Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

What does fascism mean today?

In ‘Egyptian Arabic’ with English subtitles. The original lyrics can be read here .

“Any supposed peace dividend from the end of the Cold War, always more talked about than experienced by voters in the UK, was now over, Shapps argued. We are not in a ‘post-war world’ but a ‘pre-war world’, the defence secretary told his listeners.”  “In a phrase worthy of Dr Strangelove, he said that we cannot assume that ‘the strategy of mutually assured destruction that stopped wars in the past will stop them in the future’. “The majority of its [Britain’s] citizens have had more sense than to approve the imperial follies of the post-Cold War hot wars.”  I am not sure about that. Rees must provide evidence. John Rees is from the Socialist Workers Party. Publishing on the Middle East Eye means Rees and MEE have to replace the term imperialist with ‘imperial’ and neocolonial power with ‘post-colonial power’ .

As “the Israelis and the Americans understand very well, the ongoing discourse on terrorism is not about the victims of ‘terrorism’ but about the ‘perpetrators’ . The fact that state armies more regularly target the very same victims that ‘terrorists’  target, yet are not referred to as ‘terrorists’, clarifies that it is not the act of ‘terrorism’ that defines the actor as ‘terrorist’ but rather the opposite: it is the perpetrator’s conferred identity as ‘terrorist’ that defines his/her actions as ‘terrorist’ in nature. Evidently, the US, Israel and other imperial European countries understand well that the resistance of Palestinians, Algerians, Vietnamese, Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis, Somalis and other peoples around the world to colonial and imperial invasions and bombings is a legitimate and moral self-defence against imperial and colonial terror, which is why they have to launch political propaganda campaigns and fabrications, and deploy the term ‘terrorism’ to depict such resista...

“Nearly  425,000 Cubans have fled for the United States  in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, shattering previous records.  Instead of moving to stem the flow by focusing on root causes in Cuba, the Biden White House has been signalling support in recent days for Republican-backed border policies.” Biden is sticking with Trump’s policy

"We need to keep quiet on the whole issue of strategic ambiguity, while arming Taiwan to the teeth."

A must-read analysis

“The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us reorder this world around us.” —Tony Blair Iraq at twenty

Companies are scared to sell medicine to Iran

“America on the Brink” review

"A water crisis like this doesn't become an issue until it affects people of a higher class. It has been ongoing and Jackson has been an example of that. People's health is secondary to the state." Racism and class in one of the richest countries

How food is used as a weapon

American women should go to Tunisia or Bahrain to have abortion! Related "I would consider myself a practising Muslim. I try my best to abide by the Quran and the Sunnah [teachings of the Prophet Muhammad]. Based on my faith, I know I did the right thing. I know it was ok for me to have an abortion. Islam gave me that right," Fatima said. " But now this country doesn’t recognise these rights. What will other women like me do?"

“President Joe Biden said Monday that the U.S. would intervene militarily if China were to invade Taiwan, saying the burden to protect Taiwan is “even stronger’ after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” I have just looked at the world map. Taiwan, in case you didn’t know, is situated between Florida and Cuba. American imperialism, after defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan, is trying to reassert itself. It is contrary to what a few analysts think. The U.S. still has a superior force and supported by subordinate states/allies. Taiwan would be the excuse not the reason for any military action. The real reason and the main objective is to clip the rising technological power of China. That is the main threat to Western imperialism. 

The projects, mapped across the Middle East, are an effort to consolidate the influence of American capital and rebuff competition from China by creating a physical, economic bulwark that strengthens American and European supply chains. It is about to hit the Middle East

The Haymarket affair

“ In this perverse upending of the very meaning of decolonization, to decolonize France is to rid the nation of the immigrants who are “colonizing” it . Paradoxically, the most vocal advocates of decolonization today are not formerly colonized subjects, but the nativist guardians of the borders of France against the purported invasion of immigrants.”

 

Showcasing the Best of Working-Class Cinema

A leading liberal economist’s latest book. The wrong assumption, and not hardly questioned by the reviewer, is that socialism and communism existed in modern times. “ Capitalism, Alone  demonstrates the limits of studying capitalism’s empirical effects without a theory of how the system actually works—or especially, how it doesn’t.” Surely, without (referring to) theory–the Marxist tenets and analysis–then our description of the socio-economic system that existed in the Soviet Union, would be the mainstream one: socialist/communist. A fundamental pillar of capitalism is the rate of profit, not just profit-making. This also has not been even hinted at. How any form of capitalism that is dominated by private capital invests and therefore achieves growth is determined by the rate of return.  “ Where the globalization literature of the 2000s was exultant with promise, Milanovic’s book frankly admits the limitations of actually existing capitalism and resigns itself to making the b...