Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

This is a very engaging paper. Primitive Socialist Accumulation in China: An Alternative View on the Anomalies of Chinese 'Capitalism'

How Western media would cover Minneapolis if it happened in another country

Have we all forgotten about the Iraq war? Related Blackwater's Erik Prince: Iraq, privatising wars, and Trump

A movie Escape from Pretoria

Sinews of War and Trade  – an interview with Laleh Khalili

Who are the looters and the looted?

For years those who spoke about how the American state directly and indirectly established a 'world order' through violence and blood were, and still are, dismissed as anti-Americans, attacked as lunatic leftists, or apologists for the crimes of 'communism'. Now some of the empire's violence can be explicitly painted on the New York Times pages. We are really living in interesting times! The 'Liberal World Order' Was Built With Blood Related Are We ISIS? How the West won

US funded rock bands to dent Chavez and promote "democracy"

Tory privatisation? Doesn't that absolve New Labour? Tory privatisation is at the heart of the UK's disastrous coronavirus response

How 'Jakarta' Became the Codeword for US-Backed Mass Killing

The new immigration rules are not really about Brexit

"Anything, Anytime, Anywhere"

In an authoritarian regime labelled as "Europe's last dictatorship," a Canadian-owned German company represses trade union rights. Note that Germany and Canada are "democracies."

Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire

You can't control what you don't own. Big pharma rejected EU plan to fast-track-vaccines in 2017

Capital gains reveal extent of top one per cent income

I notice that the Guardian's liberal view of "global development" corresponds with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's view. Lockdown gives asylum seekers reprive and hope Related Agents of their own abuse

Covid Trials at an International Court? Seriously? Bush and Blair destroyed a whole country with hundereds of thousands of people killed a consequence of sanctions, war and civil war aince 1990... and we did not see any trial. Trump will stand trial for mismanagement? I don't think so. Americans will wait for the next election, the big ritual, as a solution. In Yemen the Saudi monarchy, a Western friend, has played a significant role in the biggest humanitarian crisis propably since the Korean war. Will we see Mohamed Bin Salman and Co. at international court? After the lockdown, we need a reckoning

How Yemen's Dream of Unity Turned Sour Related A page from Yemen's history Monuments of Famine

When billionaires talk about 'revolution', they mean how to prevent threats to the system Talking about revolution, but proposing reform

Debunking the myth of overpopulation

"The idea of offering pay cuts to save the jobs of precarious academic staff - canvassed for example at LSE - is well intended but naive. It’s reminiscent of the justification for the social contract in the 1970s - wage controls would benefit the lower paid. The problem is the same: what mechanism ensures that the pay saved goes to keeping on precarious staff? If university unions had the power to enforce such a mechanism against the unscrupulous bosses who run universities today they would be able to defend jobs more directly. There is no substitute for building up workers’ collective power, which means continuing the Four Fights Campaign and rejecting the employers’ offer." —Alex Callinicos, King's College London

Leaving after loosing hope for change

The road beyond Wigan Pier

A poor conclusion and no alternative, but to implicitly expect the liberal parties to change track. How Europe works to keep Africans in Africa

Why are Africa's coronavirus success being overlooked?

Downing Street has banned me from asking questions

Arms sales: the Swedish model Related An imperialist state The Swedish model?

When the camera wa a weapon of imperialism. And when it still is Related " I write as an African, a black man living in America. I am every day subject to the many microaggressions of American racism. I also write this as an American, enjoying the many privileges that the American passport affords and that residence in this country makes possible. I involve myself in this critique of privilege: my own privileges of class, gender, and sexuality are insufficiently examined. My cell phone was likely manufactured by poorly treated workers in a Chinese factory. The coltan in the phone can probably be traced to the conflict-riven Congo. I don't fool myself that I am not implicated in these transnational networks of oppressive practices." — Teju Cole

Poor tenants pay for landlords to live like kings

The Syrian refugee on the UK's coronavirus frontlines

Nesrine Malik : The pandemic exposed our failing healthcare systems; the disparity between the  perception of immigrants as a drain  and the reality of them as pillars of our communities; the gulf between races and classes; the incompetence of our politicians; the fatal consequences of diminishing public services. There is a naivety in the hope that once ideas are discussed and made popular, they will permeate policymaking and bring about change. History shows us that, during a period of economic upheaval, this is unlikely. The 2008 financial crisis is the clearest cautionary tale. If the loss of life is at a level deemed acceptable by big business and government, the focus will shift to moving on while minimising the need for change. The old order – that some are already writing eulogies for – will surge back rather than retreating. History shows us that whatever horrors a crisis exposes, they can be covered up in the shattered aftermath."

Free movement of capital, yes. Free movement of humans, no. " The immigration bill repeals EU freedom of movement and introduces the new framework - though not exact details - for who can come to live in Britain. Home Secretary Priti Patel said the new system promotes a 'high skill' economy." Are food processing, fruit-picking, retailing, catering, care, cleaning, etc the 'high skill' economy Patel is talking about? Surely not. The who is going to replace those doing those jobs, and which a country with a population of more than 60 million is so dependent on? What companies are going to dispose of such a source of cheap labour and profit? Are we heading towards an automation that will replace these 'unskilled' workers? I think not. How many white British people are willing to take these jobs (if there are any of them)? And even if we put capital and labour aside, isn't this the humane face of 'liberal' feminism and Priti Patel i

The Specters of Comparison

State intervention may be back, but don't assume neoliberalism is dead Related Here is what the Financial Times , a supporter of neoliberal capitalism of last 40 years is suggesting to reform a system in a deep crisis and thus preserve it: "Radical reforms — reversing the prevailing policy direction of the last four decades — will need to be put on the table. Governments will have to accept a more active role in the economy. They must see public services as investments rather than liabilities, and look for ways to make labour markets less insecure. Redistribution will again be on the agenda; the privileges of the elderly and wealthy in question. Policies until recently considered eccentric, such as basic income and wealth taxes, will have to be in the mix."

It's time to get over it Related Liberal feminism is the one that encompasses Marie Claire magazine, Michelle Obama, Christine Lagarde, Malala Yousafzai, Beyoncé and many like them. You have them in almost every country whether with it is a Muslim-majority or a Christian-majority one, from Turkey to Colombia. An example of liberal feminism

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.    —Frantz Fanon,  Black Skins, White Masks

"At the end of the genocide of the Tutsi, the militia was 30,000 strong. The Interahamwe broke the world’s most atrocious records for the speed of the killing of human beings, estimated at five times that of the Nazis." The Violence of Denial—Rwanda and the Lived Memory of Genocide

"There is no alternative." —Margaret Thatcher "The best of all possible worlds." —Voltaire "Free market must be protected"

Neil Davidson (1957-2020) I recommend: Is social revolution still possible in the twenty-first century? Neoliberalism as a Class-Based Project

A good summary "Arab Workers and the Struggle for Democracy" Related The article above lacks a radical appraisal

 Food inequality under covid-19 and the community restaurant

Boris Johnson's message to the working class Related It's not an accident Britain and America are the world's biggest coronavirus losers

"What Zylberman described in 2013 has now been duly confirmed. It is evident that, apart from the emergency situation, linked to a certain virus that may in the future be replaced by another, at issue is the design of a paradigm of governance whose efficacy will exceed that of all forms of government known thus far in the political history of the West." Biosecurity and Politics Related Agamben is "right and [drastically] wrong"

How Pandemics End

History sanitised Via Michael Roberts "It was Victory in Europe day on Friday 8 May, the 75th anniversary of the day that the 'Allied' powers officially defeated the 'Axis' powers in Europe (but not in Asia). The celebrations in the UK were all about Britain standing alone to defeat the Germans, with a little American help. No mention of the UK's colonial allies in Southern Asia, or the dominions of Australia, Canada etc. And above all, no mention of the role of the Soviet Union and China. But where was the war  won, and who suffered the most casualties?" "The bear that somewhow isn't in the room" Related Every state has its own myths. Here is one of Britain's

This is the Future of the Pandemic

Is it a coincidence that the two pioneer states of the most aggressive form of "neoliberal" capitalism at home and abroad in the last 40 years or so are so far the most affected by the coronavirus? How the Anglo-American model failed to tackle the coronavirus

Dr. Matthew Alford of the University of Bath, author of National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood ,  told  MintPress  that the new Amazon product is a “disgrace of a series,” unfairly demonizing a nation at a time when the United States has its boot on the throat of Venezuelan society. The CIA's Jack Ryan Series

A good article from last year "Power usually operates through distinct, sometimes competing, sub-groups — senior civil servants, both French and European, intellectuals, bosses, journalists, the conservative right, and the moderate left. Within this cosy framework, turns are taken in power, and these obey certain democratic rituals of elections followed by periods of quiescence." Class war

On VE Day French Colonists Launched a Massacre in Algeria

Stealth wealth from the Middle East in Europe

A good framing of the big picture. But like all reformist leftists, no class analysis, no alternative such as nationalising the key sectors of the economy, genuine democracy and transforming the structure of capitalism for the benefits of the majority and the needs of humanity and nature by doing away of the profit motive. May be given the rise of the far right, racism, xenophobia, etc no radical solutions could be envisioned. Only modest ones (!) "In a horrific mind-warp, advanced eonomies suddenly find themselves facing the kinds of dilemma habitually faced by poor countries. We don’t have the tools. In the poor world, the everyday result is that children are stunted and families are impoverished. Millions die for lack of treatment. Covid-19 has delivered a taste of that to the rich world. Whereas one can reasonably say that giant structures such as capitalism and geopolitics stand in the way of addressing the climate crisis, the same is not true of Covid-19. The  cost of v

The film offers only one concrete solution to our predicament: the most toxic of all possible answers. “We really have got to start dealing with the issue of population … without seeing some sort of major die-off in population, there’s no turning back.” A review of Michael Moor's Planet of the Humans

What is behind the coronavirus nursing catastrophe?

An interview with Gilbert Achcar Pandemic and oil crisis could make second Arab spring return with a vengeance Related The seasons after the Arab spring

Greg Grandin Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer his for non-fiction   The End of the Myth

A terrible covid-19 response forced doctors onto hunger strike

May Fourth, the Day That Changed China A liberal view

"The offer they can't refuse"

Millions of working people exposed by pandemic

"Modernisation",  the Saudi way The true cost of Saudi Arabia's $500 bn megacity

By someone with a career in the IMF Ten reasons why a 'Greater Depression' for the 2020s is inevitable

How British propadandists used Islam to wage cultural cold war Related McJihad

Frédéric Lordon on Thomas Piketty's Capital and Ideology

A very, very short account that doesn't include economic and cultural aspects. Note that more recent studies put the numbers of Iraqis killed by the sanctions to an estimate between 200 and 300 thousand. Chomsky then was still relying on studies done by journals like The Lancet, for example, which put the number in "the hundreds of thousands".

Free ebook from Verso How to be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century By Erik Olin Wright

How meat plant workers became the frontline in Covid-19 war

The area of the UK 'worst-affected' by Covid-19

Thirty years since the collapse of the Soviet Block "Capitalism’s triumph did not arise from a mass desire, but a choice made by the communist nomenklatura: to transform its privileges of function into privileges of ownership. Although the elites’ ‘grand conversion’ has been analysed  there are few studies on the social base of the old single party, which, though it became restive, did not demand privatisations." In the name of the communist ideal