NM's blog

 

Algo in the genocide  Okay I won't use the word Jewish  And I won't use the word Zionist  And I won't use the word genocide  And I won't use the word apartheid  And I won't use the word settler  And I won't use the word colony  And I won't use the word killed  And I won't use the word watermelon  And I won't use the word Palestine  And I won't use the word resistance  And I won't use the word law  And I won't use the word moral  And I won't use the word men  And I won't use the word God  And I won't use the word river  And I won't use the word sea  And I won't use the word free And I won't use the word children For the young of _____ are always _____ What are we left with at the end? A murdered dictionary and field After silent field of unmarked graves. — Omar Sakr

“Fromm’s story shows us that a critique of authoritarian culture — one that identifies the strong tendencies toward passivity and reaction in the general population — can retain its central thrust, while still maintaining some of the optimism of the original Marxian critique of capitalism, and its orientation toward political action here and now. “The Sane Society  was also notable for its criticism of aspects of the Marxist project, especially concerning the traditional concept of revolution. Fromm believed that there was a profound psychological error in the famous statement that concludes the  Communist Manifesto , suggesting that the workers had ‘nothing to lose but their chains’. As well as their chains, the workers also had something else to lose: all the irrational needs and satisfactions that had originated while they were wearing those chains. “Fromm argued that we need an expanded concept of revolution: in terms of not only external barriers, but of internal, subject...

In modern nation-states, the dominant patriotic narratives that valorise national identity, often as not born of war, can mask dark deeds, past and present. For that reason, even in the most seemingly liberal of modern nation states, authorities almost universally seek to sacralise national history to the degree where to challenge it not only confronts the ire of conservative politicians and public opinion, but it becomes taboo or even blasphemous to do so. Historical revisionism becomes fraught. — Roger D. Markwick , March 2025