:: Analysis

Introduction: For many decades, mainstream social scientists, mostly conservative, have argued that political commitments and scientific research are incompatible. Against this current of opinion, others, mostly politically engaged social scientists, have argued that scientific research and political commitment are not contradictory.

Introduction: Over the past year, what appeared as hopeful signs, that Left governments were emerging as powerful alternatives to right-wing pro-US regimes, is turning into a historic rout, which will relegate them to the dustbin of history for many years to come.

Introduction: The Greek government is currently locked in a life and death struggle with the elite which dominate the banks and political decision-making centers of the European Union. What are at stake are the livelihoods of 11 million Greek workers, employees and small business people and the viability of the European Union.

Introduction: The balance sheet for 2014 and the prospects for 2015 provide us with a complex panorama of negative and positive outcomes. In most cases the advances, are not earth-shattering but open possibilities for further progress. The negative developments, however, have greater and more threatening systemic outcomes.

Introduction: China is in the midst of its second ‘cultural revolution' in a half century. While the first (under Chairman Mao Tse Tung) was intended to ‘revitalize socialism'; the current is directed to ‘moralizing' capitalism.

Introduction: The principle Nazi ideological prop that secured massive financial and political support from Germany's leading industrialists was the Communist and Soviet threat. The main Nazi military drive, absorbing two-thirds of its best troops, was directed eastward at conquering and destroying Russia.

Introduction: Over the past 30 years, wealth has grown exponentially and has become increasingly concentrated foremost in the upper .01%, then the .1%, followed by the 1% and the upper 10% - 20%.

Introduction: There are clear signs that a major war is about to break out in Ukraine: A war actively promoted by the NATO regimes and supported by their allies and clients in Asia (Japan) and the Middle East (Saudi Arabia).

Introduction: On November 9, 2014, Germany and its Western Allies, celebrated the ‘Fall of the Berlin Wall' and the subsequent‘re-unification'of the ‘two Germanys'. Prime Minister Merkel described the ‘historic event' as a “victory of freedom for all peoples in Europe and across the world.”

Introduction: The US-EU sponsored coup in the Ukraine and its conversion from a stable Russian trading partner, to a devastated EU economic client and NATO launch pad, as well as the subsequent economic sanctions against Russia for supporting the Russian ethnic majority in the Donbas region and Crimea, illustrate the dangerous vulnerability of the Russian economy and state.

Introduction: The NATO proxy war in the Ukraine started with the violent US-EU-sponsored overthrow of the elected government via a mob putsch in February 2014. This was well financed at $5 billion, according to President Obama's Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland.

Introduction: The Obama Administration actively pressured Europe to impose harsh sanctions on Russia in order to defend the violent takeover (‘regime change') in the Ukraine. England, France, Germany and the rest of the European regimes gave in to Washington's demands.

Introduction: Chaos reigns and spreads as enraged leaders in the US, Europe and their clients and allies pursue genocidal wars. Mercenary wars in Syria; Israel's terror bombing on Gaza; proxy wars in the Ukraine, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Somalia.

Introduction: Empires are not easy to sustain given the multiple enemies that they provoke: at the international level (imperial rivals and emerging new powers), at the national level (national resistance movements, unreliable clients and untrustworthy ‘Sepoy' armies) and at the local level (boycotts, sabotage and strikes).

Introduction: There is no question that over the past decade and a half, Europe, the US and Israel have engaged in a series of bloody wars, inequalities have increased throughout the globe, economic crisis has become endemic and, more recently, right-wing military and civilian regimes have swept to power throughout Asia, North Africa, Europe and Canada.

Introduction: Greece is experiencing a triple crisis which has a profound impact on the economy, society and political system. The economy has experienced a deep, prolonged depression lasting six years and continuing.

Introduction: The European parliamentary elections witnessed a major breakthrough for the right-wing parties throughout the region. The rise of the Right runs from the Nordic countries, the United Kingdom, the Baltic and Low countries, France, Central and Eastern Europe to the Mediterranean.

Introduction: The sweeping electoral victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India is the latest expression of the world-wide advance of a new power bloc which promises to impose a New World Order harnessing ethno-religious fanaticism and narrowly trained technocrats to capitalist absolutism.

How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III.
edited by Stephen Lendman.

James Petras is one of the contributors

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Introduction: Not since the US and EU took over Eastern Europe, including the Baltic countries, East Germany, Poland and the Balkans and converted them into military outposts of NATO and economic vassals, have the Western powers moved so aggressively to seize a strategic country, such as the Ukraine, posing an existential threat to Russia.

Meditations: Greece Past and Present :: Reflections on Odessa :: Conversations: Scholars and Farm Workers

New play by James Petras