Paul Eccles Blog

How Many People did Apartheid South Africa Kill? Part 2

In a previous post I wrote about how many people died at the hands of the SADF in the various dirty wars it fought through Southern Africa, and the number is shocking – millions! Note that these are estimates of excess deaths, not direct combat deaths, but still, the number is shocking. The level of […]

Why I am voting for the EFF in 2024

There isn’t a political party on the scene which reflects my personal political views. I think that’s true for many South Africans. Voting is a strategic decision which does not necessarily reflect your political views. It is just one part of political activism which should not end at the voting booth. I don’t support all […]

Cape Secession and the Legacy of Colonialism

A new party has been created by a British immigrant called Phil Craig who is the premier of the Western Cape, called the Referendum Party. It seeks the secession of the Western Cape from South Africa. What is envisioned is that a separate Western Cape will be free of the misrule of the ANC. They […]

Brutal Collective Punishment and War Crimes in Gaza

This morning when I woke up the power was off, a common occurrence in South Africa, which has frequent blackouts. It made me think of the people of Gaza, without power. My electricity however soon returned and I made myself coffee and breakfast. In Gaza it won’t be coming back. My cupboards have food, water […]

Marching blindly towards WW3.

As if we weren’t already threatened by the possibility of a global war on two different fronts, namely Russia-Ukraine and China-Taiwan, now Now we stand on the precipice of a larger regional war, possibly a global war, driven by US/Israeli aggression on Iran. For years now, Iran and its allies have been on defensive. That […]

The Idea that War can solve terrorism …

Is a mistaken one. It has never worked. I could clearly see it was wrong in 2003, when the US launched its war on Iraq as part of its war on terror (the 2001 war in Afghanistan was similarly a debacle). It is wrong today in the case of the Israeli war on Hamas and […]

The Capital Order

How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism This is a new book by Clara Mattei, in it she looks at the origins and logic of austerity, which starts with World War 1 and the period just after that. World War 1 was in many ways a war against the coming global revolution […]

Jeffery Sachs on How China shows the way forward for Africa

40 years ago China was actually more impoverished and less developed than Africa. The levels of poverty and extreme poverty were at about 60-70%. Today they don’t have anybody in poverty. What they have achieved is remarkable, and they showed that it can be done. Africa (and I know it’s not a country lol) needs […]

How many people did Apartheid South Africa Kill?

Part 1: A lot more than you think! A while back I was reading a Chomsky book when I came across this tidbit: He offhand mentioned that a UN Economic Commission for Africa had found that South Africa had killed 1.5 million people and caused $60 billion of damage in the period 1980-1988 alone, in […]

So you say the Russian war is “Genocidal”? So for God’s sake let’s end it!

A lot of pro-war boosters who, when confronted about the necessity of continuing this war in Ukraine, invoke the term “genocide” to explain why we need to carry on fighting Russia. A few problems with this – firstly there’s no evidence of any genocide, secondly, the best way to end any alleged genocide would be […]

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