Portside

Takeaways from 2023

A time to try the soul of humanity

Sorting through BRICS, Guatemala joins the Pink Tide, Islamophobia divides the French left, and more

The rise of the Brics is not enough to displace the US or avert a third world war.

Theory, history and strategic thinking— ‘Take it easy, but take it’

The economic consequences of capitalism’s profit-driven movement out of its old centers (Western Europe, North America, and Japan) brought capitalism there to its current crisis.

Since we are listening to muted voices, what about little Nahel's voice? The 14-year-old passenger sitting next to him in the car related that Nahel's last words like George Floyd were for his mother: "Say goodby to Mama and grandma. He shot me."

The new chief of the BRICS bloc’s New Development Bank, Brazil’s leftist ex-President Dilma Rousseff, revealed they are gradually moving away from the US dollar, promising at least 30% of loans in local currencies of members.

Reader Comments - Fast Food Strike, Low-Wage Workers Struggle for More than Wages; TPP - LAtest Leak; Hillary Clinton, Fracking and 2016; Eduardo Galeano; CIA Infiltration at Home; Anne Braden; Sundown Towns; 'Driving While White'; Cuba Coops; NYT and Russian Wages; Charter Schools; Walton Wealth; Announcements: Walden Bello in New York; Vietnam - The Power of Protest and In Defense of the Public Square - Washington

BRICS and the SCO are the two largest independent international organizations to develop over the past decade. What role these new organizations will play internationally is not clear. Certainly sanction regimens will be harder to maintain because the SCO and the BRICS create alternatives. South Africa, for instance, announced that it would begin buying Iran oil in the next few months, an important breach in the sanctions against Iran.