Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

This was written in April. No, Liberal Pundits: Biden Hasn’t Actually Been a Progressive All Along

Germany "The neoliberal bourgeoisie no longer acts according to the rules of classical Marxism. The CEOs of the DAX 30 companies will not suddenly arrive like Batman to save centrist politics. The economic elite is, after all, the client of the state – always dependent on handouts, outsourcing, deregulation and implicit subsidies. Both Trump and Brexit show: the corporate elite will take what it they are given – and they usually learn to like it. So the German left must outline a new long-term strategy . The first question is: what does it mean to be progressive in 21st century Germany? At a micro-level this is answered every day by the altruistic actions of young people and trade unionists: to do volunteer work with migrants and refugees; to attend democratic political and cultural events; to cycle and to recycle; to uphold the rights of women, ethnic minorities and gay people. To confront unflinchingly the memory of the Holocaust. To trace, as the Marxist philosopher Geo

A clarification by Richard Seymour " When a wing of the left criticises "identity politics", they usually mean the kind of politics that reduces oppression to representation and that, as such, is apt to celebrate the inclusion of a right-wing fundamentalist woman in Trump's team because she is a woman and hence "diversification". They want a more substantive attack on racism, sexism, oppression of all kinds. When a wing of the liberal centre criticises "identity politics", they usually m ean to criticise what they think of as the overly clamorous and over-hasty demands of women, gays, African Americans, migrants and others for justice. This, they claim, puts 'progressives' in a difficult position when it comes to building coalitions (with racists, homophobes, etc) and achieving real reforms. When the Right attacks "identity politics", they mean any concession whatsoever to the idea that anyone other than white bourgeois me

" These days, Canada is the second-largest arms exporter to the Middle East. Our Alberta oil sands produce more carbon emissions each year than the entire state of California. Our intelligence agency is allowed to act on information obtained through torture." Think Canada is a progressive paradise?