Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

A discussion of neoliberalism and the future of the global economy

Source: taxjustice.net

“ The international financial press has trotted out the usual boilerplate in its attempt to explain this instability, asserting that African countries cannot manage their own affairs and that Western institutions must swoop in to rescue them. Once again, as the refrain goes, it’s a question of the West’s benevolence in contrast to Africa’s violence and corruption.” “ Political crises in Africa are always an opportunity for Western capitalist economies to set the conditions for more free market measures, more free movement of capital, and more privatization.” “Every  new government finds itself with a list of policies that must be implemented in order to receive the benefit of the IMF, the World Bank, and bilateral aid.” “ The scene is the same no matter which government is in power. Even if a regime falls, the neocolonial extractive model doesn’t.” “Because they’re detached from the real needs of their populations, elites in Africa are facilitating this precarity and poverty and in...

The oldest political prisoner in Europe

Arms, aid and counter-revolution

After more than 55, the murder investigation is reopened because  a man who was a policeman at the time of the 1965 killing, alleges “ New York police and the FBI conspired in the murder.” ‘Justice’, the American way

  The military never conducted an independent investigation

“ Europe’s pathological fear of migrants complements the Polish government’s patriotic self-indulgence — all evident to cunning Lukashenko, clear-eyed enough to see their failings, and exploit them.” The hollowness of European humanitarianism

And the roots of the 2011 uprisings

Fuelling narcissists’ worst desires, making debate near impossible

What does it mean? You might need to open a free account to access the article

Carbon dioxide beneficial for plants, chief culprit of climate change

Situating the Holocaust in a broader context of white racism, colonialism and imperialism 

Union activist jailed for fabricated terrorism charges

According to a study by the University of Virginia  Center for Politics and Project Home Fire  “s ignificant numbers of both Trump and Biden voters show a willingness to consider violating democratic tendencies and norms if needed to serve their priorities. Roughly 2 in 10 Trump and Biden voters strongly agree it would be better if a “President could take needed actions without being constrained by Congress or courts,” and roughly 4 in 10 (41%) of Biden and half (52%) of Trump voters at least somewhat agree that it’s time to split the country, favoring blue/red states seceding from the union .”

Why not? Has not everything been commodified and many students are in debt? Normalising selling sex

The court heard a British officer provided a written statement to a commanding officer after a member of the special forces told him all fighting-age males were being killed regardless of the threat they posed.  The officer said: "It was also indicated that fighting-age males were being executed on target inside compounds, using a variety of methods after they had been restrained. In one case it was mentioned a pillow was put over the head of an individual being killed with a pistol." Senior military officers buried evidence that British troops were executing detainees in Afghanistan

Iranian rock and heavy metal

“Far from the world being swept by a wave of rationality, historical accuracy and universality, the very turmoil produced by [capitalist] globalisation, by the collapse and discrediting of the dominant radical ideologies of the twentieth century, of left and right, and by a world where violence in many unexpected forms is prevalent, has led to a strengthening of myth and emotional claims. We are aware, through the work of sociologists and students of nationalism, of the role of such myths in mobilising people and enabling them to make sense of their complex and often bewildering lives. Hence we can recognise that the more rapidly the world changes, and the more interaction and conflict there are between peoples, the more potent these ideas become.”  –Fred Halliday,  100 Myths About the Middle East , 2005, pp. 14-15 Some of the myths  “ The Middle East is, in some fundamental way, ‘different’ from the rest of the world and has to be understood in terms distinct from other ...