Ben Schreiner: Descent Into Barbarism, US Imperialism Unleashed!!

Rosa Luxemburg: The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization. With signs of a global economic downturn mounting, US aggression across the Middle East and North Africa ratchets up, and once again, US imperialism stands poised to swing open the gates of Hell. The choice presently confronting humanity, then, is one between imperialism on the one hand, and the struggle against imperialism on the other. The choice presently confronting humanity then, is one between imperialism on the one hand, and the struggle against imperialism on the other. According to the IMF's World Economic Outlook report released last week, the risks for a serious global slowdown are alarmingly high. The report projects the world economy to expand just 3.3 percent this year and 3.6 percent in 2013, both projections down from the IMF's July forecast. As Joseph Davis, chief economist at the Vanguard Group, cautioned to the Wall Street Journal, the odds of a global recession are not fully appreciated. Indeed, for as the Financial Times reports, the Tracking Indices for the Global Economic Recovery, the Brookings Institution Financial Times index of the world economy, finds severe problems in both advanced and emerging markets. The global economic recovery, Brookings senior and index creator Eswar Prasad warned, is on the ropes, and though in its latest report the IMF continued to peddle the harsh elixir of austerity for the depressed economies of the euro zone periphery, the Fund also came to tacitly acknowledge the limits of austerity. The IMF now says global efforts to slash deficits and debt may have hurt growth, because they occurred too quickly and too widely, the Wall Street Journal reported.