Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

"The conscious capitalism model is appealing. It’s simple, easy. We can avert looming environmental catastrophe by becoming conscious consumers who frequent conscious companies. After all, shopping at Whole Foods is a heck of a lot more fun than lobbying for regulations on corporations or convincing people to consume less. More Whole Foods, less Walmart. Problem solved." Whole Foods' "conscious capitalism"

" Deamonte Driver’s death was the direct result of a system of commoditized dental care. Some 114 million people lack any sort of dental coverage in the United States, and about half of children on Medicaid did not receive a single dental service in 2012. We could implement a  system of universal coverage that would make treatment available on the basis of health needs, not means. But we have not. As Otto traces the history of modern dentistry, from eighteenth-century surgical experiments to the founding of the first American school of dentistry in 1840, she explains how the United States instead developed a “carefully guarded, largely private system,” one that is “enormously difficult to reach for those without mobility or money.” The state of our teeth, she argues, reveals—and reinforces—deep inequalities in society." Note: to be accurate, some dental treatment in the UK is free or cheap, and that depends on whether you have an income or unemployed, but implant, for exam...

Reminder There is no money for infrastructure, free high education, more hospitals, housing, etc. "Assuming the £13tn mountain of assets [ hidden offshore wealth ] earned an average 3% a year for its owners, and governments were able to tax that income at 30% [like in the US, Brazil, India, for example], it would generate a bumper £121bn in revenues – more than rich countries spend on aid to the developing world each year." That is not a revolutionary solution, but one can see that it makes a significant difference.

The myths about tax and spend in Britain See also  "The most corrupt country on earth"

" The coming struggles will show the 90% of Parisians-for-Macron for what they are; an undreamt-of diversion, or a  transitional object , as psychoanalysts say when they talk about children’s comfort blankets. The fall to ground will be harder." Performances

"Fishy neoliberalism in Morocco" A more accurate translation of the first slogan is "the people want to overthrow corruption".

The Political Theology of ISIS

Sexagon: Muslims, France and the Sexualization of the National Culture

This is not considered violence and it doesn't appear on the frontpages. Violence is mostly the one that hits the 'peaceful' cities and kills rich countries.

Matzpen , 1967: “Our right to defend ourselves against annihilation does not grant us the right to oppress others,” the ad stated. “Conquest brings in its wake foreign rule. Foreign rule brings in its wake resistance. Resistance brings in its wake oppression. Oppression brings in its wake terrorism and counterterrorism. The victims of terrorism are usually innocent people. Holding onto the territories will turn us into a nation of murderers and murder victims.” And in large font at the end: “Let us leave the occupied territories now.”

Note the loose use of the term "Islamism" in the article . "Were I 20 today, would I be attracted to Islamism or desire to become a soldier of Islamic State.? " Today’s angry young Islamists are not interested in the fight against austerity, the defence of the NHS or even in the struggle against racism. They are obsessed, rather, in showing solidarity with the peoples of Palestine and Chechnya and Syria. In an age in which anti-imperialist movements have faded and belief in alternatives to capitalism dissolved, radical  Islam  provides the illusion of being part of a global movement for change."

"Iranian Kurds march to war"

??? Tous les totalitarismes se valent

Credit, rentier capital and crisis

" We may not be able to live a wrong life rightly, but we can stop living wrongly altogether. To do that requires a depth of social imagination, the courage of collective struggle and a wellspring of political desire that seems all but evaporated in the present moment." The spurious scandal of "Communism for Kids" (NYT)

In the Philippines  ... Meanwhile in Germany  ...

"The Lebanese institutions, its infrastructure, airport, power stations, traffic junctions, Lebanese army bases – they should all be legitimate targets if a war breaks out, "That's what we should already be saying to them and the world now. If Hezbollah fires missiles at the Israeli home front, this will mean  sending Lebanon back to the Middle Ages ." Israel, Lebanon and Hezbollah: a potential for another war

Tunisia makes a pact with remembering its past

" British interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan were disastrous and created resentment among many Arabs and Muslims - as does leaving Bashar al-Assad to drop barrel bombs and use chemical weapons against innocent civilians.   But Libya was different. It was a popular uprising. It was a civilian revolution and not a religious one. Britain was willing to support us because it was in line with their ‘foreign policy’ at the time. We also weren't linked to groups like al-Qaeda.  I say "at the time" because many of us who fought are upset that Britain continues to support General Haftar, who has been condemned by leading rights group, including Amnesty International, for committing a series of war crimes." And here is what the Telegraph reported in February :  " Gen Haftar, who  enjoys strong backing from Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's government in Egypt, is seen by some as a potential secular “strong man” ruler who could re-establish some degree of securit...

The legacy of Vladimir Lenin

Iran Ismail Abdi on hunger strike

Debord and Marquez at fifty

Guardian mourns Labour polling surge

Japan Precarity and freedom? See also The young Japanese working themselves to death

Brazil's crisis of hegemoney

Whether it is Thatcher or Reagan, Blair or Holland, Trump or Macron, Temer or May .. . "[I]n the name of a narrow and strict conception of rationality as individual rationality, it [neoliberallism] brackets the economic and social conditions of rational orientations and the economic and social structures that are the condition of their application ." The essence of neoliberalism  (Pierre Bourdieu, 1998)

"Strong and Stable"   Silverdale, Hamstead Road, London and A lit crit of the party manifestos