/09

The Death of Stalin, The Other Side of Everything, Insyriated—The filmmakers’ inability to deal with complex questions, or worse - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/30/tff4-s30.html

https://www.wsws.org/asset/5a91f6e0-1427-4003-8250-a3b90d28a477/image.jpg

Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin is a fatally ill-conceived “black comedy” about the demise of the gravedigger of the Russian Revolution, Joseph Stalin, in March 1953. The film is not so much maliciously anti-communist as it is, above all, historically clueless.

Iannucci and fellow screenwriters David Schneider and Ian Martin present the various surviving Stalinist officials, Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov, Anastas Mikoyan, Nikolai Bulganin and the rest, all of whom had gallons of blood on their hands, as a largely ineffectual bunch of bunglers and toadies, jockeying “comically” for position. The betrayal of the Russian Revolution was one of the greatest tragedies in world history. Iannucci’s film doesn’t begin to confront the vast significance of the events in the Soviet Union.

#staline #révolution_russe #ex-urss #union_soviétique

Trump à propos de Porto Rico : « vous pouvez crever. »

Trump to Puerto Rico : Your lives don’t matter - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/30/pers-s30.html

Trump to Puerto Rico: Your lives don’t matter
30 September 2017

Almost two weeks after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, all basic forms of social infrastructure in the US territory have completely collapsed.

Addressing the press yesterday, San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz said that she watched in horror as Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Elaine Duke called the government’s response to the hurricane a “good news story.”

To the contrary, Cruz warned, “something close to a genocide” is unfolding in Puerto Rico due to the government’s failed response. She “begged” Trump to fix the botched relief effort, adding, “We are dying here.”

#porto-rico #trump #désastre #ouragan

More than 52 million Americans live in economically distressed communities - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/28/pove-s28.html

A new analysis of Census data shows that the so-called economic recovery under the Obama administration was an unmitigated catastrophe for the 20 percent of the American population that live in the poorest areas of the United States and that gains of jobs and income have gone overwhelming to the top 20 percent richest areas.

“The 2017 Distressed Communities Report,” published by the Economic Innovation Group (EIG), analyzes the census data for 2011-2015 for people living in each of the nearly 7,500 American zip codes according to several criteria.

The EIG’s Distressed Communities Index (DCI) considers the percentage of the population without a high school diploma, the percentage of housing vacancies, the percentage of adults working, the percentage of the population in poverty, the median income ratio (the percentage of median income that a zip code has for its state), the change in employment from 2011 to 2015, and the change in the number of businesses in the same period.

#états-unis #pauvreté #inégalités

Why is the far-right benefiting from the crisis of capitalism? - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/28/pers-s28.html

Why is the far-right benefiting from the crisis of capitalism?
28 September 2017

Sunday’s election in Germany saw the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and collapse of the official left party, the Social Democratic Party. With more than 90 deputies in the incoming parliament, the entry of the AfD will mark the first time since the end of the Third Reich that outright fascists and racists participate in the national legislature.

Far from an exception, the electoral triumph of the neo-fascist party in Germany is part of a pattern being repeated again and again throughout Europe and internationally.

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Behind the electoral success of the far right in Germany - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/28/elec-s28.html

Behind the electoral success of the far right in Germany
By Peter Schwarz
28 September 2017

“How could it come to this?” Many people are asking themselves this question following the far right Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) electoral success in the federal elections held on Sunday.

With the AfD, more than 90 deputies—open Nazis, racists and xenophobes—are entering parliament 72 years after the downfall of Hitler’s Third Reich. Alexander Gaulland, the 76-year-old lead candidate, made this abundantly clear, calling for Germans to be proud of the achievements of German soldiers in two world wars—that is, to take pride in a criminal war of aggression, complicity in the Holocaust and the cold-blooded murder of millions of civilians, partisans and prisoners of war.

#extrême-droite #allemagne #europe

« ...Trump tweeted. “Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars...owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with ... »

C’est tellement gros qu’on a du mal à penser que ce n’est pas un fake énorme

Trump to devastated Puerto Rico: Wall Street must be paid! - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/27/pers-s27.html

The US colonial territory of Puerto Rico has been devastated by a disaster that has left its population of 3.5 million in the midst of a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe.

Much of the island looks like it was hit by an atomic bomb. The already fragile electrical grid has been largely destroyed, leaving millions literally in the dark and without power for air-conditioning or even fans, as Puerto Rico faces 90-degree temperatures and high humidity.

#trump #oligarchie
#trump

German conservative newspaper threatens Poland with territorial demands - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/16/pola-s16.html

German conservative newspaper threatens Poland with territorial demands
By Peter Schwarz
16 September 2017

The Polish government is demanding reparations from Germany for the war crimes committed during the Second World War. The demand is not new, but has never before been raised so persistently.

The chairman of the governing right-wing nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS), Jaroslav Kaczynski, breathed new life into the reparations debate in late June. Ever since, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo has issued repeated demands on the issue. She told the RNFFM radio station on September 7, “Poland has a right to reparations, and the Polish state has the right to demand them.” Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski stated that Poland’s demand amounted to €840 billion.

The Bureau of Research of the Polish parliament published a 40-page report on Monday justifying the Polish demand. According to this, an official 1953 statement in which the Polish government relinquished its right to claim reparations from Germany is not legally valid because it was made under pressure from the Soviet Union and only applied to the German Democratic Republic (GDR), not Germany.

Allemagne #pologne #extrême-droite #frontières #territoires #différend_frontalier #différend_territorial

Millions of European workers in precarious employment - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/26/prec-s26.html

Millions of European workers in precarious employment
By Verena Nees
26 September 2017

On the 150th anniversary of Marx’s Capital, a new report reveals how European capitalism, headed by the bureaucracy of the European Union, has created a huge army of precarious workers, plunging millions into poverty.

On 12 September, the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel published an article by the research network Investigate Europe titled “Europe’s new reserve army.” The report authored by Harald Schumann and Elisa Simantke presents shocking figures.

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Poverty, inequality on the rise in Spain as independence vote looms - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/26/spai-s26.html

Poverty, inequality on the rise in Spain as independence vote looms
By James Lerner
26 September 2017

The worsening social crisis in Spain has been virtually ignored in the run-up to the October 1 vote on Catalan independence.

Official Spanish government figures for August show a major increase in unemployment, signaling a slowdown in economic growth and pointing toward a growth in social inequality.

#pauvreté #déclassement #extrême-droite #populisme #europe #inégalités

The rise of the AfD and the rightward lurch of official politics in Germany - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/25/pers-s25.html

The rise of the AfD and the rightward lurch of official politics in Germany
25 September 2017

For the first time since the fall of the Nazis, a right-wing extremist party is entering Germany’s national parliament. With 13 percent of the vote in Sunday’s federal election, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the third largest party in parliament, finishing behind the governing Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which suffered an electoral collapse. The CDU/CSU obtained 33 percent of the vote, its worst result in over 60 years.

The AfD has acquired political influence far beyond its actual strength. It set the tone in the election campaign with its agitation for a crackdown on refugees and the strengthening of the state’s repressive apparatus. All of the establishment parties sought to outdo the AfD with pledges to hire more police and deport more refugees, thereby bolstering the far-right party. Why vote for the more established parties’ versions of the AfD’s chauvinist and authoritarian politics when you could vote for the real thing? The CDU/CSU lost more than a million voters to the AfD, while the SPD lost 470,000 and the Left Party lost 400,000.

#allemagne #extrême-droite

US Census report shows increasing social inequality - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/15/cens-s15.html

US Census data from 2016 released on Tuesday shows increasing social inequality amid a small gain in household income that is offset by a massive growth of personal debt and rising living costs.

The data tracks the ongoing redistribution of wealth from the working class to the wealthy as a result of the pro-Wall Street policies of both the Republican and Democratic parties. It substantiates the oligarchic character of the United States.
Social inequality

The Gini index, used to measure social inequality, with higher figures indicating a wider economic divide, rose slightly from 2015 (.479) to 2016 (.481). The 2016 figure, according to rankings in the CIA World Factbook, makes the US slightly more equal than Madagascar and less equal than Mexico.

In terms of aggregate income share, the shift from 2015 to 2016 is as follows:

#états-unis #inégalités #pauvreté

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry and the case for socialism - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/15/gren-s15.html

The Grenfell Tower Inquiry and the case for socialism
By the Socialist Equality Party (UK)
15 September 2017

The official opening of the government-convened Grenfell Tower Inquiry is an affront to the victims and survivors of the terrible inferno that swept the 24-storey tower block in west London on June 14, killing at least 80 people.

In his 45-minute statement, Chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick spoke of remembering those who had suffered with “humility and compassion,” “dismay,” and “sadness.”

The cynicism of his remarks was made clear by his refusal to take questions from those in attendance. Just 200 places were available for those wanting to attend, and then on a “first come, first serve” basis. Moore-Bick stood immediately after he had finished speaking, turned his back on the audience and left the room, to cries of “rubbish.”

#londres #grenfell_tower #incendie

Why is Amazon deleting negative reviews of Hillary Clinton’s new book? - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/15/clin-s15.html

Amazon, the world’s largest online reseller, has deleted over 1,000 negative comments on Hillary Clinton’s newly-released book, What Happened, to give the book a five-star rating.

The book’s Amazon user rating is higher than the most popular editions of War and Peace and A Tale of Two Cities, widely considered to be among the greatest books ever written.

Early on Wednesday, the day of its release, the book had an extremely low rating of two and a half stars, based on nearly 1,700 reviews. But that figure was slashed to just over 500 later in the day, and stands at 623 at the time of this writing. The rating shot up to 4.9, rounded up to five stars in the graphic shown to users.

#google #censure #hillary_clinton

Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi and the fraud of human rights imperialism - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/14/pers-s14.html

The plight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing the Burmese military’s rampage in the western state of Rakhine is a devastating exposure of the fraud of human rights imperialism practiced by the US and its allies and their chief political asset in Burma (Myanmar)—Aung San Suu Kyi.

The brutality and scale of the military operations has been the occasion of a great deal of hypocritical handwringing in the UN and by those who have aggressively promoted Suu Kyi as a “democracy icon.” Despite the media and humanitarian agencies being barred from the operational area, there is substantial and mounting evidence that the Burmese army has been systematically torching villages and numerous eyewitness accounts of soldiers gunning down civilians.

#birmanie #rohingyas

Australian television program highlights flammable cladding crisis - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/14/clad-s14.html

“Four Corners,” the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s flagship television current affairs program, last week screened a disturbing exposure of the widespread use of flammable cladding in Australia’s deregulated construction industry.

Made in response to the June 14 London Grenfell_Tower fire, the 40-minute program recalled the dangerous 2014 Lacrosse apartment fire in Melbourne and brought together a range of experts—fire and building engineers and firefighters.

#londres

Yemen’s cholera outbreak surpasses 600,000 - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/07/yeme-s07.html

Et on en parle pratiquement pas.

Yemen’s cholera outbreak surpasses 600,000
By Bill Van Auken
7 September 2017

The humanitarian crisis unfolding in Yemen—the worst in the world—is an “entirely man-made catastrophe,” the product of a the two-and-a-half-year-old Saudi-led and US-backed war of aggression, the UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights stated in a report issued on Tuesday.

The war, which has increasingly assumed near-genocidal proportions, has killed at least 14,000 civilians, maimed many thousands more, displaced 2 million and left at least 7.3 million on the brink of famine.

Meanwhile, the country is confronting the worst cholera epidemic on record, with the World Health Organization and Yemen’s health ministry reporting 612,703 people infected and 2,048 of them dying from the disease since April. While the spread of the epidemic has slowed over the past two months, there are still 3,000 new cases reported daily.

#yémen #choléra #santé

#Documenta 14 exhibition in #Kassel, Germany: The censorship and defaming of #art - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/06/docu-s06.html

https://www.wsws.org/asset/feff5878-1458-4149-adbc-2170236a4c2f/image.jpg

Two works of art dealing with the fate of refugees and exiles have become the focus for fierce attacks at this year’s documenta art exhibition in Kassel, in central Germany.