NM's blog

All the war- propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. —George Orwell

Stephen John Goldthorp There's absolutely no guarantees that Putin will stop his warmongering afterwards. Ned Ma Stephen John Goldthorp  you need to explain why. Stephen John Goldthorp Ned Ma  I already have under the reply to Edward Iley who beat you to that question. Suffice to say. Putin's demands are geared towards making future invasions even easier. Not towards Peace. Putin's previous record gives doubt that anything he says can be trusted. But he has sunk serious investment into trying to conquer Ukraine and failing. Ned Ma Stephen John Goldthorp  “Putin's demands are geared towards making future invasions even easier.” You haven't explained why. Why did Putin invade Ukraine and why doesn't want 'peace'? Stephen John Goldthorp Ned Ma  why is hard, maybe Putin isn't as smart as he thinks he is or as smart as everyone else makes him out to be. Putin doesn't seem to be able to form trusting relationships either on a personal level or with oth...

“While acknowledging the important role of politics and ideology, it remains crucial to analyse how Russia’s model of capitalist accumulation created the structural conditions — the framework — within which subsequent political decisions were made. “Despite the regime’s pivot toward military-industrial expansion and sanctioned self-reliance, the basic logic of peripheral capitalist accumulation — rooted in natural resource exports, particularly hydrocarbons — remains intact. “Capitalists positioned in sectors aligned with state priorities — especially construction firms, arms manufacturers, and logistics companies — have seen profits rise even amid macroeconomic uncertainty. “For this cohort, the war has become not a disruption but a condition of accumulation. Any form of peace agreement that reopens Russia to global competition and winds down public investment in military and reconstruction sectors would likely erode these profits and restore the stagnation characteristic of the late ...

“Even if the US does not bomb Iran, it will continue to arm Israel. Either way, there will be serious implications for the Middle East and US politics. “Labour Party meetings and trade union meetings should pass resolutions demanding an end to the assault on Iran and further demanding that Britain should play no role in the attack on Iran, either directly or indirectly and socialists should support demonstrations, lobbies and rallies to that effect.” Even if resolutions were passed they would be defeated by Starmer and the right of the Labour Party.

No one wants to hear what the people of Gaza actually want . The anti-Hamas voices in the West only amplify their suffering when it serves their agenda. They were silent when Gaza was screaming in agony, in mourning, in starvation.  They want to use our voices when we chant against Hamas, but they mute us when we cry out for our murdered families. They never want to hear us demand an end to Israel’s slaughter.”

‘Devastation has overtaken development’

I wish children didn’t die. I wish they would be temporarily elevated to the skies until the war ends. Then they would return home safe, and when their parents would ask them: “where were you?” they would say: “we were playing with the stars.” — Ghassan Kanafani *ليت الأطفال لا يموتون* *ليتهم يرفعون الى السماء مؤقتا* *ريثما تنتهي الحرب* *ثم يعودون الى بيوتهم آمنين !* *وحين يسألهم الاهل محتارين* *اين كنتم ؟* *يقولون فرحين* *”كنا نلعب مع النجوم “* غسان كنفاني   

An interview with Vanessa Wills, author of Marx’s Ethical Vision

A must read Unlike classical imperialism, write Costas Lapavitsas  the driving force of contemporary imperialism  “springs from this pairing of internationalized industrial with internationalized financial capital. Neither dominates the other and there is no fundamental clash between them. Jointly they comprise the most aggressive form of capital known to history.” And  this pairing of capitals  “thrives on unfettered access to global natural resources, cheap labor power, low taxation, loose environmental standards, and markets for its industrial, commercial, and financial components. The United States will obviously not submit to the challenge and draws on its vast military, political, and monetary power to protect its hegemony. That makes it the main threat to world peace.”  It implies there is now a world peace that is under threat. I don’t think there is world peace. “The socialist left must oppose imperialism, while recognizing that the United States is the...

A must read Unlike classical imperialism, write Costas Lapavitsas   the driving force of contemporary imperialism   “springs from this pairing of internationalized industrial with internationalized financial capital. Neither dominates the other and there is no fundamental clash between them. Jointly they comprise the most aggressive form of capital known to history.” And   this pairing of capitals  “thrives on unfettered access to global natural resources, cheap labor power, low taxation, loose environmental standards, and markets for its industrial, commercial, and financial components. The United States will obviously not submit to the challenge and draws on its vast military, political, and monetary power to protect its hegemony. That makes it the main threat to world peace. The socialist left must oppose imperialism, while recognizing that the United States is the main aggressor. But that ought to be done from an independent position that is openly anti-capitalis...

Living – and dying – in the moment Related According  to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor , Israel has killed 2,100 Palestinian babies under the age of two since October, out of a total of 17,000 children killed.

One doesn’t have to agree with all the arguments  in this article , but there are quite valid ones.

  A great irony is that the modern Olympics, first envisioned as an alternative to war, have themselves become a form of low-intensity warfare.           — Mike Davis

“ Europe’s military arsenal is not well prepared for war  … because for the last thirty years we thought that war was not coming back to Europe.”  But has war ever left Europe?

Revealing the human side of the Syrian revolution/war

A brief-history of the Arab ballad

Very, very insightful.

Cancelled then restored  منع "يوميات الإبادة" لعاطف أبو سيف في مانشستر Under pressure from the local Jewish Representative Council, the Manchester’s progressive art centre , HOME cancels a celebration of Palestinian writing A liberal review in the Guardian

Free yourselves from the indoctrination presented to you as innate knowledge. My generation lived through war and fascism. Through this experience, we reached the conclusion that there should never be war again. My generation experienced fascism, which at first we accepted. We didn’t know about what was going on in the concentration camps — there were no Jews in my Pomeranian village, and we didn’t know what was happening to Jewish people. These were all realizations that I had to come to later. It was then that I came to the conclusion that this fascism — which was, of course, also an outgrowth from humanity — had an economic base supporting it. Where did the cannons come from, who built the bombers, who desired this? And who is alive today and profiting from war? Where do new developments come from? Anyone sitting in their car today with their sat nav should be aware that this is a by-product of the production of weapons for war. So, the only advice I can give is to critically qu...

“Far from being caused by personal rivalry, this conflict is rooted in the long history of the region and Sudan’s never-ending economic and social crisis. The conflict between the North and the South claimed between half a million and a million lives from 1955 to 2002. And herein lies the cause of the fighting tearing Sudan apart. To understand it requires going back to 2011. The secession of South Sudan and the rise of guerrilla movements within the North’s Muslim populations had weakened President Omar al-Bashir’s authority. His increasingly unpopular Islamist regime had been in power since the coup of June 1989 and was rotten with corruption. The regime sent the Janjaweed to fight in Yemen on behalf of the Saudis – who paid handsomely – and then tasked them with repressing the northern guerrillas of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), first in Darfur and then throughout the country. From the day after the coup, there were obvious tensions between the two forces, e...