What Westerners call the West or Western civilization is a geopolitical space that emerged in the 16th century and expanded continuously until the 20th century. On the eve of World War I, about 90% of the globe was Western or Western-dominated: Europe, Russia, the Americas, Africa, Oceania and (...)

The failures of liberalism made illiberalism popular. But the inevitable crises of the Marcos-Duterte regime offer opportunities for progressive organizing.
As a progressive activist, I am dismayed at the election of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the former dictator, by a landslide in the (...)


Putin has been caught in a political ambush. The West has detonated the financial "atom bomb" - but risks being hit for it. China is pushing back against Washington, but is not aligning with Moscow and may hold the keys to a long-term exit. There are lessons for the left.

On 24 February 2022, the day after the celebration of "Fatherland Day" in Russia, Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to attack Ukraine.
This is a crime against humanity, in the sense of the "crime of aggression" defined by the Statute of the International Criminal Court (Article 8 bis) and an (...)

The long course of history shows that imperialism resolves its contradictions through war, and when crises of covetousness and tension are at their peak, whether they are internal conflicts or confrontations between great powers, peace remains a utopia. There is no such thing as good (...)

Since February, the war in Ukraine has been spilling a lot of ink and, unfortunately, a lot of blood. Images from Ukraine are constantly circulating in the media and on social networks. The left is no exception. Opinion pieces are numerous, often repeating themselves and sometimes answering (...)

It is possible to say that underdevelopment afflicted me when I was 13 years old. On January 20, 1949 I became underdeveloped along with two billion other people of the non-western world, the former colonies, when president Truman took office and adopted the word as a political emblem of (...)

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine took much of the world by surprise. It is an unprovoked and unjustified attack that will go down in history as one of the major war crimes of the 21st century, argues Noam Chomsky in the exclusive interview for Truthout that follows. Political considerations, such (...)

Ukraine’s sovereignty cannot be questioned. The invasion of Ukraine is illegal and must be condemned. The mobilization of civilians ordered by the Ukrainian president can be read as a desperate act, but it does suggest that a guerrilla war looms in the future. Putin should remember the experience of the US in Vietnam: no matter how powerful, an invader’s regular army will ultimately meet with defeat if the people being invaded rise in arms against it. All this makes us antecipate an incalculable loss of innocent human life. Still barely recovered from the pandemic, Europe is bracing itself for a new challenge, one of unfathomable proportions. In the face of all this, one’s perplexity could not be greater.

The working class of the twenty-first century is a class in formation, as one would expect in a world where capitalism has only recently become universal. At the same time, Marx himself reminded us long ago, in speaking of the development of classes in England where they were “most classically (...)

For a hundred years, Europe has been on the brink of war while healing the wounds of the previous war. Each time, the reasons are different, but they have in common the fact that, although they were born here, they take the world with them and thus become global. (...) Peace was to last. The peace that lasted was the one made possible by the Cold War and the many regional hot wars in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. What’s new now?

Amid Israel’s turn to the right and the resurgence of armed groups in the Palestinian territories, recent horrific events highlight the dangers of diplomatic inaction.

The media keep silent about the violence of the Venezuelan opposition and the prevailing repression by the right-wing governments of Latin America. The Right’s strategy of an institutional coup faces serious limits, but the Left must address this new threat, supporting anti-imperialist decisions and making a distinction between the capitalist boycott and the government’s ineffectiveness.

Adhering to social-democratic standards, the post-progressive “critical left” objects to Chavismo, dismissing the danger of a coup, and mistakenly identifying authoritarianism as the main danger. The dogmatists overlook the main enemy and converge with the conservatives or slip toward passive neutrality.

The Right only wants elections it is sure it will win. In these very adverse conditions, the Constituent Assembly re-opens opportunities and points to a re-encounter with radical intellectual thought.

In Brazil, fighting the spread of Covid-19 also means fighting President Jair Bolsonaro, who continues to deny the seriousness of the virus. In this context, Brazil’s vulnerable populations - including indigenous peoples - are even more affected.