Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

عماد أبو اشتية – رسام وفنان تشكيلي أردني فلسطيني 

I did not know that it was so good until I started watching. Plot summary . With English subtitles , but you may need a VPN.

كارثة سوريا الكبرى هي النظام  

‘Freedom of speech’, again!

“Given the specific form American power has taken since the second world war – a global empire of capital – the significant thing about military emissions is not so much their magnitude as the reason they are generated in the first place: namely, the Pentagon’s need to maintain unparalleled supremacy in order to underwrite a much wider, ecologically ruinous regime of accumulation. Washington’s role as guardian of global capital – and the military’s role as coercive guarantor of that position – is conterminous with what environmental historians call ‘the great acceleration’.  The advent of the ‘Anthropocene’ and the spread of American-led transnational capitalism are intertwined. As such, the Pentagon’s deadly atmospheric legacy far outstrips the effect of its own emissions. With the left in purgatory, it is understandable that scholars like Michael Klare should hope for Washington to take up the mantle of planetary rescue. The notion that there might be anything ethically palatable...

No bigger picture, no bigger context A tip of the iceberg of the barbarity of French colonialism

The emergence of a ruling class?

Arguable, but very interesting. An interview with the author. Here are the main arguments in case you cannot access the article . “Constant emphasis on racial and ethnic disparities diverts public attention from the growing class divide in the West between the college-educated overclass and the working class. The nation-state is the only unit of government that has been able to mobilise extra-political popular sentiments and national identity to improve the condition of the majority of people, not just an oligarchy or aristocracy. The actual ruling class in the US and similar Western democracies is not a tiny number of freakishly rich individuals, or heirs and heiresses, but the top 10 or 15 per cent of the population – almost all of them with college diplomas and often graduate or professional degrees. I was criticised for arguing in  The New Class War  that education, not income, is the major dividing line between classes in the modern West.  There are two working class...

Names and faces

Another spillover of a failed revolution, uneven development, marginalisation …and genuine democratic restructuring of society. The absence of prevalent and radical forces that are able to unite the nation and establish a fair distribution of wealth.. The complex character of such a situation in different parts of the world is the focus of Michael Mann’s The Dark Side of Democrac y. “Class conflict has always been important in the development of modern society.” A weak class conflict invites all sorts of other conflicts. It even lays the ground for ethnic conflicts and genocide.  Counter-revolutionary and reactionary forces and regional powers always have interests in playing a role in exploiting and redirecting conflicts.  Dirar has vowed to use weapons to liberate the Beja people , who are native to eastern Sudan, from “historical marginalisation” by governments in Khartoum.  Related Lessons from European history “I will argue that class struggle and its institutio...

شعر سعدي يوسف

  تحديات المناخ والانتقال العادل نحو طاقة مستدامة في شمال أفريقيا Related The energy transition in North Africa - neocolonialism again!

 

“The refusal to actively resist the authoritarian tendencies of regimes like China, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Iran structurally prohibits us from organizing against imperialism as a global system. Focusing on only certain aspects of US influence at the expense of addressing the complicity of other states in the global economy—working alongside the US’s  other  aspects of dominance— only  selectively  critiques global imperialism .”

University and College Union (UCU) is involved in a prolonged dispute about the pay, pensions and conditions of its 120,000 members. Planned: The University and College Union (UCU) has announced a total of 18 days of industrial action during    February and March. Strikes are planned for February  1, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 21,22, 23, 27, 28 and March 1, 2, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22.

  موضوع الخمر يقدم مثالا حول كيفية قيام رجال الدين بتغيير القرآن واللغة العربية لتتماشى مع أحاديثهم وتفسيراتهم ورؤيتهم الخاصة للدين والشريعة

“A demonstration for equality turned into an all-Jewish, Zionist demonstration advocating for Jewish supremacy in Israel. Once again, demonstrators said: don’t bother us about the occupation. We are dealing here with the judicial system; let’s not confuse the issues - as if the occupation does not overshadow everything and define the Israeli regime more than any of its other components. The hypocrisy and double standards of the Zionist left were once again revealed in all their ugliness.” Zionists only

In an era of “consume and move on”, culture, ‘comfort zone’, avoidance of ‘controversial’ statements and topics, etc.,  Socrates can help

هناك فرق بين الصور الكاريكاتورية المسيئة للنبي والمنمنمات الفارسية عن نشوء الإسلام Muslim activists misunderstand Islam  (only part of the article)

What happens with thinkers who operate outside the European philosophical ‘pedigree’?