Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“ Over the last five decades, the incarceration rate in the United States has exploded. In the 1960s, the United States incarcerated its population at a rate that was comparable to other developed countries. Today, America ranks among the most punitive states in world history — second only to the Soviet Union under Stalin. Black men born between 1965 and 1969 have been more likely to go to prison than to graduate from college.  American punishment is thus of unprecedented  severity  — more prisoners per capita than ever before, and more so than any comparable country in world history. It is also characterized by extreme  inequality  — some Americans are much more likely to languish in prisons than others.  These are its twin features. What explains them?” The Economic Origin of Mass Incarceration

A liberal “leftish” view, but very informative. It should be noted that The Guardian itself is in philanthropic partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Philanthropy is facade to present a human face of capitalism, mitigating the system’s negative impacts. In fact, it often exasperates the problems it claims to solve or perpetuate the status quo) and it is a state ideological tool (PR) for Westerners to reinforce the belief in their superiority and that they are helping and empowering the Other. In some cases, philanthropy is a tool promote “liberal democracy” and drawing organisations/opposition forces into the orbit of the Western powers, especially the north Atlantic states. The mushrooming of philanthropic organisation in the last two decades has to be seen in the context of the neoliberal form of capitalism. How it benefits the super-rich Related The Problem With Capitalist Philanthropy There’s no Such Thing as Good Philanthropy

Higher Education in the UK is morally bankrupt... And I’m off.

As it stands today, the so-called progressive foreign policy alternative is really no alternative at all. To the contrary, it evokes Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s seminal work,  The Leopard , whose main character, Tancredi,  sagely observes to his uncle , “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” So it is with much of what passes for a genuine foreign policy alternative: the rhetoric slightly changes, the personnel certainly change, but in substance, the policy status quo largely remains.

A biography review Whatever Made Him

The 4th Company (Mexico 2016)

Prevention Before Cure

"The climate and ecological crisis cannot be solved within today's political and economic systems", the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg argues . "That isn't an opinion. That's a fact,” she added. I agree with you, Greta. The question is: what is the nature of the alternative political and economic system?  Capitalism is a very dynamic system albeit destructive, and not only to nature but also to human body and soul. But it always seeks a way to mitigate that destruction for its own survival. Advances in technology and productivity are contradicted with obscene inequality and different forms of violence by state and non-state agencies. I think that capitalism and capitalist institutions will be able in the short term to delay a climate catastrophe or minimise its impact on the rich countries. In the long term, however, the contradictions of the system are manyfold and there is no room for optimism. 

“Stealing” from the Saracens

Ministry of Defence blacklisted site over Yemen coverage

In the more economically developed countries, one just needs to replace the factory with retail and catering service industries, HSBC gender pay gap, for example, budget airlines workers, migrant workers in farming industry (e.g. Italy and Spain), or as cleaners, low paid essential workers (e.g. nurses in England), Amazon workers, etc.  The following was written in 1976, but I think is still largely relevant globally. “The hard core of the bourgeois feminist movements has typically been the ‘career women’ elements, business and professional strivers above all. Protective devices for the benefit of women workers in factories help to make life more bearable for them, but they are usually irrelevant to upper-echelon women trying to get ahead in professions. Worse, they may introduce restrictions which get in the way. At the very least, the ‘pure’ feminists demonstrate their social purity by rejecting the idea that the women’s question has something to do with class issues. Protec...

مشهد الصبّي المتبجّح  # ماكرون  وهو يقلّد  # فيروز  (أحد آخر ما بقي لنا من ذكريات الزمن العربي "الجميل") بوسامه التافه، هو أعلى درجات الإهانة لسيادة وكرامة لا شعب لبنان وحده، بل كلّ شعوب المنطقة العربية.  ممثّل الامبريالية الفرنسية، ووكيل الامبريالية الأمريكية، لم يكتف باستباحة السيادة السياسية والاقتصادية للبنان عبر تدخّله الفجّ في تفاصيل تشكيل الحكومة ومطالبته الوقحة بـ"الاصلاحات" التي حدّدها صندوق النقد الدولي وأصحابه الامبرياليون. بل هو يستبيح كذلك حتّى عالم الرموز والمشاعر ويك رّس في المخيال الجمعي الشعبي حقيقة تبعيّة  # لبنان  لفرنسا في ذكرى مئة عام على تأسيسها لنظامه الطائفي.  لم أعتقد يومًا أنّ فيروز يمكن أن تتخّذ موقفا مغايرًا للترحيب بزيارة ماكرون ووسامه. فتلك هي حدود وعيها السياسي، المرتبطة حكما بموقعها الطبقي المريح، الذي يمكن أن يصل أقصاه إلى فهم التناقض الصارخ مع العدوّ الصهيوني لا إلى تمثّل التناقض العميق مع القوى الامبريالية التي تسند هذا العدوّ. فهذا يحتاج إلى وعي سياسي يساري وطني ثوري لا تملكه. لكنّي كنت آمُلُ أن يتخّذ ابن...

In fact the mask fell long time ago ...

More than 1,000 UK doctors want to quit NHS

100 years ago: How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs

The difference between a black or a white president in handling civil unrest : Very little. It is the state and the structural violence, not a colour of a president. I would say Obama, the liberals’ idol, was worse, for although he was black, he presided over the very same racist socio-economic structure and the institutions of violence in the American society.