Political Report # 1128 Presidential Elections 2016: The Revolt of the Masses By James Petras

Introduction             The presidential elections of 2016 have several unique characteristics that defy common wisdom about political practices in 21st century America.             Clearly the established political machinery - party elites and their corporate backers -have (in part) lost control of the nomination process and confront ‘unwanted’ candidates who are campaigning with programs and pronouncements that polarize the electorate.             But there are other more specific factors, which have energized the electorate and speak to recent US history.  These portend and reflect a realignment of US politics.             In this essay, we will outline these changes and their larger consequences for the future of American politics.             We will examine how these factors affect each of the two major parties.

Political Report # 1119 Presidential Elections 2016: The Revolt of the Masses by James Petras, LAP Editor

Introduction             The presidential elections of 2016 have several unique characteristics that defy common wisdom about political practices in 21st century America.             Clearly the established political machinery - party elites and their corporate backers -have (in part) lost control of the nomination process and confront 'unwanted' candidates who are campaigning with programs and pronouncements that polarize the electorate.             But there are other more specific factors, which have energized the electorate and speak to recent US history.  These portend and reflect a realignment of US politics.             In this essay, we will outline these changes and their larger consequences for the future of American politics.             We will examine how these factors affect each of the two major parties.

Political Report # 1117 International Monetary Fund's Rogues Gallery Crooks, Rapists and Swindlers By James Petras LAP Editor

Introduction             The IMF is the leading international monetary agency whose public purpose is to maintain the stability of the global financial system through loans linked to proposals designed to enhance economic recovery and growth.             In fact, the IMF has been under the control of the US and Western European states and its policies have been designed to further the expansion, domination and profits of their leading multi-national corporations and financial institutions.             The US and European states practice a division of powers:  The executive directors of the IMF are Europeans; their counterparts in the World Bank (WB) are from the US.             The executive directors of the IMF and WB operate in close consultation with their governments and especially the Treasury Departments in deciding priorities, deciding what countries will receive loans, under what terms and how much.             The loans and terms set by the IMF are closely coordinated with the private banking system.  Once the IMF signs an agreement with a debtor country, it is a signal for the big private banks to lend, invest and proceed with a multiplicity of favorable financial transactions.  From the above it can be deduced that the IMF plays the role of general command for the global financial system.             The IMF lays the groundwork for the major banks' conquest of the financial systems of the world's vulnerable states.

Political Report #1103, Latin America: The Aborted Neo-Liberal Offensive By James Petras, LAP Editor

Introduction 

Pundits and commentators on the Left and Right are pronouncing 'the end of the progressive cycle in Latin America'.  They cite the recent presidential elections:

1.      Argentina, where hard-right Mauricio Macri was elected;

2.      Brazil, where President Dilma Rousseff has appointed a neo-liberal 'Chicago Boy' economist, Joaquin Levy, as Finance Minister and launched an IMF-style regressive structural adjustment policy designed to reduce social expenditures and attract financial speculators; and

3.      Venezuela, where Washington channeled millions of dollars to far-right parties, as well as violent extra-parliamentary and paramilitary groups, to destabilize the center-left Maduro government; right-wing Democratic Unity Coalition  (MUD) won the legislative elections in December 2015 with more than 2:1 margin over the Chavista Venezuelan United Socialist Party (PSUV).

Political Report # 1086 State Terror or Capitalist Terror, Military Coup or Capitalist Coup By James Petras, LAP Editor

Introduction             Democratic critics of military seizures of power commonly refer to them as military coups.  They adopt a very narrow and misleading conception of what is taking place.             Likewise, human rights activists and progressive analysts who conceptualize the reign of violence which follows, a 'coup' as state terror fail to take account of the systemic forces - the capitalist social order and class relations - which determine the classes which wield state power.  They ignore the specific classes and groups which are targeted and which classes direct and benefit from terror.             Concepts like 'state terror' and 'military coup' obscure as much as enlighten.  Moreover, the narrow focus on the military limits the political changes in the class structure required to avoid the repetition  of the violent overthrow of democratic governments.             In this essay we will focus on the case of Argentina, where the Central Bank has opened its archives to judicial investigators looking into the relationship between the military dictatorship (1976-83) and major capitalist enterprises.          We will also  cite the empirical research of Professor Juan Carlos "Lito" Marin ,one of Argentina's leading scholars on the violent overthrow of the elected government. His specialty was on the social relations and class context of the killing of 30,000 Argentines during the military dictatorship.             We will especially draw on his statistical analysis of the victims found in his book ("Lucha de calles, lucha de clase' -  Street struggles, class struggle).

Political Report # 1081 US-China Relations: the Pentagon versus High Tech By James Petras LAP Editor

Introduction

            Step by step, Washington is inexorably setting up a major provocation against China.  Until now, the Obama regime tightened a military encirclement of China, expanding its armed forces agreements with Japan, the Philippines and Australia.  In addition, it has promoted the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), a regional trade agreement which openly excludes China.  Obama has ordered a major naval build-up in the South China Sea and embarked on extensive cyber-espionage of Chinese industries and the government via major US high-tech companies, as revealed by Edward Snowden in his release of confidential NSA document.

Political Report #1073, The Age of Imperial Wars by LAP Editor James Petras

Introduction

2015 has become a year of living dangerously.

Wars are spreading across the globe.  Wars are escalating as new countries are bombed and the old are ravaged with ever greater intensity.

Countries, where relatively peaceful changes had taken place through recent elections, are now on the verge of civil wars.

Political Report # 1064 by LAP Editor James Petras - The Right-Left Crossfire and the Post Neo-Liberal Left

By James Petras, LAP Editor

Introduction             The post neo-liberal regimes which flourished in five Latin American countries in the first decade of the 21st century were a product of three inter-related historical processes.  The breakdown of the neo-liberal development model, which in turn ignited mass popular movements for radical political-economic transformations; the incapacity of the mass movements to produce a viable alternative worker-peasant based regime; the beginning of a decade long mega commodity boom which provided a huge influx of revenues which allowed the center-left regimes to finance a capitalist recovery, and secure support from the extractive capitalist sector and finance generous increases in wages, salaries and pensions.             These hybrid, extractive capitalist-national-populist regimes were repeatedly elected until the middle of the second decade of the 21st century.  The capitalist-populist electoral coalition encountered major opposition with the end of the commodity boom.  The fall in world-market prices led to demands by the techno-capitalist elites for measures of fiscal constraints aimed at reducing social expenditures.  At the same time they insisted the regimes grant fiscal largesse for the agro-mineral elite by lowering capital gains taxes and increase fiscal incentives for investors.             As a result, the end of the commodity boom led to the termination of the center-left brokered "consensus".  In its place the regimes faced a right-left crossfire:  rightwing business associations led successful electoral challenges and large scale street mobilizations, and the left-wing trade unions and social movements resisted through strikes in defense of existing social gains.  The question raised by this left-right crossfire is whether this spells the end of the post neo-liberal, hybrid regimes and the return of neo-liberal regimes or class based leftist politics?

Political Report # 1062 by LAP Editor James Petras - Comparing and Contrasting the Class Struggle in Latin America: 2000-2015

By LAP Editor James Petras

Introduction             Class conflict is always present, endemic, in Latin America.  What changes, over time, is the character of the class struggle.  By 'character' we mean, the principal classes and leaders, who direct in the struggle, set the political agenda and define the parameters of socio-economic changes.