Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

"This is a generation of Spaniards raised in the wake of the civil war, hardened from living through an oppressive dictatorship." It's sad when human beings die out of negligence. I think though that the sentence above is irrelevant. Many of the elderly people who died where workers who helped create wealth for the present generation. We don't know whether they were oppressed under Franco's dictatorship. Many Spaniards after all supported that dictatorship . How Spain shamed itself

"The state of a nation’s public services, from its health system all the way to its toilets, tells you a lot about its priorities. As with so many aspects of our society, the coronavirus pandemic has revealed to many what was already obvious to plenty: that after 40 years of neoliberalism and a  decade of Tory austerity , Britain is a place in which private interest trumps public comfort." Blaming exclusively the Tories, absolves [(New) Labour. The same things applies to encroachment on public spaces like pavements by businesses, lack of benches, closures of water fountains, etc. The business of England is business. Thus the sluggishness of the government to impose earlier restrictions and a lockdown to minimise the spread of coronavirus. What does the lack of public toilets say about the country?

Toppling George Washington and the myth of American democracy Related Winston Churchill and the use of chemical weapons Controversies of Churchill's career 

Against amnesia: one of his criminal acts   His words from Feb. 17, 1998, to the Joint Chiefs of Staff: '“people in this room know very well that this is not a time free from peril, especially as a result of reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals…And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the  missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq…a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed…But if we act as one, we can safeguard our interests and send a clear message to every would-be tyrant and terrorist that the international community does have the wisdom and the will and the way to protect peace and se...

As evictions, both legal and illegal, ramp up in the United States they are likely to disproportionately impact a population that has already been devastated by the coronavirus - African Americans. Before the pandemic, research showed that of the 2.3 million evictions that take place each year (about four per minute), they disproportionately impacted black families, particularly low-income, black women. In 17 states, black women are twice as likely to be evicted as white renters, according to statistics from the American Civil Liberties Union. Why the country is expecting an 'avalanche' of evictions

How can we remember what we do not know? France's history wars

A free ebook Black Women Lives' in Britain

Britain's persistent racism cannot simply explained by its imeprial history Related: Britain: imperial nostalgia

Zeef Sternhell (1935-2020) Israel's left has no future  (2009)

"We are quick to label the Reading attack terrorism"

الموت عمل شاق لخالد خليفة English translation (excerpts) Death is Hard Work

"In Israel, a country no less discriminatory, racist and abusive than the United States, and which has a military dictatorship in part of its territory, there is no significant protest about the way weaker people are treated. Africans are abused and Palestinians are shot, and with the exception of a few organizations and a few brave citizens, the majority either cheers or yawns." Black Lives Matter in Israel? Sounds like science fiction

A critique  At a time when a global pandemic has only exacerbated spiraling inequalities, pervasive racism, and xenophobic insurgencies on both sides of the Atlantic, Habermas suggests that humanity already possesses the resources for levelheaded debate oriented toward the common good. Yet a tension persists between Habermas’s political ideals and his historical framework. The gap is not so much one of theory and practice, which Habermas readily acknowledges. Instead, his story’s European origin collides with its universal intent. Habermas insists that postmetaphysical reason—because it refuses to take refuge in foundational certainties—provides a basis for the inter-cultural dialogue necessary to confront global crises of climate change, mass migration, and unregulated markets. But by tracing the emergence of modern rationality solely to a Western, and Christian, learning process, he elides the historical reckoning necessary for any such dialogue. The same problem faced Haber...

London's emptying towers

London: Life support system of the super-rich Alpha City:  How London Was Captured by the Super-rich How the super-wealthy took over London

On 'For Sama' and mainstream filmmaking

This falls in the underconsumption theory. It very insighful though, but it would be interesting to see a critique of it, especially that it apparently excludes the relationship between investment and the rate of profit. "Michael Pettis and Matthew Klein's new book  Trade Wars Are Class Wars  begins  with an epigraph from John A. Hobson: "The struggle for markets, the greater eagerness of producers to sell than of consumers to buy, is the crowning proof of a false economy of distribution. Imperialism is the fruit of this false economy." Pettis and Klein update the Hobsonian thesis for the twenty-first century, arguing that, while trade wars are often thought to be the result of atavistic leadership or the contrasting economic priorities of discrete nation states, they are best understood as the malign symptoms of domestic inequalities that harm workers the world over." Trade Wars Are Class Wars

The Oil for Security Myth and Middle East Insecurity Related McJihad: Empire and Islam Between the US and Saudi Arabia Why the Gulf Wealth Matters to Britain [and the U.S.]

Via Michael Roberts The pandemic lockdowns will reduce incomes of low-paid workers in Europe by anything between 10% to 22% on average, depending on how long lockdowns last, according to a new study. Enforced social distancing and lockdown measures to contain COVID-19 restrict economic activity, especially among workers in non-essential jobs who cannot ‘telework’. These have implications for inequality and poverty. This column analyses  the capacity of individuals in 29 European countries to work under lockdown and the potential impact of a two-month lockdown on wages and inequality levels. There will be substantial and uneven wage losses across the board and poverty will rise. Inequality within countries will worsen, as it will between countries although to a lesser extent. "In sum, our analysis reveals that the lockdown and de-escalation periods will potentially increase poverty and inequality sizeably in all European countries, even without accounting for second-roun...

When the New York Times brings its support for US militarism home