Portside

It is important for as many people as possible to get involved in this next phase of the fight to end U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen, because this is the world's best chance of ending this nightmare, as United Nations aid chief Mark Lowcock warned of Yemen experiencing "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades with millions of victims."

This is not “democracy promotion," it is regime change, by any means necessary.

The number of people deemed to be at risk for poverty and social exclusion is at 27.9 percent.

On Friday, a group of members of Congress published a letter opposing the threatened sanctions. It began, “We write to express our deep alarm regarding the escalating political, economic and social crisis in Venezuela and urge you to work with our regional partners to help prevent a civil war. We strongly recommend that you support negotiations mediated by respected external actors such as Pope Francis, who enjoys credibility with broad segments of Venezuela’s people.

Venezuela does not have the religious or sectarian divisions that have fueled the civil wars, mass slaughter, and chaos of Libya, Syria, or Iraq ― all countries where the US/major media narrative about the results of successful or attempted regime change turned out to be horrifically wrong. But the political polarization in Venezuela since Chávez was elected in 1998 has been overwhelmingly along class and therefore racial lines as the two are highly correlated.

About that wall: if the Mexican economy had just continued to grow post-1980, as it did for the two decades prior, Mexicans would have an average income at European levels today. Extremely few Mexicans would take big risks to live or work in the US.

International media has provided a constant stream of stories and editorials about the collapse of the Venezuelan economy. Shortages of food and medicine, hours-long lines, incomes eroded by triple-digit inflation have dominated press reports. Adherents to this explanation say the downward spiral will continue until the chavistas are removed from power, either through elections or through a coup (most pundits don't care which). The reality is more complicated.

As these and other thoughtful observers acknowledge, the question is not an easy one. On the one hand, in the U.K., the movement to leave is led by the right — with a generous sprinkling of racist elements — and a Brexit victory would likely strengthen their hand. On the other hand, the EU has increasingly become a neoliberal project and — partly because neoliberalism generally requires it — an anti-democratic one.

According to the U.S. federal judge that has held Argentina financially captive since 2014, all the people of Argentina had to do get a tentative agreement with their vulture fund debt holders was choose the right president to run their country. “Put simply, President Macri’s election changed everything,” Judge Thomas Griesa said when announcing the tentative agreement that would allow Argentina to borrow on the international market again and pay its bills.

A new party of the Left in Spain has surprised pundits by winning big in last Sunday's elections by running on an an-austerity program. Mark Weisbrot offers some background and an analysis of how these developments fit within the overall "post-recession" Eurozone crisis.