(2023-09-12). Economic Growth In G7 Versus Brics: A Reality Check. popularresistance.org In the United Kingdom, the BBC prepared and published data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in January about different nations' growth forecasts for 2023 and 2024. The BBC foregrounded some really bad news for the UK. Of nine major industrial economies—the G7 (the US, Canada, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, and Canada), plus Russia, and China—the UK would be the only one to suffer real economic decline: a contraction in its 2023 GDP (its total annual, national output of goods and services). | So dubious a distinction for the UK followed the long political night of rule by the Conservative Pa…
(2023-09-11). Economic growth in G7 versus BRICS: a reality check. nationofchange.org Like rose-colored glasses, anti-systemic glasses make economic problems appear less dangerous, narrower, and more limited in effects than they actually are.
(2023-09-12). Prettification of Capitalism Is Backfiring. orinocotribune.com By Prabhat Patnaik — Sep 8, 2023 | Metropolitan economies that arm-twisted the Third World to accept that 'global trade is beneficial for all', are now taking the lead in protecting themselves against imports by violating their own neoliberal rules. | Liberal bourgeois writers tend to explain the problems that arise under capitalism not by the immanent tendencies of the system but by the capriciousness of particular governments. This way they can continue to believe in their own false theories that prettify capitalism, while putting the blame for the travails it generates on political bloody-mindedness. One…
(2023-09-12). "Capitalism Is an Insecurity Machine": Astra Taylor on Student Debt & Our Radically Unequal World. democracynow.org 
As the COVID-19 era pause on federal student debt payments comes to an end and some 40 million Americans will resume payments next month, we speak with Debt Collective organizer Astra Taylor about Biden's new Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan and her organization's new tool that helps people apply to the Department of Education to cancel the borrower's debt. Taylor also discusses her new book, The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart, in which she writes, "How we understand and respond to insecurity is one of the most urgent questions of our moment, for nothi…
(2023-09-11). No Parties On A Dead Planet: It's Time We Reimagine Burning Man. popularresistance.org For the past 37 years, people have flocked to Burning Man to celebrate art, radical self expression and community. The first iteration of Burning Man began in 1986 when a small group of friends met on a San Francisco beach with an eight-foot statue of a man they built with scrap lumber. They soaked the statue in gasoline and burned it, symbolizing the destruction of the powers that be. | The world does not look today as it did in 1986: As about 72,000 "Burners" lined up in their cars and campers to take reprieve from the grind of capitalism and attend this year's Burning Man, which now conven…
(2023-09-11). Review: "Forces of Production, Climate Change and Canadian Fossil Fuel Capitalism" mronline.org 
Nicolas Graham's book on forces of production and fossil-fuel capitalism gives an important analysis of why fundamental change is needed to solve the climate crisis, finds John Clarke…
(2023-09-11). Socialist "movement incubator" celebrates five year anniversary in the heart of NYC. peoplesdispatch.org The People's Forum in New York City, founded in 2018 as a "movement incubator" to unite working class movements in the US and abroad, celebrated its five year anniversary on Saturday, September 9. In its five years of existence, TPF has been able to support the strengthening of progressive and socialist organizations from the heart of world capitalism. | "Over the past five years, TPF has become a reference for people who are seeking to understand what's going on in the world around them, and who want a place where they can ask questions and exchange ideas, and where there's space for socialist and internationali…
(2023-09-12). "Socialism 2023" conference: Imperialist warmongering and Democratic Party politics. wsws.org The "Socialism 2023" conference was dominated by the self-absorption and reactionary politics of the upper middle class milieu populating the DSA, the fraudulent "reformists" of the trade union bureaucracy and pro-imperialist state operatives.
(2023-09-11). Remembering Salvador Allende and the Chilean Counterrevolution. fpif.org When I heard that Salvador Allende won the Chilean presidential elections in September 1970 and sought to bring his country to socialism by peaceful means, I decided to do my doctoral dissertation on Chile. In May 1972, I went to take a crash course in Spanish in Cuernavaca in the Mexican state of Morelos, the birthplace of the legendary peasant leader Emiliano Zapata whose life had been made into a movie starring Marlon Brando that I had seen and liked as a teenager. After three weeks, I felt that the course had substantially improved the rudimentary Spanish I had from high school in the Philippines. So, I flew…
(2023-09-12). Benefits of Pulmonary Vein Isolation Beyond Rhythm Control. jamanetwork.com The prevalence of atrial fibrillation (AF) is continually increasing, with major implications for patients and health care systems given the increased morbidity and mortality. Approximately one-third of patients with AF additionally are affected by mental health conditions (notably depression, anxiety, and perceived stress). Psychological distress conditions are independent risk factors for adverse cardiovascular outcomes (including stroke and major bleeding) in patients with AF and promote AF recurrence. Without doubt, these associations add more complexity to comprehensive treatment decisions for patients with…
(2023-09-12). De-escalation instead of war of attrition. indybay.org The call for negotiations alone is no longer enough. In a situation in which parts of the Western alliance are struggling to find ways out of the war and at the same time more and more heavy weapons are being supplied for a war that will last for years, the social left should campaign more strongly than before for "mutual de-escalation" and security guarantees, for European independence…
(2023-09-12). Opposition To Arms Fair Intensifies, Israeli Arms Companies Make A Killing. popularresistance.org The Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair is taking place at the ExCeL centre in London. Meanwhile, activists and campaigners have already been robustly protesting it — causing some major disruption along the way. However, one group has revealed the extent of the Israeli state's death and destruction that's being represented at DSEI. It includes over 40 arms companies from the country selling their weapons there. There was also a Faith Day on Thursday 7 September. This was where people from all denominations (or those with none) held vigils, but also blocked deliveries to DSEI.
(2023-09-11). Blinken: US Does Not Oppose Ukraine Targeting Russian Territory With US-Provided Missiles. news.antiwar.com Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that it was up to Ukraine whether or not to target Russian territory with US-provided weapons, a policy that brings the US and Russia closer to a direct clash. Blinken made the comments after ABC News reported that it's likely the Biden administration will soon arm Ukraine with …
(2023-09-11). From the Partial Test Ban Treaty to a Nuclear Weapons-Free World. fpif.org
(2023-09-11). US Admits to Sending Radioactive Weapons to Ukraine that Left Thousands of Iraqi Babies Deformed. globalresearch.ca
(2023-09-11). More than 40 Israeli firms among 'world's worst arms dealers' at London weapons fair. middleeasteye.net 
(2023-09-11). Othello and the war: Berlin Bulletin, September 11, 2023. mronline.org 
The war in Ukraine, a horrific tragedy for the people of that unhappy country, fateful as well for many young Russians and potentially menacing for all the world, with burnished weapons of every size and destructive power waiting in silos or submarines for a slip, a blunder, a provocation.