Skip to main content

Posts

How accurate is this? " Backward economies can be 'modernized' more or less on their own, but this seems to require dictatorial regimes which will sweat out of a generation or two the primary accumulation of capital goods needed. Backward economies can also be modernized, perhaps more slowly, without dictatorial regimes, but this seems to require that they be greatly and intelligently helped by industrially advanced nations. There do not seem to be other alternatives" ( The Causes of World War III , 1958, p. 75).
Via Joey Husseini Ayoub Middle East Eye asked me to write an op-ed on what's become an all-too-familiar theme following some of the (ongoing) exchanges between the folks at The Electronic Intifada and folks active in the Syria solidarity movement. To be quite honest with you, I got tired of writing the same thing. I think this is the 3rd or 4th time I write this - in fact you can see it as an extension of my piece for Raseef22 رصيفــ22  - and I know people who have written more than I have - emphasizing especially the work of Leila Al Shami and, obviously, the folks over at الجمهورية al-Jumhuriya like Yassin Al Haj Saleh and Yassin Swehat, all of whom have done infinitely more than I have.  It's frustrating, but here's one more.  I added quotes by Jesse Williams given that so much of the power narrative is being dominated by Americans (as usual, making this even more annoying) in the hope that American comrades would be able to challenge the narrative from within
" LF : You make the argument that we’ve been sold on this  idea that there’s just one kind of love: monogamous heterosexual love that makes a baby. MW :  Yeah. Kant has this goofy German definition of marriage where it’s a mutual contract for the reciprocal use of someone’s genitals. That exclusive-genital sexuality is great if it’s with the right person, but we focus on how much it sucks  not  to have that; we rarely talk about how often it also sucks. Like, marriages are often unhappy—the No. 1 source of harm to a woman is her intimate partner." Love in a Time of Capital