Notes on the war in Gaza
[Educational given to Melbourne branch of Socialist Alliance,April 2,2024. Photo above: Palestine solidarity rally in Amman, Jordan, October 13, 2023.
The struggle in Palestine is now the number one issue of world politics. The armed breakout from Gaza on October 7 by Hamas and its allies has raised numerous questions, mainly because the West and Israel have spread lies about what actually happened and continually try to obscure what the real issues are.
A discussion about Hamas & October 7
We are constantly told by the Western
corporate media that Hamas is a terrorist group, that the October 7
attack was a terrorist attack, atrocious, a massacre and so on. In
the days following the raid pro-Palestinian interviewees in the media
were repeatedly pressured: “Do you condemn Hamas?”
Ukraine: US proxy war in crisis
Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, NATO has been calling the shots, fighting a proxy war against Russia on Ukrainian territory, using NATO arms, training, intelligence, “volunteers” and advisers, with Ukrainians as expendable cannon fodder on the ground.
This campaign is now in a deep crisis on all levels.
Notes on a trip: Singapore, Paris & Melbourne
In May Andrea and I spent two weeks in Paris. Breaking our flight going and returning, we stayed for several days in Singapore. As Paul Keating once famously said, Australia is at the arse-end of the world. To get to Paris we had to undertake three seven to eight-hour flights (Melbourne-Singapore, Singapore-Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi-Paris). Here are a few thoughts on what we saw.
Imperialism: A short introduction
[This the text of an educational given to Socialist Alliance Melbourne branch on April 4, 2023.]
We live in a world where capitalism is near universal. However, it’s not just capitalism but capitalism in its imperialist stage. If we don’t understand what this is (and what it is not), we can’t understand anything about the politics of Australia and the world today.
Key issues of the war in Ukraine
These notes should be read in conjunction with the document Theses on the war in Ukraine by myself and Renfrey Clarke which gives a succinct overview of the issues raised by the war. Here I want to deal in more detail with some of the key questions.
Washington has an historically unprecedented world empire which it wants to maintain and expand. It is never going to be reconciled to any country it doesn’t control or dominate. The two main targets in its sights today are Russia and China, both big capitalist countries which are by no means opposed to relations with the West but want them on their own terms.
One way or another, Washington wants to dominate Russia, to subjugate and exploit it, install a client regime, or possibly even to break up it up into several more pliable states, as advocated by some neocons. Right now, through the conflict in Ukraine, it seeks to move NATO bases and missiles right up to the border and to bleed Russia in an endless war (like in Afghanistan).
Theses on the war in Ukraine
By Dave Holmes & Renfrey Clarke
Climate change threatens the survival of
humanity. Disasters are coming thick and fast and will quickly get much worse.
But rather than deal with the truly existential crisis this represents, Western
imperialism is devoting more and more resources to a war drive against Russia and China, two big countries that have
persistently resisted subordination to Western imperialism.
This perverse misallocation of resources shows the pathological sickness of the world imperialist system presided over by the United States.
The war in Ukraine is being used to massively intensify the West’s anti-Russia campaign. But the blowback from the sanctions regime is destabilising Western Europe and intensifying the suffering of developing countries.