Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

The book of Jeremy Corbyn

To understand 'brexit', look to Britain's tabloids

On deploying British troops , Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, said he would tell them: "Under my leadership, you will only be deployed abroad when there is a clear need and only when there is a plan that you have the resources to do your job and secure an outcome that delivers lasting peace". So, in principle, and fundamentally, he would not break with the imperialist interventions of the British regime. He would deploy troops in a better and organised way, probably with popular support. Although Corbyn opposed the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, he sees that Britain has a mission to deploy troops and intervene to "secure peace". Since when an imperialist power intervenes and wages wars for peace? How ironic from a socialist? A socialist who would use the state apparatus of an imperialist state. 

The Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was asked in a recent interview by a Sky News jiurnalist to condemn the IRA bombing. Jeremy Corbyn: "There were Loyalist bombs as well. I condemn all the bombing by both the Loyalists and the IRA ." Mr Corbyn, but do you condemn the IRA? Mr Corbyn, but do you condemn the IRA? Mr Corbyn, but do you condemn the IRA? Mr Corbyn, but do you condemn the IRA? "Mr Corbyn also attempts to contextualise bombings." Well, yes. Whether it is a bombing in Iraq, London, Paris, Bali, Belfast, Istanbul, Madrid... or a homocide, a divorce, a bankruptcy, a car accident, a nervous breakdown, a failure in delivering a successful lesson ... an invasion of a country, the birth of ISIS, waterboarding, an IMF loan, austerity, arms sale ... it has to be contextualised. 

"Post-democratic broadcasting" Post-democratic? 

I read some Marx (and I liked it) By Richard Seymour On The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, the host asked Shadow chancellor John McDonnell if he is a Marxist. Obligingly, he said “no”—but admitted that he  had read Marx and learned from him alongside traditional Labour economists like R H Tawney and G D H Cole. Jeremy Corbyn has since leapt to his colleague’s aid, describing Marx as a “great economist.” In philistine, managerial British politics, McDonnell’s comments felt like a blushing confession: “ I read some Marx and I liked it .” Predictably, senior Tories have in response warned darkly of an “ Islington cabal ” of revolutionaries. But what exactly in McDonnell’s agenda is Marxist? A tax freeze for the 95 per cent doesn’t need the labour theory of value to stand it up. Borrowing only to invest doesn’t depend on Marx’s theory of the commodity form. Renationalising the railway is as close to common sense as it gets in politics. If McDonnell is a Marxist, so is most of the c

" There is nothing socialist about this, nothing social democratic, nothing liberal, nothing progressive, nothing moral, nothing with any optimism or imagination." What is it?

Britain: The party of war " For the past 18 months, Britain has been complicit with mass murder as our Saudi allies have bombarded Yemen from the air, slaughtering thousands of innocent people as well as helping fuel a humanitarian calamity" How Britain's party of war gave the green light to Saudi in Yemen and A Brief History of the Yemen Clusterfu*k How U.S. and Saudi Backing of Al Qaeda Led to 9/11   (The Washington Post) " These days, Canada is the second-largest arms exporter to the Middle East. Our Alberta oil sands produce more carbon emissions each year than the entire state of California. Our intelligence agency is allowed to act on information obtained through torture." Think Canada is a progressive paradise?

" [I]ntelligent philosophical Conservatism is actually closer to Marxist analysis than liberalism in any of its forms." — Neil Davidson On Corbyn and the Blairites