Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Spanish "democracy" The challenge for Sanchez

Reading about the horrors of the British rule/Raj in India, in Inglorious Empire , one cannot help but relate to such a conclusion made by "the doughty nationalist Lala Lajpat Raj:  'The British are not a spiritual people. They are either a fighting race or a commercial nation. It would be throwing pearls before swine to appeal to them in the name of higher morality or justice or on ethical grounds. They are a self-reliant people, who can appreciate self-respect and self-reliance even in their opponents.' The British tended to base their refusal to intervene in famines with adequate government measures on a combination of three sets of considerations: free trade principles (do not interfere with market forces), Malthusian doctrine (growth in population beyond the ability of the land to sustain it would inevitably lead to deaths) and financial prudence (don't spend money we haven't budgeted for). On these grounds, Britain had not intervened to save lives in Ire

The best political magazines, according to socialists

Capitalist criminality and imperialist philanthropy: the two sides of the same coin Like USAID, Gates Foundation, and others, the aim is to portray the capitalist system as having a "human face, "defender of human rights, propagator of "liberal values," and like NATO, IMF and the World Bank, they are tools of Western imperialist domination through debt, exploitation, plunder and military power. Anyone who opposes this global mission, is labelled "nationalist" and "infected by populism." George Soros

Here is an antidote to those missionaries like Soros, Jolie and Gates  "If anticapitalist revolution is where identity politics began, it has since become something quite different, and is now invoked by certain liberals and leftists to serve distinctly non-revolutionary ends, Haider argues. It involves members of marginalised groups demanding inclusion, recognition, or restitution from above – a seat at the table. These demands are made in response to very real injuries endured by those groups. But their method, he says, ends up strengthening the structures that produced those injuries in the first place." Asad Haider And in the comments on the review I like this one by Nada89:  " ID [identity politics] helped people turn a blind eye to the fact Clinton is a corrupt political figure. Same with Obama - people cut him slack for being 'the first black American president' yet he was complicit with the usual pattern of international crimes inherent in US f

Lithuania and Romania complict in CIA toture? So what? Haven't they helping the West protect its way of life from "Islam and its war on us?" Haven't they helping us keep those barbarians away so that they don't blow us in our cities? Look how successful "the war on terror" has been. And these two states, like others, have probably got some handouts from the US.

Is capital or labor winning at your favorite company? The New York Times