Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Some free ebooks on Verso

"Since the late 1980s, US migration controls have worked to discipline low-wage migrant labor, ensuring the availability of a population of vulnerable, deportable workers for exploitation by US capital. After the 2008 financial crisis, however, the deportation machine kicked into high gear, earning Obama the title of 'Deporter in Chief.' Under Trump, the expansion of the war on migrants has reached dystopic dimensions." Migrants on the Front Lines of Global Class War But if you are "an Iraqi who helped the US military" or from persecuted religious minorities [Rohignyan? I doubt it], you are in .

The Fallagah's fight against the French A documentary

I have just finished reading this great book ( available here ). It is a very good discussion of what capitalism is and the real and possible alternatives. The focus is on the developed capitalist countries. And I agree with Ben Tarnoff when he wrote, reviewing Erik Olin  Wright's last book, that "Wright writes with an unusual combination of clarity, depth and warmth. He engages generously with opposing arguments. He acknowledges difficulty and complexity. He exudes a democratic respect for his reader. Democracy, in fact, is the essence of his socialism. For him, a just society would enact democracy in its deepest sense. He wants a world where everyone has access to the 'material and social means necessary to live a flourishing life” and the opportunity “to participate meaningfully in decisions about things that affect their lives'."

From the British Labour Party special conference "The report also makes it clear that there should be no return to old models of nationalisation that were adopted after second world war.  They were state industries designed mainly to modernise the economy and provide basic industries to subsidise the capitalist sector.  There was no democracy and no input from workers or even government in the state enterprises and certainly no integration into any wider plan for investment or social need.  This was so-called ‘Morrisonian model’ named after right-wing Labour leader Herbert Morrison, who oversaw the post-war UK nationalisations." Models of public ownership

UK and Egypt J. is only following a British tradition 

Sheikh Imam mocked all of them—from the one who paid lip service to "socialism" to the most venerated Arab singer.

The End of Fukuyama and the Last Book

Teachers' strike enters its third week

Labour and the Green New Deal Related: The Green New Deal: a critique

According to Blue Sky, Egypt was expecting 100,000 tourists via Thomas Cook in 2020. But the first travel company in the world has just collapsed. The Egyptian tourist industry is dominated by those corrupt pro-regime tycoons.  The main loosers though will be Egyptian workers. Thomas Cook workers at least have a welfare state to rely on. 

"Down with Sisi"

Only a rational economy can stop the devastation of nature An economy that abolishes the private ownership of the means of producing wealth and finance, and combines democratic production, distribution and consumption.

Imperialist designs "What I think I will do," he [Roosevelt] told Morgenthau, "is this. First, I would Palestine a religious country. Then I would leave Jerusalem the way it is and have it run by the Orthodox Greek Catholic Church, the Protestants, and the Jews—have a joint committee run it...I actually would put a barbed wire around Palestine...I would provide land for the Arabs in some other part of the Middle East... Each time we move out an Arab we would bring in another Jewish family... But I don't want to bring in more than they can economically support... Naturally, if there are 90 per cent Jews, the Jews would dominate ..." Sources of the quote James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (1940-1945) Jay Winik, 1944: FDR and the Year That Chnaged History

"While official anti-corruption campaigns are at best a PR exercise, the opposition’s drive to weed out corruption rests on the idea that corruption is an incidental addition to the system, which could be made to function more fairly and rationally without it. Yet this is to mistake a feature for a glitch: the orgies of illicit enrichment Navalny and others rightly attack are not simply a product of the personal greed of Putin’s colleagues, they are part of the system’s very architecture. Far from being an extraneous or incidental aspect of contemporary Russian capitalism, corruption has been built into it from the outset." Russia's appointed billionaires

But in continental Europe what Le Monde has described as the “ robbery of the century ” has done almost as much to shape the view of Britain as Brexit itself. Dutch media has called it  “organised crime in pinstripe suits”  and one of the original German whistleblowers saying he now  welcomes Britain’s exit from the EU  in the hope it could weaken the influence of London investment banking on European financial institutions. "The men who plundered Europe" You see, our capitalist system, "liberal democracy", does something against crime and "the bad apples". Have faith in regulations and the judicial system. There is no need to be radical about it, advocating nationalisation and democratic control of the banks and the economy . 

The same structures persist  A corrupt gang is building palaces while 60 percent of Egyptians, according to the World Bank, are either poor or vulnerable. The national statistics agency found that 33 percent of the population were classified poor last hear. Young people have again taken to the street, calling for the El-Sisi to step dow. The objective of overthrowing military rule is no longer prevalent. "Build your palaces from our sweat and hard work."

A passenger on the bus says… Nothing impresses me. Not the radio, the morning newspapers, Or the fortresses on hills. I long for a weep. The bus driver says: Wait until we reach the station,  And weep alone as you can. A lady says: Me too. Nothing impresses me. I spoiled my son upon my grave, He enjoyed it and slept without saying goodbye. A university student says: Me neither. Nothing impresses me. I studied archeology without finding An identity in stones. Am I really me? A solider says: Me too.  Nothing impresses me. I guard a ghost that always haunts me. The angry driver replies:  We are close to our last stop,  Get ready to leave. They scream:  We want what is beyond the station, so go. As for me, I say: Drop me here.  I am like them, nothing impresses me. But I am tired from traveling.  —Mahmoud Darwish

A note on the current wave of social media videos in Egypt

"Junket Journalism in the Shadow of Genocide"