What just happened?

Among the encouraging political straws in the wind are the growing momentum in the United States and the United Kingdom, two leading carbon states, for something called the ‘Green New Deal’. I have some questions about it, but first of all it’s worth acknowledging how far it has climbed up the political agenda.

It is worse than you thought. Perhaps twice as bad. Perhaps worse than that.

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“.

The major international media aren’t interested in fulfilling the promise of social justice and participatory democracy: they want a U.S. intervention, supporting the right-wing of the opposition, despite its violently anti-democratic record.

How does race relate to class in capitalism? Is it intrinsic and essential to the reproduction of capital, or merely an accidental feature of particular capitals? In this recent essay by Richard Seymour, and originally published on his Patreon, Seymour considers a debate within Marxism on the relationship between class, race and capitalism.

While Jeremy Corbyn didn’t become Prime Minister, he did pull off the most stunning upset in recent political history. And he did this by turning out voters who, according to all received wisdom, would never vote, above all the young and poor.

Hamid Dabashi1 points out that, whatever the truth on the elections, the “fix” has become a “social fact” inasmuch as millions of Iranians are staking their lives on that very belief.  He also pointedly satirizes Orientalist assumptions of the Reading-Lolita-in-Tehran variety and takes the opportunity to remind people that solidarity, not “democracy promotion,” is what […]

The Student Muqtada al-Sadr has decided to take time out of his rebellion for studies.  The increasingly popular Iraqi nationalist and Shi’i religious leader, it was reported late last year, is seeking the title of Ayatollah (“Sign of God”).  Muqtada’s Iraqi supporters presently confer on him the title of Hujjat al-Islam (“Proof of Islam”), although […]

Gorgeous George, and Ugly Rumours To the bemusement of many observers, the British radical left-wing coalition, Respect, has undergone a bitter crisis after a period of remarkable successes.  This crystallised on 17 November with two separate gatherings — one the scheduled national conference with 350 elected delegates and observers from branches across the country held […]

The Lighter Side of Mass Murder Picture a necrotic, sinister, burned-out wasteland — a vast, dull mound of rubble punctuated by moments of bleak emptiness and, occasionally, smoking. Those of you whose imaginations alighted instantly on the Late Christopher Hitchens have only yourselves to blame, for I was referring to Fallujah.  The “city of mosques” […]

There was a remarkable moment in London last month when the Israeli Defence Force looked more restrained than the Metropolitan Police. Having shot an unarmed civilian in the head seven times (and once in the shoulder), the Metropolitan Police was suddenly obliged to explain to the public a policy that had been decided on in […]