Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter |
This Issue: Challenges and Opportunities
|
‘There is no alternative.’ That message, pronounced most succinctly and implacably by Margaret Thatcher more than 40 years ago, has been the motto of the neo-liberal capitalist order for decades. A slightly more cynical formulation might be: ‘This is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil.’
As the ‘necessary evils’ have grown and multiplied, so have various forms of resistance. Resistance has sometimes come from what could be broadly described as the ‘left,’ but more frequently in recent years, it has taken ‘populist,’ right-wing, or religious forms. The political parties which managed and epitomized that status quo, a status quo in which they take turns in pursuing the same neo-liberal policies while cynically promising ‘change,’ have in many countries seen their support collapse. Nevertheless they have soldiered on, repeating the same talking points about the ‘rules-based international order,’ ‘free trade,’ and the essential role of the US-NATO empire in preserving safeguarding peace.
Until the second coming of Donald Trump. Donald Trump and his billionaire buddies don’t care about the old system. They feel that American power entitles them to grab a much bigger piece of the pie. They don’t want to share the spoils, not with other countries, and not with working people, in the U.S. or anywhere else. Suddenly the leaders of other countries are panicking. Their slavish subordination to U.S. demands has undermined their own economies. The austerity they imposed on their own people so they could support the war in Ukraine (in large part by buying the products of the U.S. arms industry) has put them in a much worse position than they were a few years ago. And now the rug has been pulled out from under them. We are faced with an uncertain future which will undoubtedly bring a whole array of challenges. But the upheavals that lie before us, internationally and in our own country, will also present us with new opportunities. It is no longer possible to claim that ‘there is no alternative.’ On the contrary, new alternatives are precisely what we have to create.
One of the hardest tasks, especially for people who identify as ‘progressive’ or ‘left,’ will be to work with people who are also unhappy with how things are going, but who view anything labelled as ‘liberal,’ let alone ‘left,’ as suspicious. We, of course, tend to feel the same way about them. We have to overcome that, learn to talk together, figure out what we share, and live with differences on some issue. To change the world, we also have to change ourselves. Ulli Diemer |
|
|
With Trump’s tariffs, it’s time for a more self-reliant Canada |
Let’s dust ourselves off and make things by Canadians for Canadians, says Gordon Laxer. There is no use in making agreements with Donald Trump and his administration, because they have made it totally clear that they will break any agreement they don’t feel like keeping, anytime they want to. We need to fundamentally change our economic strategy. |
|
|
Yes, Trump is vulgar. But the US global shakedown is the same one as ever |
Jonathan Cook writes: “If there is one thing we can thank US President Donald Trump for, it is this: he has decisively stripped away the ridiculous notion, long cultivated by western media, that the United States is a benign global policeman enforcing a ‘rules-based order’.
Washington is better understood as the head of a gangster empire, embracing 800 military bases around the world. Since the end of the Cold War, it has been aggressively seeking “global full-spectrum domination”, as the Pentagon doctrine politely terms it... The innovation was that it all happened in front of the western press corps, in the Oval Office, rather than in a back room, out of sight. You either pay fealty to the Don or you get dumped in the river.” |
|
|
Slow Motion Ethnic Cleansing in Hebron |
Image Caption: Palestinian Water tanks destroyed by settlers. |
Ken Jones writes: “Israel’s ongoing continuous ethnic cleansing campaign is designed to push villagers off their land. The intention is not just to demolish homes, land rights, and mental health. It’s meant to demolish hope. But Palestinians will never give up hope. Every story of injustice we heard was told with a spirit of determined resilience and resistance — sumud, as it is called there.
No Palestinian we met was planning to leave or submit. Everyone appeared to be carrying on with life, with joy and humour, and with healthy relationships, despite the danger and indignities they were suffering. They refuse to live in fear. As one person said, “That’s what they want, for us to be afraid. They want us to leave. We will not fear and we will stay until this occupation is over.” |
|
|
Mexico’s new president Claudia Sheinbaum is active on many fronts as she faces northward, and it is impossible to say at this early moment how these sorts of questions will shape up during her six–year term, says Patrick Lawrence. But she brings a consciousness of larger matters to her presidency, as she makes repeatedly plain. Her fundamental cause is Mexican sovereignty, Mexican equality among nations, and the dignity of the Mexican people. Whatever red lines she may draw, one way or another, they will mark out these priorities.
|
|
|
Longing for Ramadan rituals that no longer exist |
Palestinian journalist Tareq S. Hajjaj remembers Ramadan in Gaza in the days before the horrors unleashed by Israel: “At this time, every year, my family would gather daily to share in conversations. I would roam the streets during the day, searching for stories and interviewing those who stand for hours working in the sun to feed their families, and then I would return home, where the children of the family were playing.” Now, “Whenever I talk to someone I know and ask them about what Ramadan is like in Gaza this year, they answer that they have lost many things and that they live this month like any other month of deprivation throughout the past year and a half of genocide.”
|
|
|
By Thomas Frank Thomas Frank’s 2008 book ‘The Wrecking Crew’ analyzes a not-so-long-ago period in American history, the early-to-mid 2000s, when another gang of conservatives took power in Washington with the intention of wrecking the state in order to impose a radical-right agenda. Lambert Strether‘s review presents lengthy excerpts from the book, accompanied by Strether’s comments on parallels between that period and the present. |
|
|
Canadian residents are racing to save the data in Trump's crosshairs |
Image Caption: An international guerilla archiving effort is under way to preserve copies of U.S. government web pages and data being rapidly taken offline by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. |
Guerilla effort underway to preserve medical, environmental data from deletion
an international guerilla archiving effort to preserve copies of U.S. government web pages and data being rapidly taken offline by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration |
|
|
| Scattered like ink on white paper, lost like a motherless child, broken like a cup fallen from a trembling hand, dizzy like winter waves, a mess like the floor after a wedding party, fading like a flock of birds in the sky, untouchable like wind in air yet stacked with emotions
and ready to burst. My vibrant self drifts away – a toy boat drowned in the river’s current.
Gone, too, are our memories, our laughter, our joy. An empty frame that once contained our family hangs on a broken wall. Asmaa Tayser Dwaima is a Palestinian writer, poet, artist, and dentist. After being displaced multiple times since October 2023, she currently shelters with her family in southern Gaza. |
|
|
Your support is needed to keep Connexions going |
All of the work of the Connexions project is done by volunteers, but our expenses include rent, phone and computer costs and technical support, as well as expenses related to our ongoing project of converting printed archival materials into digital formats. You can make a one time or regular monthly contribution through the Donate page on the Connexions website.
|
|
Many of us have made working for social justice a lifetime commitment. If you are thinking about leaving a legacy for social justice that will live on, you might want to consider leaving a bequest to Connexions in your will. If you'd like to discuss this option, please contact us: Connexions Archive and Library, 416-988-9586 or see the Bequest page.
|
|
|
Follow us on Facebook or Twitter |
|
|
Copyright Connexions 2025. Contents are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. This means you are welcome to share and republish the contents of this newsletter as long as you credit Connexions, and as long as you don’t charge for the content. This issue was edited by Ulli Diemer. |
|
|
|
