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Willetts the conqueror (part 5): knowledge exchange
In addition to subsumption of teaching and research, the third mission of neoliberal marketisation has been termed, “knowledge exchange.” The introduction of this mission represents not only a fundamental attack on the academic profession, but also a desperate attempt to marshal the knowledge-producing powers of universities to kick-start a stagnating post-crisis global economy.
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Recast(e)ing the model minority: Behind right wing Hindu politics in the U.S.
Indian Americans’ susceptibility to conservative politics in the U.S. is itself a contradictory affair—on the one hand they have largely voted Democrat, but have publicly remained ambivalent about racial politics in the country. One key element of this ambivalence is the question of affirmative action and meritocracy.
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Areas of terror
This is the reason for the number of dead during the first days of the long-planned protests at the Israel-Gaza border. This is the reason for kids being shot in the back as they flee the Israeli Defence Force. The IDF is operating under what the human rights agency B’TSelem calls “illegal open fire regulations“.
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Chemical weapons redux: taking the world to the brink of annihilation
Years of chemical weapons allegations, saber rattling and a desperate search for a casus belli have culminated in a situation which risks a serious conflict of world powers.
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Ten years after crash
The economic crises that came to a head in 2008 and the massive response—by the U.S. government and corporations themselves—reshaped the world we live in.* Although sectors of the U.S. economy are still in one of their longest expansions, most people recognize that the recovery has been profoundly uneven and the economic gains have not been fairly distributed.
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Dreaming of communism: News from Nowhere
There can be no denying that the content of News from Nowhere, the utopian romance penned by painter, poet and designer William Morris, was heavily indebted to the writings of Karl Marx. Morris was exploring these from the spring of 1882, the year before Marx died and the year of his own 48th birthday. He continued to read Marx, especially Capital, in its French edition, the first English edition being still a few years away.
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U.S. isn’t leaving Syria—but media lost it when possibility was raised
At a rally in Cleveland last week, President Donald Trump said that the U.S. will get out of Syria “very soon.” It is now clear that the 4,000 U.S. troops currently occupying Syria (Washington Post, 10/31/17) will in fact stay in Syria (Independent, 4/4/18), even though keeping troops in another country in defiance of that […]
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The imperial intentions of Trump’s trade war babble
In defence of his trade war with China, Trump claims that ‘when you’re $500bn down you can’t lose.’ The problem with this stance is that persistent U.S. trade deficits with China are arguably a sign of U.S. strength or even imperial privilege, not weakness. However, on this issue, he has much of conventional economics wisdom supporting him in his delusions that the U.S. is being treated unfairly or is ‘behind’ based on these deficits.
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Landless Workers’ movement leader: “Lula will be freed if people take to the streets”
MST leader João Pedro Stédile says Lula’s imprisonment is “yet another chapter in the coup”
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Aijaz Ahmad on Syria, U.S. and Palestine
A rational solution is possible for Syria, if the US wants to be rational. But with Kushner in the White House Palestine faces a grim future.
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Recycling crisis is capitalist business as usual
Recycling isn’t complicated. Households and businesses separate their recyclables from the rest of their rubbish and put them out for collection. This material then is supposed to be sorted and made into new products–a small but important contribution to sustainability in a world awash with waste.
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China’s rise threatens U.S. imperialism, not American people
That China and the U.S. are moving in opposite directions is not a new trend, but it has been brought into sharper focus in the Trump era. Growing anxious about its diminishing international authority, the U.S. demonstrates increasing hostility towards China.
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We struggle against illegitimate public and private debt which are at the core of the capitalist system
What we are fighting is a capitalist system that destroys nature.
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Another Latin American soft coup on tap? Western media decries Evo Morales’ candidacy
Supporters of Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, Evo Morales, wonder why his popular government can’t enjoy the same privilege of indefinite re-election afforded to many Western leaders without being called a “dictator” by media. Is it truly concern for “democracy” or is another agenda at play?
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Pelosi and 9 Dems had ‘excellent meeting’ with Netanyahu even as Israel sent ‘dozens of snipers’ to Gaza
Last Tuesday March 26, Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of ten House Democrats to Israel, where most of them met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu tweeted that night that he’d had an “excellent meeting” with the congresspeople.
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Pentagon capitalism and silicon valley
The weaponized nature of the tech industry is a pandora’s box that may prove impossible to close. Yet Google’s employees are resisting their company’s continued work to upgrade the U.S. war machine.
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MLK: A snap shot in time
The line of preachers stretched 100 yards to the door of Columbus, Georgia’s radio station WOKS, where the pastors had each been allotted a few minutes to testify to their deep commitment to the ideals espoused by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., shot down in Memphis three days earlier. Nearly every Black minister in town was there, waiting his turn to lie. Although they would sound like an amen corner for “the Movement” on this mournful Sunday morning, the assembled clergymen had, in fact, acted as the front line of resistance to King’s gospel of nonviolent confrontation with the white powers-that-be.
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Trump’s protectionism
ON March 8, Donald Trump made an announcement which according to many has the potential of starting a global trade war. He announced that the U.S. would be raising tariffs on imported steel by 25 per cent and tariffs on imported aluminium by 10 per cent.
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Is France heading for another May ’68?
Just fifty years ago on March 22nd we saw the beginning of the events in France which terrified the ruling class, led to one of the biggest general strikes ever, along with a wave of factory occupations, and could only be calmed by important concessions from the bosses (minimum wage raised by 35% and new workplace organising rights guaranteed for trade unions). For the first time for decades, the spectre of revolution in the West seemed real.
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Easter march for peace
What were these indefatigable protesters demanding this time, here in Berlin and at rainy meetings, marches and bicycle parades during the long Easter weekend in over a hundred cities and towns all over Germany?