Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

It's time to get over it Related Liberal feminism is the one that encompasses Marie Claire magazine, Michelle Obama, Christine Lagarde, Malala Yousafzai, Beyoncé and many like them. You have them in almost every country whether with it is a Muslim-majority or a Christian-majority one, from Turkey to Colombia. An example of liberal feminism

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief.    —Frantz Fanon,  Black Skins, White Masks

"At the end of the genocide of the Tutsi, the militia was 30,000 strong. The Interahamwe broke the world’s most atrocious records for the speed of the killing of human beings, estimated at five times that of the Nazis." The Violence of Denial—Rwanda and the Lived Memory of Genocide

"There is no alternative." —Margaret Thatcher "The best of all possible worlds." —Voltaire "Free market must be protected"

Neil Davidson (1957-2020) I recommend: Is social revolution still possible in the twenty-first century? Neoliberalism as a Class-Based Project

A good summary "Arab Workers and the Struggle for Democracy" Related The article above lacks a radical appraisal

 Food inequality under covid-19 and the community restaurant

Boris Johnson's message to the working class Related It's not an accident Britain and America are the world's biggest coronavirus losers

"What Zylberman described in 2013 has now been duly confirmed. It is evident that, apart from the emergency situation, linked to a certain virus that may in the future be replaced by another, at issue is the design of a paradigm of governance whose efficacy will exceed that of all forms of government known thus far in the political history of the West." Biosecurity and Politics Related Agamben is "right and [drastically] wrong"

How Pandemics End

History sanitised Via Michael Roberts "It was Victory in Europe day on Friday 8 May, the 75th anniversary of the day that the 'Allied' powers officially defeated the 'Axis' powers in Europe (but not in Asia). The celebrations in the UK were all about Britain standing alone to defeat the Germans, with a little American help. No mention of the UK's colonial allies in Southern Asia, or the dominions of Australia, Canada etc. And above all, no mention of the role of the Soviet Union and China. But where was the war  won, and who suffered the most casualties?" "The bear that somewhow isn't in the room" Related Every state has its own myths. Here is one of Britain's

This is the Future of the Pandemic

Is it a coincidence that the two pioneer states of the most aggressive form of "neoliberal" capitalism at home and abroad in the last 40 years or so are so far the most affected by the coronavirus? How the Anglo-American model failed to tackle the coronavirus

Dr. Matthew Alford of the University of Bath, author of National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood ,  told  MintPress  that the new Amazon product is a “disgrace of a series,” unfairly demonizing a nation at a time when the United States has its boot on the throat of Venezuelan society. The CIA's Jack Ryan Series

A good article from last year "Power usually operates through distinct, sometimes competing, sub-groups — senior civil servants, both French and European, intellectuals, bosses, journalists, the conservative right, and the moderate left. Within this cosy framework, turns are taken in power, and these obey certain democratic rituals of elections followed by periods of quiescence." Class war

On VE Day French Colonists Launched a Massacre in Algeria

Stealth wealth from the Middle East in Europe

A good framing of the big picture. But like all reformist leftists, no class analysis, no alternative such as nationalising the key sectors of the economy, genuine democracy and transforming the structure of capitalism for the benefits of the majority and the needs of humanity and nature by doing away of the profit motive. May be given the rise of the far right, racism, xenophobia, etc no radical solutions could be envisioned. Only modest ones (!) "In a horrific mind-warp, advanced eonomies suddenly find themselves facing the kinds of dilemma habitually faced by poor countries. We don’t have the tools. In the poor world, the everyday result is that children are stunted and families are impoverished. Millions die for lack of treatment. Covid-19 has delivered a taste of that to the rich world. Whereas one can reasonably say that giant structures such as capitalism and geopolitics stand in the way of addressing the climate crisis, the same is not true of Covid-19. The  cost of v...

The film offers only one concrete solution to our predicament: the most toxic of all possible answers. “We really have got to start dealing with the issue of population … without seeing some sort of major die-off in population, there’s no turning back.” A review of Michael Moor's Planet of the Humans

What is behind the coronavirus nursing catastrophe?