Ideas & Debates – Left Voice වමේ හඞ இடது குரல்

It’s time to imagine, construct and mobilize around left alternatives!

January 18, 2021January 18, 2021 Wame Handa

By Amali Wedagedara The apologists to the SLPP government took offense when the budget 2021 was called ‘neoliberal’. However, TINA is not in their control. Starting from the budget, government’s ideologue’s take on how to create wealth to the government’s policy on developing the East Container Terminal of the Colombo harbour, all cry out “There Is No Alternative to the market”. Private agri-business companies are the solution to backward agriculture. Venture capitalists and equity market and tax concessions to the big capital can drive the Sri Lankan economy. The government…

Was Rosa Luxemburg an Opponent of the Russian Revolution?

January 16, 2021January 16, 2021 Wame Handa

Post on: January 15, 2021 Nathaniel Flakin Rosa Luxemburg is often presented as an opponent of the Russian Revolution, but this is a deliberate misunderstanding. In fact, she was no more and no less than a critical Bolshevik. “Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters” or “the freedom of those who think differently.” This is by far the most well-known quote from Rosa Luxemburg. Wikipedia, for example, uses this quote to claim she “criticiz[ed] the Bolsheviks, presciently warning of their dictatorship.” Mitchell Cohen uses the same quote to make the…

Chomsky and Prashad: Three major threats to life on Earth that we must address in 2021

January 9, 2021 Wame Handa

Posted Jan 06, 2021 by Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad This article was produced by Globetrotter. Large parts of the world—outside of China and a few other countries—face a runaway virus, which has not been stopped because of criminal incompetence by governments. That these governments in wealthy countries cynically set aside the basic scientific protocols released by the World Health Organization and by scientific organizations reveals their malicious practice. Anything less than focused attention to managing the virus by testing, contact tracing, and isolation—and if this does not suffice, then…

Don’t Be Fooled: The Most Diverse Cabinet in History Is Pure Demagogy

January 8, 2021January 8, 2021 Wame Handa

Post on: January 8, 2021 Jimena VergaraOlivia Wood Biden boasts that his new cabinet “looks like America.” However, whether the cabinet “looks like” the working class has nothing to do with their interests and politics. Make no mistake: these politicians will always put the capitalists above the workers. Liberals are celebrating what is shaping up to be the most diverse cabinet ever. The new president wants to use the “diversity card” to hide the fact that his cabinet will govern for the super-rich, by applying the neoliberal recipe in times…

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas…After a Socialist Revolution

December 25, 2020 Wame Handa

Post on: December 25, 2015 Julia Wallace A revolutionary salute to all comrades and to all comrades—Good Fight! ‘Twas the night before some ChristmasAnd in every placeThe future socialist revolution saved the entire human raceAnd Christmas was filled with happiness, solidarity and joyChildren worldwide sang, got and shared their toys And words like “double shift”and “overtime” disappearedInstead it’s not work we make crafts, gifts and cheerBecause under socialism no one works more than 20 hours a week tops‘Cause under capitalism we work more hours to make money for the boss And the…

The Pandemic and Vaccine Nationalism

December 19, 2020 Wame Handa

Post on: December 19, 2020 Claudia Cinatti “Vaccine nationalism” reproduces the geopolitical rivalries and tensions that have been building up since the 2008 capitalist crisis. Ultimately, it is a mirror of both capitalist competition and the irrationality of a system that transforms everything it touches — from the superfluous to the indispensable for life — into merchandise and profit. During November, some of the hundreds of vaccines in development against Covid-19 were approved, among them the one produced by the laboratory Pfizer (and its German partner BioNTech). While these vaccines…

Cooperatives and socialism: Prof Wolff on All Things Co-op

December 15, 2020 Wame Handa

Professor Wolff recently joined the hosts of All Things Co-op in a special event to talk about cooperatives, Marxist theory, critiques of capitalism, and more. In this conversation Prof Wolff shared many personal stories, including how his French father’s determination created a Latin class for him to take in his Ohio high school, his experiences in Ivy League schools, and how he became interested in cooperatives. Wolff: “I spent 10 years of my life in these Ivy League places and they were constantly telling me economics is price theory and…

Capitalism Always Produces Racism

December 13, 2020December 13, 2020 Wame Handa

A new wave of anti-racist activists are taking to the streets to protest and stand against police violence. This highlights the importance of theoretical perspectives that understand racism as integral to capitalism. These perspectives must go beyond an identity politics that fails to acknowledge the role of class distinctions in perpetuating racism. People across the world are rising up to protest the blatant, racist murder of George Floyd by now ex-officer Derek Chauvin. From Minneapolis to New Zealand, thousands upon thousands of people are breaking quarantine to join together and…

Can U.S. Hegemony Be Restored?

December 13, 2020 Wame Handa

Post on: December 6, 2020 Scott Cooper Joe Biden wants to return U.S. imperialism to “business as usual” — but conditions have changed. It was May 25, 2017. Donald Trump had been sworn in four months earlier and was on his first foreign presidential trip. That day, at a formal meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries, he called on them to spend more money on security and refused to endorse Article 5 of the 1949 treaty, which treats an armed attack on any one member as an attack on…

Climate Catastrophe May Be Imminent but a Better World Is Still Possible

December 13, 2020 Wame Handa

Post on: January 11, 2020 James Dennis Hoff After years of dithering, the UN has finally admitted that, given the lack of action by the world’s most powerful economies, there is practically no chance of avoiding global temperature increases above 1.5°C and little chance of remaining below 2°C. Such an increase would have potentially catastrophic consequences, but how we adapt to this new world is up to us. Scientists and climate activists have been saying it for years, but a new UN report shows conclusively that the 2015 Paris Agreement has largely…