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Showing posts from February, 2021

The Algerian War

“A society is not the temple of value-idols that figure on the front of its monuments or in its constitutional scrolls; the value of a society is the value it places upon man’s relation to man. To understand and judge a society one has to penetrate its basic structure to the human bond upon which it is built; this undoubtedly depends upon legal relations, but also upon forms of labour, ways of loving, living, and dying.” —The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty “What fiction reveals about the Algerian War”

Libertarianism

 Is it compatible with capitalism?

Middle East

Surprise! Surprise! Biden has just bombed Syria to protect American imperialist interests. 

America-Israeli Lobby

Warning:  If you read this article, you might wake up tomorrow morning from uneasy dreams and found yourself transformed in your bed into a gigantic anti-Semitic. American mouthpieces for Israeli government had unrivalled access to Obama White House

Malcolm X

Malcolm X’s family is calling for his murder investigation to be reopened after new evidence emerged linking the NYPD and FBI. The ghost of Macolm X Related Martin Luther King was a radical

The Bourgeoisie

“ The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. [T]he bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. [F]or exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades. The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and

France-Saudi Arabia

 

Islamophobia and Censorship in French Universities

  Here is what you can do Related: The road to neoliberal autocracy

France

  In a country where the head of state and its acolytes want to “reform Islam”. And in one of the elite institutions that produces the cadres of the state. “Under French law, a rape charge is only possible if there is proof of "force, threat, violence or surprise" - otherwise it is tried as the lesser offence of sexual assault. That applies to children as well, as France has no legal age of consent.” Sexual abuse in France

Build Back Better for Whom?

 A very good piece. “Better?” I say, in a small voice. How can he think this is better? “Better never means better for everyone,” he says. “It always means worse, for some.”   – Margaret Atwood,  The Handmaid’s Tale (Re)creating disaster risks

“A very dangerous epoch”

The historian and broadcaster Michael Wood, a professor of public history at the University of Manchester, says: “Everything that is going on at the moment, it seems to me, all links together.”   History has seen great civilisations in China, India and across Eurasia, “but they’ve not caused these crises that we are living through now, and nor has the African world. “You know what happened? Roughly 500 years ago, these small, aggressive maritime powers on the shores of Europe went across the world with their technology and created their empires by sea. “And I think what we are seeing now can all be interpreted in the light of the post-imperial [age].”  Other societies may now be enthusiastic participants, but it was not they who created western industrial capitalism, he argues . Related Anti-capitalist politics

Edward Rooksby

 Thank you, Edward! And rest in peace.

America and Its Allies’ State Terrorism in 1991

I vividly remember the night when my father, who had been watching TV, woke me up: “Nèdeem, look, look, they started bombing Iraq.” But the price was worth it then as after in order to liberate the Kuwaiti oil. When Al-Amiriya shelter was smartly bombed "...the British and other governments of the democratic and liberal world, so far from protesting (Saddam Hussein's regime which killed several thousands of his citizens with poison-gas bombs), kept quiet and did their best to keep their citizens in the dark, as they encouraged their businessmen to sell Saddam more arms including the equipment to gas more of his citizens. They were not outraged, until he did something genuinely insupportable...he attacked the oil fields thought vital by the USA." Eric Hobsbawm, On History , p. 350

Ten Days in Harlem

“We have driven Cuba inch by inch into alliance with the Soviet,’ Norman Mailer wrote, ‘as deliberately and insanely as a man setting out to cuckold himself.’ Castro never wanted to be beholden to the Soviets. He had downplayed the role of the local Communist Party (Partido Socialista Popular) in preparing the ground for his own revolution. But there were only so many options for a single-crop economy of seven million people ninety miles from the Florida coast.”  Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s

MENA

Reflections on Mass Protests and Uprisings in the “Arab World” A diverse panel. The advantage of a recorded meeting is that you could always select what you want to listen to. Each person spoke for only 10 minutes. Although I listened to all of it, I liked more the approach of the last two speakers: Hanieh and Khalidi.

Tunis

 06 February 2021 Credit to Yasmine Hn

Climate Change

Former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, told the BBC that the answer to the climate crisis was investment in a green economy.  Carney  says the answer lies in a global pot of $170tn of private capital “which is looking for disclosure.” Now, just think what that capital could do for the earth and humanity. That is more than eight times the annual GDP of the U.S.! It is also a proof that the issue is not about lack of capital or resources but about political economic decisions tied up to the functioning of the capitalist system. Private ownership is one, if not the main, hindrance to real change.

Cuba

This might look like what China did when it opened its economy . But Cuba is not China. My guess–and it is just a guess– is that the biggest industries will remain under state control. Other businesses will be privatised, some will be partially privatised. If this opening allows the state to accumulate capital through taxes and maintain its good healthcare system and improve others., the lives of a few Cubans will improve.  Cuba needs a modern transport system and renovation of hundreds of thousands of homes, for example. Carts and camiones are used as means of transport, the Internet is not affordable to everyone, schools needs pencils, many flats in Havana are derelict, etc, etc. That’s just some of what I witnessed in my visit in 2015. And it is definitely not a communist economy or a communist country as it is always portrayed. All what the country has is some socialistic elements. Cuba already has a small private sector. A Spanish luxury hotel chain, private restaurants, small sh

UK’s Labour Party

Via Andrew Burgin 03 February 2021 A resignation letter

Cuba

 Another proof that socialism  - cannot be built in one country - cannot be build in a poor country - cannot be build while being strangled by imperialism The best Cuba has been able to do it to survive and preserve few gains. Day Zero in Cuba

An Interview with Edward Said

 At least three of his arguments are still relevant today: The portrayal of the Arabs and the Middle Easterners. We have seen that since 2001.  The Palestinian leadership capitulation in the Oslo Accords. We know today that the plight of the Palestinians is worse and the cancer of occupation has spread even further. The almost disappearance of the dissident intellectual. What we have are intellectuals of the status quo.

“The Arab Spring”

My comments on the article below. I think the writer has missed some fundamental aspects/features of what has happened: The class dynamic and the weakness of the movement and its lack of radicalism. Its inability to generate a leader (compare that with Venezuela and Bolivia, for example, or the twentieth century revolutionary movements). The role of the middle class in Egypt (for a change first then with the military after for the sake of ‘stability’) A stability endorsed and sought for by foreign powers, regional and Western. During the uprisings there was not a single occupation of a key governmental building or financial institution. Occupying squares and marching do not shift the balance of power. Indecisiveness invited aggression by the state and other forces to size the moment. It is inaccurate to say the regime in Egypt was overthrown. Even in Tunisia it wasn’t. In the two cases, the head of the regime was removed and an internal restructuring among the factions took place, pres

The Labour Theory of Value

What is it?  Richard Wolff explains it in less than 5 minutes.

Myanmar

Just to confirm: “We condemn a coup if we did not support it. It is not a coup if we did support/sponsor it.” —American imperialism and its allies