Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Nicos Poulantzas: State, Power, Socialism

Is Social Revolution Still Possible in the Twenty-First Century?

UK There are two kinds of 'generation rent'

UK Understanding the British election

"It's a weird time. This week I'm noticing two rather disturbing bandwagons rolling, both arising from Manchester. One is about UK domestic politics and the other international politics but they are linked by an understandable desire not to see the attack as being used to advance the agenda of the Tories and specifically, to help their election campaign. Both though are ultimately very unhelpful. One is about the need for soldiers on the streets because Theresa May  cut police budgets as Home Secretary. I've seen unlikely people sharing tweets from redundant cops. Tempting to undercut May this way, but wrong - more armed cops do not equal fewer attacks like Manchester. The other is pinning the blame for Manchester on the UK intervention in Libya.  Again, understandable.  But it's important to see that the problem in Libya was not the attempted regime change as such but the regime that people tried to change i.e. Gaddafi's tyranny. It was a regime that - like

On deploying British troops , Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, said he would tell them: "Under my leadership, you will only be deployed abroad when there is a clear need and only when there is a plan that you have the resources to do your job and secure an outcome that delivers lasting peace". So, in principle, and fundamentally, he would not break with the imperialist interventions of the British regime. He would deploy troops in a better and organised way, probably with popular support. Although Corbyn opposed the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, he sees that Britain has a mission to deploy troops and intervene to "secure peace". Since when an imperialist power intervenes and wages wars for peace? How ironic from a socialist? A socialist who would use the state apparatus of an imperialist state. 

A great scientist. I recommend The Richness of Life . When I started reading it I couldn't put it down. " Homo sapiens, I fear, is a “thing so small” in a vast universe, a wildly improbable evolutionary event well within the realm of contingency. Make of such a conclusion what you will. Some find it depressing; I have always regarded it as exhilarating, and a source of both freedom and consequent moral responsibility." Remeasuring Stephen Jay Gould