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Anti-Semitism

 Written by Vasily Grossman in 1959 Anti-Semitism can take many forms – from a mocking, contemptuous ill-will to murderous pogroms. Anti-Semitism can be met with in the market and in the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences, in the soul of an old man and in the games children play in the yard. Anti-Semitism has been as strong in the age of atomic reactors and computers as in the age of oil-lamps, sailing-boats and spinning-wheels. Anti-Semitism is always a means rather than an end; it is a measure of the contradictions yet to be resolved. It is a mirror for the failings of individuals, social structures and State systems. Tell me what you accuse the Jews of – I'll tell you what you're guilty of. Even Oleinichuk, the peasant fighter for freedom who was imprisoned in Schlusselburg, somehow expressed his hatred for serfdom as a hatred for Poles and Yids. Even a genius like Dostoyevsky saw a Jewish usurer where he should have seen the pitiless eyes of a Russian serf-owner, industri
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“Vulgar Economics”

 
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Extinction documentary

I have not yet watched the documentary because I don’t have a TV set and or a TV licence. Someone else has this to say about it: “ I've just watched David Attenborough's new Extinction documentary on the threat to planetary bio-diversity. It is of course well made and makes clear the deadly threats facing all life on this earth. But there was a major weakness and it can be summed up in one word: 'we'. Throughout the programme it was repeatedly said the 'we' have done this and that and 'we' are doing the other and 'we' are all responsible. The fact that there is a massive difference between the impact of  the rich countries and the poor got a very brief mention but the fact there is a huge difference between giant corporations and ordinary people , between the super-rich and the world's working class was never mentioned. Nor, of course, was 'capitalism'. In reality understanding that production for profit is THE central problem is the
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