning ‘decoupling’ into a buzzword. Anti-China propaganda became –...

Peter McKillop November 8, 2021 The Chinese president did not attend COP26, but China already has a master plan for climate action. Do you, President Biden? It may be one of the great ironies of COP26 that the leader of the nation that emits more carbon than the United States, India and the European Union combined is skipping the climate conference in Glasgow. For China and President Xi Jinping, it’s politics as usual. Perhaps it’s about maintaining COVID protocols, or he is still smarting from the new nuclear submarine deal between the U.S. and Australia. For whatever reason, President Xi will limit his COP presence to a video link. But Xi’s physical absence at the summit should not be mistaken for inaction on climate change. Besides a commitment to check the increase in greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 and reach net zero by 2060, China has quietly put together an...

Photo from the original article Hussein Askary November 1, 2021 According to well-documented statistics provided by American research institutions and universities the human, economic, and financial costs of all wars the United States launched since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, are in the millions of killed, maimed, and traumatized (mostly civilians); destruction of infrastructure in the hundreds of billions; and financial cost for the war effort itself in the trillions of U.S. Dollars. Added to that is a lost economic opportunity in dozens of countries and several regions. These wars and regime-change operations started with Afghanistan (and Pakistan) in October 2001, and continued to Iraq in 2003, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, in addition to so-called anti-terror operations in Africa that are continuing to date. Originally posted on Brix Sweden’s homepage on September 6, 2021 In the meantime, China, which has been more criticized in Western media than the...

Jan Oberg October 27, 2021 I’m 70 now and all my life, I’ve heard that the Russians would one day make a surprise attack and, within 48 hours, occupy the Eifel Tower. Fait accompli! We in the West were weak – perhaps not right now but we would be within the next 5 years if we did not invest much more in ”defence”. Well, these damn Russians haven’t come yet – another reason we shouldn’t trust them, I assume! The latest variation on that bizarre and irrational theme is that Swedish military spokespersons maintain that Sweden has to plan for an isolated Russian attack on the island of Gotland – and that China aims to conquer Taiwan and Biden telling the world that the US is committed to defend Taiwan. This is a slightly revised version of an editorial for the Transcend Media Service, October 25, 2021 The time when...

Introduction by Jan Oberg October 14, 2021 Here’s how Monthly Review presents itself: “Monthly Review began publication in New York City in May 1949. The first issue featured the lead article “Why Socialism?” by Albert Einstein. From the beginning, Monthly Review spoke for a critical but spirited socialism, independent of any political organization. In an era of Cold War repression, the magazine published pioneering analyses of political economy, imperialism, and Third World struggles, drawing on the rich legacy of Marxist thought without being bound to any narrow view or party line. The McCarthy-led inquisition targeted MR‘s original editors, Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman, who fought back successfully. Against these odds, the magazine’s readership and influence grew steadily, and in 1952, Monthly Review Press published its first title, I. F. Stone’s Hidden History of the Korean War. TFF has published Einstein’s article here. But what we want to highlight right here is the MR Volume...

Meryem Betul Kebap October 5, 2021 Following the Cold War, the victorious USA became the hegemony power of the world. Unrivalled in many respects, the United States played a role as a superpower in international politics. As a result of the policies, it put into practice in the 1950s, China gained the power to compete with the USA in many aspects as a rising commercial power against the USA today. Originally posted on Asia Today on August 4th, 2021 This led the two powers to compete in slew parts of the world. Furthermore, relations between the two states have been stretched during the reign of former US President Donald Trump. However, with Joe Biden’s administration assuming power, there was a softening in bilateral relations. Recently, US Deputy Secretary of State visited China and met with the Chinese Foreign Minister. Although this visit was expected to reduce the tension between the...