Refaat Alareer and the Spirit of Resistance

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Back in the USSR honors the murdered Palestinian poet and educator Refaat Alareer and the spirit of resistance that will never die.

The Genocidal Violence of Apartheid

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As the Apartheid state of Israel resumes its genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people in Gaza, the world must not look away.

 

Cutting Through Apartheid State Propaganda

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As the Israeli Apartheid regime continues its genocidal rampage in Gaza, it is crucial that we see through the lies that it tries to sell us through the Western mainstream media.

 

From the River to the Sea

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Vijay Prashad explains why Israeli Apartheid cannot win and why Palestine will prevail.

Voices from Palestine

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In this week's episode you will hear from a Palestinian academic who lost more than thirty members of her extended family in Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza. You will also hear from a long-time Palestinian activist who recently faced brutal torture at the hands of Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank.

Gaza 2023

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Palestine will be Free

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The latest episode of Back in the USSR discusses the latest chapter in Palestine's heroic resistance against Israeli Apartheid and colonial occupation.

 

Liberation in the Global South and the Threat of Fascism in the West

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You’re listening to Back in the USSR on CFRU 93.3 FM. I am Siegfried. One of the major subjects that I’ve talked about recently is the expansion of BRICS, this international economic partnership originally between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, which has now expanded to include Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Argentina and Ethiopia. Numerous factors, especially the warlike posture the U.S. has taken with regard to China and Russia, have driven these countries, including several key U.S. allies, to move away from the U.S.-dominated global economic system. With these countries increasingly interconnected economically and using their own currencies for trade instead of the U.S. dollar, the longstanding global reserve currency, and steering clear of institutions like the IMF and World Bank, big changes are coming, including for those of us living in North America. I want to stress that because in Canada we often think of ourselves as somehow insulated from international developments. If the U.S. dollar and the U.S. economy lose global supremacy, which is now all but certain, it means that the U.S. and the Fortune 500 companies will not be in a position to exploit foreign markets, labor, natural resources etc. in the way that it has become accustomed. It’s going to be one player among many, not the boss of the system. That’s amazing news for Global South countries in South America, Africa and Asia that have been exploited for decades by U.S. and Western corporations and had their lands and resources stolen and exploited, often by military violence by Western countries, but it’s also going result in major domestic changes in places like the U.S, Canada, and the UK.

When Western corporations cannot reliably exploit foreign markets, labor and natural resources to make windfall profits, they will super-exploit domestic labor, markets and natural resources to do so, and do whatever it takes to maintain those profits. This is where fascism becomes a real possibility. Fascism, as it appeared in places like Italy and Germany during the last century, is a response to a weakening of the capitalist system in those countries. Germany lost its colonial empire after WW1 whilst Italy barely had any overseas dominions to speak of apart from Libya and Somalia. Capitalists in both countries faced rising working class resistance, rising calls for socialist transformation, rising labor costs, diminishing profit margins, and diminished international market share. All of these are challenges that the U.S. capitalist class is facing now, even if calls for socialism have died down in recent years, the United Auto Workers are about to go on strike (Elon Musk has apparently already removed them from Twitter as a result), UPS workers successfully struck in the summer and working class resistance is growing even as the U.S. economic and political power declines. It’s at times like this when fascism raises its ugly head. This the very real threat that working class and oppressed people in North America and Europe face today. Fascism is capitalism in decay.

To drive this point home, I want to play Michael Parenti’s talk “The Functions of Fascism.”

 

The BRICS and Ukraine

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You’re listening to Back in the USSR on CFRU 93.3 FM, I am Siegfried and I’ve got some good news and bad news tonight. I’ll start with the good news and that concerns the recent BRICS summit which just concluded in Johannesburg, South Africa last Friday. Now, if you haven’t been following international politics that much, you’d be forgiven for not knowing what the BRICS organization is. The name BRICS is an acronym for its member states: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. These five states, all fast-growing economies, originally came together in 2009 in a loose association based on economic cooperation and have since moved to create a full-fledged alternative to Western-led international economic institutions like the IMF and World Bank. This process of creating an alternative system was on the slow-track for a long time, but was accelerated to a remarkable degree after the U.S. and the European Union seized Russian assets and placed unprecedented sanctions on that country in response to the Ukraine War. With 1/3^rd of the world living under Western sanctions, even traditional U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia have come to realize that the U.S.-led economic order is not safe for them and that alternatives are needed. This has led to six new countries joining the BRICS organization at the recent summit in South Africa: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Other countries are set to join next year when Russia hosts the next BRICS summit in 2024. What these very diverse countries, some of which are U.S. allies, have in common is that they no longer wish to rely on the U.S. dollar for international trade and seek to conduct trade in multiple currencies in order to secure their financial and economic independence so they won’t have to worry about the U.S. coming in, imposing sanctions and destroying their economy because they don’t like the actions of this or that government. This is really all about self-determination and the fact that so many countries are seeking to secure their independence by cooperating economically under a common international organization like the BRICS is a major step forward in undermining and counteracting the forces of imperialism and empire. In short, it’s good news, VERY good news. 

 

I said that I also had some bad news in addition to the good news about the BRICS summit and the advancement of self-determination among Global South countries. The bad news is that the Ukraine War continues and that the U.S. and its Western allies are likely to try to keep it going until after the U.S. presidential elections in November 2024. In June 2023 Ukraine launched what it called a “counter-offensive” against Russia which has now burned on for nearly three months with almost nothing to show for it. The Western media is openly calling it a failure, while outlining the tens of thousands of casualties that Ukraine has suffered for minimal territorial gains. For a brief period in mid-August the media even entertained the resumption of peace talks as a way out of the war. But that seems to have ended and the West is now pressing Ukraine to keep throwing itself at the Russians even as manpower and ammunition reserves are dwindling. In other words, the imperial overlords in Washington want to fight this war to the last Ukrainian and don’t really care about the Ukrainian people at all. So, while the cause of self-determination is advancing with the BRICS summit, the imperialists haven’t given up either.

Michael Parenti: The U.S War on Yugoslavia

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In light of the current tensions in West Africa surrounding the situation in Niger, I would like to broadcast this talk by Dr Michael Parenti from 1999 in which he outlines the horrific destruction of the nation of Yugoslavia at the hands of Western Imperialism. Given that the U.S. and France are moving to plunge West Africa into war in 2023, we must ensure that the past does not repeat itself. Hands off Niger!

Niger and the Battle for Sovereignty

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On July 26 a military coup took place in the West African nation of Niger and today the drumbeat of war is sounding in that region as a coalition of African countries, acting at the behest of France and the United States, prepare to militarily intervene in Niger to restore the government that was overthrown. Because the new military government in Niger has done some very strange things since taking power last month: it has moved to nationalize the country’s natural resources, it has ordered French and U.S. troops to leave the country, it has sought to assert the Nigerien people’s sovereignty over their own land. And this is not something the American Empire and its various European appendages can tolerate. Niger is a rich country, like so many countries in the Global South, even though its people are poor. Its soil is full of gold reserves and the uranium supplies that France uses to power its nuclear industry. It’s the home of the biggest U.S. military base in West Africa. Its previous government was completely at the beck and call of Western corporations and military officials, even as its own people suffered in extreme poverty. There is a reason why, according to recent polls, 78% of Nigeriens supported the coup and pro-coup rallies have been attracting tens of thousands of participants. This is a nationalist coup, a progressive coup, in defiance of Western imperialism. In recent years, similar progressive coups have taken place in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, all with the aim of expelling Western troops and asserting national sovereignty in political and economic terms. Mali and Burkina Faso have nationalized their gold reserves, kicked out Western mining companies, and now the West is afraid of the same happening in Niger. This time they seem hell-bent on military intervention, because they view Niger as too strategic to lose.