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Politics

Welcome to our collection of articles dedicated to green politics. As our world grapples with pressing environmental and societal challenges, the green political movement emerges as a beacon of change.

These articles explore core areas of green politics such as: degrowth, demilitarization, union and worker rights, and anti-capitalism.

Discover the nuances of degrowth as we examine strategies to reshape economies, moving away from military and capitalist growth models toward a more balanced, regenerative approach. Explore the imperative of demilitarization, unraveling the environmental and social impacts of excessive military expenditures, and delving into proposals for redirecting resources towards constructive, peace-building endeavors. Anti-capitalism is a key theme, challenging the prevailing economic systems that prioritizes profit over people and the environment. Union and worker rights in politics is another key area. Our articles dissect the green political stance on restructuring economies to prioritize social justice, environmental sustainability, and community well-being.

This thought-provoking content analyzes the intersectionality of these principles, offering insights into how green politics seeks to create a world where ecological responsibility, demilitarization, and anti-capitalist values converge for the betterment of society and the planet.

We hope you enjoy these explorations of the progressive ideals of green politics, providing you with valuable perspectives, informed analyses, and potential solutions to the challenges we face. Stay engaged, informed, and inspired, and let’s pave the way toward a future guided by the principles of degrowth, demilitarization, and anti-capitalism.

Samir Amin on the Theory of Multipolarity

Monthly Review Editors

It is almost universally recognized today that we are living in a multipolar world, symbolized by the continuing decline of U.S. hegemony; the economic stagnation of the imperial triad of the United States, Europe, and Japan; and the rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). But the historical and theoretical significance of this is in dispute. The foremost theorist of multipolarity was Samir Amin, through his concept of “delinking,” which he developed throughout his career. Amin’s notion of delinking has often been misconstrued as an argument for economic autarky, something he strongly rejected. Rather, delinking is conceived in his analysis as a relational category directed at a complex and changing historical reality. It does not mean withdrawal from the world economy, which he said would be like moving “to the moon,” but rather finding a way to sever connections with the main mechanisms of imperial dominance.

It’s Time To Give Up Hope For A Better Climate & Get Heroic

Pamela Swanigan

Some 80 years after Collier and Tolkien laid out their visions, the question of how best to respond to the devastation of the known and semi-known world has become the topic of our time. Within this discussion, hope is in high rotation and might even be seen as the main rhetorical mode of the crisis-response debate. The traditional rhetoric of hope, long used in distorted and dishonest ways within the environmental movement, is proving unfit for our current omnicrisis, and Collier’s more distant vision, appealing as it is, has no place in an era when the future turns out to have been dying back from the leading edge for decades now. It’s clear the messaging needs to shift.

US Government Paid PR Firm to Track and Vilify Critics of GMOs and Pesticides

Claire Robinson

Now it has emerged that the White House Writers Group also worked with v-Fluence and the US government to turn Brexit into “a major opportunity for US agriculture and the nation as a whole” by lowering the UK’s environmental standards from EU levels, facilitating the entry of American GMOs and pesticide-contaminatedproducts.

Review of Power Lines: Building a Labor-Climate Justice Movement, edited by Jeff Ordower and Lindsay Zafir (The New Press, 2024), 217 pp.

Steve Early

Union Members & Climate Justice Advocates: Partners or Adversaries?         –By Steve Early   A familiar scene played out in the city council chambers of Richmond, California last May. For the last 20 years, since members of the anti-Chevron Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) first got elected to the council, any measure before that body affecting the city’s largest employer and business tax payer has been hotly debated. Local environmental justice organizations, like Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) mobilize their working-class members to attend and sign up to speak during the time allotted for “public comment.” […]

It’s Time to Organize or Die

Kim Scipes

Article argues that we on the left must organize with our friends and neighbors to begin the process of building forces for social change. Discusses strengths and weaknesses of PARC, a community cultural center in Michigan City, Indiana, to see what can usefully be shared from their experiences in that city.

The Uhuru 3 Verdict is in: We Work for Black People, not Russia!

Omali Yeshitela

Official statement by Chairman Omali Yeshitela on behalf of the Uhuru 3, including Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel On September 12, 2024, a jury in the federal courthouse in Tampa, Florida repudiated the more serious charge of the U.S. government’s frame-up of the Uhuru 3 by finding myself, along with Penny Hess and Jesse Nevel, NOT GUILTY of being agents of the Russian government.

The Black Alliance for Peace Condemns U.S. Convictions of Uhuru 3 As A Fascist Farce

BAP Coordinating Committee

After being forced to acquit Omali Yeshitela, Jesse Nevel, and Penny Hess – the “Uhuru 3” – on being agents of Russia, a U.S. federal court jury resorted to the sham conviction of “conspiracy,” in what amounted to them being guilty of internationalism and the work of liberating African people. The state’s claim is that the defendants are guilty of “planning to sow discord and inflame American political tensions at the behest of Russia,” a charge carrying a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Harsha Walia: Democratic Party Laid Groundwork for Ani-Migrant Border Policy

October Krausch

In this exclusive interview, Walia discusses building supportive containers for new organizers in this moment of heightened mobilization for Palestine, celebrity culture and the U.S. presidential election, and what we can all learn from international struggles.

From 11 September to 7 October: The fake ‘War on Terror’ Collapses

Pepe Escobar

For years, the US executed Israel’s regional destabilization program using phantom terrorists as justification for the ‘War on Terror.’ But 7 October 2023 killed Washington’s never-ending war project – with a flip of the switch, US adversaries have now turned the ‘Long War’ on Israel.