prashad leftword books VJ

<b style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding">Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at <a href="https://independentmediainstitute.org/globetrotter/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">Globetrotter</a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of <a href="https://mayday.leftword.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">LeftWord Books</a> and the director of <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research</a>. He has written more than 20 books, including <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Darker-Nations-Peoples-History-Third/dp/1595583424/?tag=alternorg08-20" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">The Darker Nations</a> and <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Poorer-Nations-Possible-History-Global/dp/1781681589/?tag=alternorg08-20" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">The Poorer Nations</a>. His latest book is <a href="https://mayday.leftword.com/catalog/product/view/id/21820" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" cursor="cursor" pointer="pointer">Washington Bullets</a>, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.<div>
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</div><div>=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/noam-chomsky-vijay-prashad/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/noam-chomsky-vijay-prashad/</a>Large parts of the world—outside of China and a few other countries—face a runaway virus, which has not been stopped because of criminal incompetence by governments. That these governments in wealthy countries cynically set aside the basic scientific protocols <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/a-guide-to-who-s-guidance" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">released</a> by the World Health Organization and by scientific organizations reveals their malicious practice. Anything less than focused attention to managing the virus by testing, contact tracing, and isolation—and if this does not suffice, then imposing a temporary lockdown—is foolhardy. It is equally distressing that these richer countries have pursued a policy of "<a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/vaccine-nationalism-threatens-global-plan-distribute-covid-19-shots-fairly" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">vaccine nationalism</a>" by stockpiling vaccine candidates rather than a policy for the creation of a "<a href="https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2020/december/20201209_we-must-have-a-peoples-vaccine" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">people's vaccine</a>." For the sake of humanity, it would be prudent to suspend intellectual property rules and develop a procedure to create universal vaccines for all people.Although the pandemic is the principal issue on all of our minds, other major issues threaten the longevity of our species and of our planet. These include:Nuclear AnnihilationIn January 2020, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists <a href="https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">set</a> the Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds to midnight, too close for comfort. The clock, created two years after the first atomic weapons were developed in 1945, is evaluated annually by the Bulletin's Science and Security Board, who decide whether to move the minute hand or keep it in place. By the time they set the clock again, it may well be closer to annihilation. Already limited arms control treaties are being shredded as the major powers <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">sit</a> on close to 13,500 nuclear weapons (more than 90 percent of which are held by Russia and the United States alone). The yield of these weapons could easily make this planet even more uninhabitable. The United States Navy has already <a href="https://fas.org/blogs/security/2020/01/w76-2deployed/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">deployed</a> low-yield tactical W76-2 nuclear warheads. Immediate moves toward nuclear disarmament must be forced onto the world's agenda. Hiroshima Day, commemorated each year on August 6, must become a more robust day of contemplation and protest.Climate CatastropheA scientific <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/4/eaap9741" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">paper</a> published in 2018 came with a startling headline: "Most atolls will be uninhabitable by the mid-21st century because of sea-level rise exacerbating wave-driven flooding." The authors found that atolls from the Seychelles to the Marshall Islands are liable to vanish. A 2019 United Nations (UN) <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/#:_{:text=The%20Report%20finds%20that%20around,20%25%2C%20mostly%20since%201900.}" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">report</a> estimated that 1 million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction. Add to this the catastrophic wildfires and the severe bleaching of the <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2021/01/01/you-dont-want-to-imagine-an-ocean-without-coral-reefs-but-you-might-have-to/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">coral reefs</a> and it is clear that we no longer need to linger over clichés about one thing or another being a canary in the coal mine of climate catastrophe; the danger is not in the future, but in the present. It is essential for major powers—who utterly fail to shift from fossil fuels—to commit to the "common but differentiated responsibilities" approach established at the 1992 <a href="https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/A_CONF.151_26_Vol.I_Declaration.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">UN Conference on Environment and Development</a> in Rio de Janeiro. It is telling that countries such as Jamaica and Mongolia <a href="https://tinyurl.com/ybuj7xd8" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">updated</a> their climate plans to the UN before the end of 2020—as mandated by the Paris Agreement—even though these countries produce a tiny fraction of global carbon emissions. The funds that were committed to developing countries for their participation in the process have virtually dried up while external debt has ballooned. This shows a lack of basic seriousness from the "international community."Neoliberal Destruction of the Social ContractCountries in North America and Europe have eviscerated their public function as the state has been turned over to the profiteers and civil society has been commodified by private foundations. This means that the avenues for social transformation in these parts of the world have been grotesquely hampered. Terrible social inequality is the result of the relative political weakness of the working class. It is this weakness that enables the billionaires to set policies that cause hunger rates to rise. Countries should not be judged by the words written in their constitutions but by their annual budgets; the U.S., for example, spends almost <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/dossier-35-twilight/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">$1 trillion</a> (if you add the estimated intelligence budget) on its war machine, while it spends a fraction of this on the public good (such as on health care, something evident during the pandemic). The foreign policies of Western countries seem to be well lubricated by arms deals: the United Arab Emirates and Morocco <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2020/12/18/donald-trumps-final-act-snuffing-out-the-promise-of-democracy-in-the-middle-east/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">agreed</a> to recognize Israel on the condition that they could purchase $23 billion and $1 billion worth of U.S.-made weapons, respectively. The rights of the Palestinians, the Sahrawi, and the Yemeni people did not factor into these deals. The use of illegal sanctions by the United States against 30 countries including Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela has become a normal part of life, even during the COVID-19 public health crisis. It is a failure of the political system when the populations in the capitalist bloc are unable to force their governments—which are in many ways democratic in name only—to take a global perspective regarding this emergency. Rising rates of hunger reveal that the struggle for survival is the horizon for billions of people on the planet (all this while China is able to <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y2ffk8v9" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">eradicate</a> absolute poverty and largely <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y2hvrrp3" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">eliminate</a> hunger)....</div></div><div>=</div>