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Showing posts from September 26, 2021

Britain’s Gas and Electricity Crisis Explained

The crisis boils down to the form of British capitalism. “It still seems more likely that Japan and Britain will secure enough gas, in the same way they secured enough coronavirus vaccines, by the expedient of poorer countries not getting enough. But for Britain the price crisis will be harsh. Free market fanaticism combines with the brutal practice of making the poorest citizens pay a disproportionate share of the cost of funding the transition to zero-carbon energy.” On the boil Related Why India is on the brink of a power crisis

Lebanon-UK

What a scandal!         Lebanon 2021       UK 2021

Britain: Erasing Empire

“ The apogee of the secret state in purposefully hiding information from the public in the postwar period was necessary for sculpting an official narrative about British imperialism and its war efforts divorced from the truth of its brutality. Imperialists were often all too aware that if the true nature of their mission was exposed it would also undermine the image of liberal democracy that was deployed to distinguish the West from authoritarian regimes.” State secrecy and destruction of historical records

Political Islam

“What is clear … is that greater recognition must be given to the way Western concepts (religion, political, secular, temporal) reflect specific historical developments, and cannot be applied as a set of universal categories or natural domains.” What is political Islam?

Flaubert Describing the Spectacle of the Orient

That great French novelist … “To amuse the crowd, Mohammed Ali's jester took a woman in a Cairo bazaar one day, set ber on the counter of a shop, and coupled with her publicly while the shopkeeper calmly smoked his pipe. On the road from Cairo to Shubra some time ago a young fellow had himself publicly buggered by a large monkey-as in the story above, to create a good opinion of himself and make people laugh. A marabout died a while ago-an idiot-who had long passed as a saint marked by God; all the Moslem women came to see him and masturbated him-in the end he died of exhaustion-from morning to night it was a perpetual jacking-off. . . . Quid dicis of the following fact: some time ago a santon (ascetic priest) used to walk through the streets of Cairo com­pletely naked except for a cap on his head and another on his prick. To piss he would doff the prick-cap, and sterile women who wanted children would run up, put themselves under the parabola of his urine and rub themselves with ...

Unexpected Things Happen

For the first time in its history, the Austrian Communist Party has unexpectedly won a municipal election in the country’s second-largest city, Graz. According to preliminary results, the KPÖ came out on top on Sunday with 29% of the vote, ahead of the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) on 25.7%. “Their success in Graz is down to their focus on local issues -- especially housing policy -- while scaling back any Marxist ideology.” In Berlin, however ,  Germany’s highest court ruled  in favour of capital in April saying  that a cap the local government imposed on rent prices last year was unconstitutional and void.   The rule froze rents for some 90% of Berlin apartments at June 2019 rates for five years. In many cases, existing rents needed to be reduced to conform to the new threshold. After the court ruling, many tenants faced hefty back payments.