From the Party Press in 2022
Today Thinking Things Through Is More Necessary Than Ever
As the world descends into an abyss of anarchy and violence as a result of the neo-liberal world order, every aspect of people's lives seems to be spinning out of their control. The U.S. and the big powers of Old Europe, with Canada in tow, imposed this neo-liberal world order after the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991.
A feature of the situation is that the practice and theory of liberal democratic institutions no longer function as means to sort out conflicts among rival factions at home or abroad, nor to maintain the legitimacy of their rule in the eyes of the people. At home, factions of the ruling elite resort to concentrating more and more powers in the hands of governing executives such as the Prime Minister's Office in Canada and Britain, or the Office of the President in the United States. Abroad, concentrations of power go by various names such as NATO, the G7, the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the European Union (EU) and many others. Nowadays, they rule through dictate, not negotiations.
The ruling elite impose their
demands through decree to wreck nations and wage wars of
destruction. Politics no longer exists, replaced with rule by
decree, using executive orders and other prerogative police
powers. All forums where political discourse took place prior to
the advent of the neo-liberal world order have been supplanted
with rule by decree and its corollary, the suppression of
freedom of speech, conscience and assembly. People are forced to
fend for themselves and, as such, forced to face the most
important challenge of our time, the necessity to forge a
collective consciousness that favours the peoples in opposition
to the ruling elite.
In this regard, an important feature of analyzing is not to confound the objective world with one's subjective impression of it. Rather than a reflection of the objective world and its concrete conditions, a subjective analysis can become an amalgam rendered through the prism of one's existing understanding from observing, reading and hearing.
For instance, people's thinking on the Ukraine conflict is all over the map. Some are persuaded that Russia is evil and its actions in Ukraine trump whatever crimes U.S./NATO has committed in the last thirty years, despite the fact those crimes are extensive and the U.S. and its war allies have never been held to account. In the U.S. and Europe, national security advisors at the highest levels are giving opinions on what the U.S./NATO warmongering alliance must do next and speculating on Russia's response.
Not a few people are doing their best to ascertain facts and put them on the table so as to fight against the campaign of lies, disinformation and warmongering of the U.S./NATO cabal. They reject the promotion of European chauvinism, racism and the glorification of neo-Nazis and mercenaries as freedom fighters. Many are being censored for their views and are acting courageously despite their defamation and persecution by the narrow private interests that have seized control of social media, as well as legacy media and other tools of mass communication.
Some are unable to cope with feelings that the world is coming to an end and withdraw altogether. They may fall prey to depression and other mental illnesses such as extreme anxiety and autoimmune responses of various kinds or go crazy, unconcerned.
Others are prone to agree with this or that analysis put forward by people they trust. But a problem arises with this when instead of corroborating the analysis by investigating and analyzing the concrete conditions and involving others in doing the same, they attempt to corroborate the given analysis with what is going on in their own head, with whatever belief they held in the first place. This could be, for example, that Russia is bad and even evil but that the U.S./NATO powers are more evil. To corroborate one's beliefs in an attempt to maintain one's sanity is not abnormal but not helpful in investigating and analyzing the concrete conditions to find a way forward.
Such approaches as described do
not provide people with the orientation they require to set
their own line of march. The people need to set their own path
based on the objective conditions to achieve goals in favour of
the peoples at home and abroad and resolve the many crises
pounding the world.
This issue of TML Monthly provides information on the unfolding events surrounding the Ukraine crisis, including significant views from various quarters on options Russia, the U.S. and others may have going forward and what they think comes next.
Analysis and commentary accompany some of the material. The aim of producing it is to permit readers to think things through for themselves and form their own opinions along with others. We do think the situation harbours serious dangers for humankind, and that the participation of the peoples of the world who are striving for peace, freedom and democracy is the decisive factor that can turn things around in their favour. It is their internationalist spirit, striving for fraternal relations of mutual benefit and organizing for progress in their own countries and supporting the same abroad that defends the interests of humanity.
This article was published in
Volume 53 Number 1 - February 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/Articles/MS530115.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca