NM's blog

Creative destruction? 'Capitalist development' on the blood and bones of Palestinians Palestinian-American writer Susan Abulhawa said that plan sought to “erase Gaza's indigenous character, turn what remains of her people into a cheap labour force to manage their ‘industrial zones’ and create an exclusive coastline for ‘tourism’.” “The indigenous traditions and social fabric of this land will be obliterated utterly,” she   said  on X. Saudi Arabia has been doing it at home.  'The freedom fighter' Zelensky has not accept Kushner's invitation to a coming not out of principle, but because Putin too is invited. The UK has expressed the same reaction.

A philosophical question?

“At a cost of over  11,000 dead fighters  and uncounted civilians, the predominantly Kurdish SDF defeated ISIS and prevented its re-emergence as a worldwide threat. Yet despite this incalculable service, the SDF and its homeland in northeast Syria came under assault by former ISIS fighters, effectively abandoned by its US ally . “A decade after  partnering with the US  and following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the Kurdish sacrifices in hopes of regional self-determination feel painfully distant.”

Restoring US pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere “In 1973 the White House supported Pinochet’s coup. ‘I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people,’ Henry Kissinger had said a few years earlier . Now, decades later, the current US president has hailed the victory of Kast, whom he says he endorsed.” The intereference in Honduras last hear and now in Venezuela. The recent CIA operation in the latter has not “ provoked no response from Western governments, which are usually quick to pounce on instances of military aggression and electoral manipulation, as long as they can be attributed to Moscow.” “Ahead of Argentina’s parliamentary elections on 26 October, Trump conducted economic and financial blackmail similar to the attempt to ‘persuade’ Hondurans. “Washington has many tools for pressure and retaliation against Latin American countries, all of which help facilitate its redeployment across their region. Governments ca...

An old article, but a very interesting one . “It’s sort of a supreme irony here that we now have the technology such that not that many people have to work and we can produce a lot. We have the technology that would allow us to address the vexing environmental problems with probably far less of a cost than we’re going to have to end up paying. We have the technology so that we could have a much higher standard of living. The output per worker is radically higher than it was fifty years ago. Yet the standard of living for most people is lower. There are endless calls for cutbacks, and stagnation at the same time. This is an enormous paradox, and it’s only understood by understanding the contradictions built into the way capitalism works.” A fascinating and a deep analysis indeed. However, I suggest that we abandon the dichotomy ‘capitalism’ and ‘democracy’. They are not two, but one called capitalist democracy.   “This tension between capitalism and democracy,” as McChesney puts it...

You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. ―  Malcolm X,  By Any Means Necessary

Excerpts from a long, very engaging and thought provoking interview.  The colonisation of Palestine is an intrinsic “moment” in the history of European imperialism (beginning with the British Empire, followed by the French Empire, and continued to this day by Israel’s close association with the “Western” powers, which provide it with funding, weapons and diplomatic protection). It enacts its extreme forms (settler colonialism, which replaces the indigenous people with settlers, directing their expulsion and then elimination) and extends the imperialist enterprise even beyond its supposed historical endpoint. It uses the consequences of the extermination of the Jews of Europe as an opportunity, a (demographic and intellectual) resource, and an ideological cover. I would propose a critical variation on this scenario which, I hope, does not disregard its general truth. It is certainly true that Zionism, since its founding fathers (Herzl, Weizmann), has been both a typically “European”...