Featured – Lanka Socialist Forum

26 Jan

Self-Sufficiency in the New Year

wisidagamage0 CommentsEconomy, English, Featured

Originally From: https://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/Self-Sufficiency-in-the-New-Year/231-299503 The flawed IMF program with its focus on the market has further aggravated the economic situation with a food crisis Sri Lanka over the last three years has been hit by tremendous price hikes and shortages of essential services and goods. What does the New Year hold for the working people, pummelled by the rising cost of living and stagnant incomes, whose lives have become unbearable? Even as the public awaits the national budget next month, to address the ongoing economic crisis, the Government should announce a firm New Year resolution to address people’s suffering. I argue…

26 Jan

Economic crisis and household debt in the north

wisidagamage0 CommentsEconomy, English, Featured

Originally From: https://www.ft.lk/opinion/Economic-crisis-and-household-debt-in-the-north/14-770935 The current economic crisis cannot be resolved by households or social institutions alone, and loans are not the solution. The Government should introduce livelihood and income stabilisation programs to help people escape the debt trap. It should also leverage cooperatives to create markets and supply chains for rural production, while expanding affordable credit for rural livelihoods and small-scale industrial growth. Additionally, a universal social security program should be implemented The ongoing crisis in Sri Lanka has greatly affected household debt. As the economy worsened due to inflation, higher living costs and job losses, more households are relying…

16 Jan

All Wars End in Negotiations. So Will the War in Ukraine: The Third Newsletter (2025)

wisidagamage0 CommentsEnglish, Featured

Originally From: https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/the-war-in-ukraine-must-end/ As NATO fails in its attempt to expand into Ukraine, popular support has shifted significantly in favour of a path to peace. 16 January 2025 Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Mark Rutte, the current secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), is not a poet. He, like other secretary generals of NATO, is a mediocre European politician who has been given the task of holding NATO’s reins for the United States (to be fair to Rutte, he has been the prime minister of the Netherlands for fourteen years,…

16 Jan

Dr Victor Frankenstein Disavows His Monster: The Second Newsletter (2025)

wisidagamage0 CommentsEnglish, Featured

Originally From: https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/struggles-illuminate-the-path-forward/ Even as the gloomy realities of war and hunger threaten to dull the light of humanity, the red sparkling dance of our struggles illuminates the path forward. 9 January 2025 Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Very few humans have had the good fortune to descend into the depths of the world’s oceans. The deepest such place – 11 kilometres below sea level at its deepest point – is the Mariana Trench, which is located just north of the 607 islands of the Federated States of Micronesia in the Pacific Ocean…

16 Jan

The Tears of Our Children: The First Newsletter (2025)

wisidagamage0 CommentsEnglish, Featured

Originally From: https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/palestine-gaza-2025/ From Palestine to Sudan, imperialist wars are destroying the lives of innocent children, leaving long-term physical and psychological wounds on those who survive. 2 January 2025 Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. A study came out in December that made me cry. Titled Needs Study: Impact of War in Gaza on Children with Vulnerabilities and Families, it was conducted by the Community Training Centre for Crisis Management (CTCCM) in Gaza. Written in a clinical style, nothing about the language should have impacted me in the way that it did. But the…

23 Nov

Give Us Peace on Earth: The Forty-Seventh Newsletter (2024)

wisidagamage0 CommentsFeatured

Originally posted by : https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/give-us-peace-on-earth/ As outgoing Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin embarks on his twelfth tour of the Indo-Pacific, the US’s New Cold War on China shows no signs of slowing down, even under a second Trump presidency. 21 November 2024 Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. On 31 May, the United States military endorsed a Statement of Principles for Indo-Pacific Defence Industrial Base Collaboration to strengthen military industry cooperation with its allies in the region. The principles outline commitments to initiatives such as the co-production of missile and rocket systems in Australia, the…

17 Nov

The latest statistics on Industrial production of the Third World countries…

wisidagamage0 CommentsEconomy, Featured

Recent statistics from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) provide insight into industrial production trends in developing regions, often referred to as the "Third World." Key Highlights: Growth Trends: Industrializing economies reported a quarterly growth of 1.4% in manufacturing output in Q2 2024. High-income industrializing economies, such as Saudi Arabia and Chile, led with a growth of 2.2%, while middle-income economies grew by 1.2%. Emerging industrial economies like Malaysia and Rwanda showed exceptional growth rates of 2.7% and 2.6%, respectively, with countries such as India and Vietnam following at 1.3% and 1.2%. Sectoral Analysis: High-technology industries rebounded in Q2…

08 Nov

We Don’t Want Our Islands to Be Used to Kill People: The Forty-Fifth Newsletter (2024)

wisidagamage0 CommentsEnglish, Featured

Originally From: https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/pacific-islands-resistance/ Across the Pacific, Indigenous communities lead a growing wave of sovereignty against ongoing legacies of Western colonialism in the region, from the assault on Māori rights in Aotearoa to the US and French military presence in wider Oceania. 7 November 2024 Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. For the past few weeks I have been on the road in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia at the invitation of groups such as Te Kuaka, Red Ant, and the Communist Party of Australia. Both countries were shaped by British colonialism, marked by the…

07 Nov

Is Sri Lanka experiencing a “passive revolution”?

wisidagamage0 CommentsEnglish, Featured, Opinions

Wilfred Silva Antonio Gramsci’s concept of “passive revolution” refers to a process of social, political, or economic change that is driven from above—by the ruling classes or the state—rather than through active and direct popular movements or revolutionary uprisings. Unlike traditional revolutions where the masses take control and overthrow the existing power structure, passive revolutions are characterized by gradual transformations that maintain the basic structure of power while incorporating some changes to accommodate new social or political realities. Key features of Gramsci’s concept of passive revolution include: Top-down Reform: Changes are initiated by elites or the state to prevent revolutionary…

24 Oct

QE5 will fail to prevent global stagflation!

wisidagamage0 CommentsFeatured

By Daniel Campos On August 5, 2024, one of the largest stock market collapses in the world in the history of capitalism took place. But the most important thing was not the dimension of the collapse, but its significance. The significance of the collapse is that the world economy is heading towards stagflation, a horrific combination of recession and inflation on a global scale, a prospect that appears on the horizon of the world capitalist system. The collapse of August 5 is the product of the fear that this prospect of global stagflation provokes in the capitalists. Bailouts and financial…