Leftnews.org | News and Views from the Left

by Editors — last modified 2019-04-04T12:09:49-04:00

Contributors: Faiz Ahmed, JBB, Graham H. Cox, R. Dubois, JA Cox

The best of the political left-wing from around the web.

The Liberal Embrace of War

— by JBB — last modified May 23, 2019 12:30 PM

By Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone | American interventionists learned a lesson from Iraq: pre-empt the debate. Now everyone is for regime change

Green Party support grows as alarms sound on climate crisis

— by JBB — last modified May 23, 2019 09:17 AM

Duncan Cameron | With 17 elected Green Party members at the provincial and federal levels, the Greens look to be competitive in a number of federal ridings across Canada in the October 21 election.

As processed food displaces nutritious food, more people gain weight and get sick

— by JBB — last modified May 23, 2019 09:16 AM

Ed Finn | The big corporations that grow, process, refine, salt-and-sugar-stuff, calorie-maximize, and sell the foods that make us sick derive enormous profits from doing so.

Foreign Aid That Costs an Arm and a Leg — Literally

— by JBB — last modified May 23, 2019 09:10 AM

By Phyllis Bennis | OtherWords.org | The U.S.-funded Israeli military is shooting so many unarmed Palestinians that the UN is warning of an amputation crisis in Gaza.

The Strategic Question Revisited: Ten Theses

— by JBB — last modified May 23, 2019 09:03 AM

Panagiotis Sotiris | Socialist Project | 1) We must rethink popular sovereignty in a communist horizon. 2) ‘Left Keynesianism’ is not enough. 3) We need to put transition back into the transitional program. 4) It is not simply about ‘left governance’ even if it might include a left government. 5) We need a fresh conception of dual power. 6) We need to think in terms of a new historical bloc. 7) We need organizations that are laboratories of strategy and hope. 8) We need a new internationalism. 9) We need organizations that are laboratories of strategy and hope. 10) We need to learn from defeat.

Why Carbon Credits For Forest Preservation May Be Worse Than Nothing | ProPublica

— by Graham H. Cox — last modified May 22, 2019 10:09 AM

But the desperate hunger for these carbon credit plans appears to have blinded many of their advocates to the mounting pile of evidence that they haven’t — and won’t — deliver the climate benefit they promise. I looked at projects going back two decades and spanning the globe and pulled together findings from academic researchers in far-flung forest villages, studies published in obscure journals, foreign government reports and dense technical documents. I enlisted a satellite imagery analysis firm to see how much of the forest remained in a preservation project that started selling credits in 2013. Four years later, only half the project areas were forested. In case after case, I found that carbon credits hadn’t offset the amount of pollution they were supposed to, or they had brought gains that were quickly reversed or that couldn’t be accurately measured to begin with. Ultimately, the polluters got a guilt-free pass to keep emitting CO₂, but the forest preservation that was supposed to balance the ledger either never came or didn’t last.

Distorting ‘Democracy’ in Venezuela Coverage

— by JBB — last modified May 22, 2019 09:04 AM

Greg Shupak examines the (mis)use of the term "democracy" when it comes to the media portrayal of the Venezuelan opposition.

Venezuela: Maduro Proposes Early Parliamentary Elections as ANC Extends Mandate

— by JBB — last modified May 22, 2019 09:02 AM

By Ricardo Vaz | Venezuelanalysis.com | Let’s see who gets the most votes,” Maduro challenged the opposition.

A debt Jubilee for America?

— by JBB — last modified May 22, 2019 08:26 AM

by Paul Craig Roberts | Michael-Hudson.com | This is an economy headed down, not up. Clearly, Hammurabi did far better for the Babylonians than Washington can do for Americans.

Election-Meddling Follies, 1945-2019

— by JBB — last modified May 22, 2019 08:23 AM

By Tom Engelhardt | Source: TomDispatch.com (via Znet) | So the issue isn’t faintly whether Russian electoral meddling was despicable or not. The issue is that it’s been covered here, like so much else has in this century, as yet another case of American exceptionalism (but never narcissism). As on 9/11 — forget that first 9/11 in Chile — we eternally stand alone in our experiences because, by definition, we are the special ones, the ones who matter.

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