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Tariq Ali: From Cairo to Madison – The Arab Revolution and a World in Motion
Tariq Ali: From Cairo to Madison – The Arab Revolution and a World in Motion from N Alexander on Vimeo.
Posted in comment/analysis, current affairs, philosophy, politics, religion, videos Tagged arab revolution, current affairs, democracy, history, left, politics, religion, tariq ali, us politics Leave a comment
In London and Athens, protesters are rekindling the true European spirit
by Costas Douzinas
from The Guardian
Dual identities create tensions. I was born in Greece but have lived most of my life in Britain. When I arrived in London, after the fall of the Greek dictatorship in 1974, I was told in no uncertain terms by an elderly gentleman walking his bulldog that Britain does not belong [...]
Posted in articles, comment/analysis, current affairs, philosophy, politics Tagged current affairs, democracy, douzinas, europe, european political history, european union, guardian, history, left, politics Comments closed
Not Crushed, Merely Ignored
by Tariq Ali
from: London Review of Books
A Kashmiri lawyer rang me last week in an agitated state. Had I heard about the latest tragedies in Kashmir? I had not. He was stunned. So was I when he told me in detail what had been taking place there over the last three weeks. As far as [...]
Posted in articles, comment/analysis, current affairs, politics Tagged ali, current affairs, kashmir, london review of books, philosophy, politics Leave a comment
No New Deal is Possible
by Antonio Negri
from: Radical Philosophy
John Maynard Keynes was a gentleman ? that is, an honest bourgeois, not a petty-bourgeois like Proudhon, or an ideologue, but an easy man ? and when political economy was still concerned with the political ordering of market and society every classical economist knew this. Keynes thought that knowledge functioned factually [...]
Posted in articles, comment/analysis, current affairs, philosophy, politics Tagged antonio negri, comment, economics, eu, negri, political analysis, politics, us Leave a comment
Greek debt crisis: Let's not return to status quo
by Alexandros Stavrakas
from: The Guardian
If by “hope” we mean a feeling of yearning and expectation for something to happen, and by “change” we mean an improvement of our present condition, then this is Greece’s moment of hope and change – and it is an overdue moment indeed. But, before this moment is [...]
Posted in comment/analysis, current affairs, politics Tagged greece, greek debt crisis, greek politics, guardian Leave a comment
The Greek Crisis – Politics-Economics-Ethics
Listen here to the debate at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, held on May 5th.
Speakers:
• Stathis Kouvelakis, Kings College, London
• Kevin Featherstone, Director, Hellenic Observatory, LSE
• Costas Lapavitsas, Economics, SOAS
• Peter Bratsis, Politics, Salford University
• Costas Douzinas (Chair) Birkbeck
Introduction by speakers:
[audio http://bedeutung.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/2010_05_05_greekcrisis_speakers.mp3]
Open debate:
[audio http://bedeutung.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/2010_05_05_greekcrisis_audience_comments.mp3]
Posted in comment/analysis, current affairs, politics Tagged 2010 economic crisis, birkbeck, bratsis, debate, douzinas, featherstone, greece, greek debt crisis, kouvelakis, lapavitsas 2 Comments
Beg, Borrow or Steal: the Greek Crisis
by Alexandros Stavrakas
The commentary on the Greek crisis has predictably descended into a spectacle of cheap moralisation. Over the past months, we have been bombarded with accusatory tirades aimed against corrupt politicians, greedy bankers, depraved technocrats and more or less anyone who’s had a chance to use and abuse the system in order to advance [...]
Posted in articles, comment/analysis, current affairs, politics Tagged european union, greece, greek debt crisis, greek politics, IMF 1 Comment
Jacqueline Rose on the Dreyfus Affair
Jacqueline Rose’s talk at the Asia Society on April 21 – organised by the London Review of Books on their 30th anniversary. Rose discusses parallels of the Affair with today’s political predicaments, including the role of the public intellectual.
[audio http://bedeutung.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/dreyfus-affair-jacqueline-rose1.mp3]
If the player doesn’t work, click the link below:
Dreyfus Affair – Jacqueline Rose(1)
Obama's War
A talk by Tariq Ali in New York on Monday April 19th – organised by the London Review of Books
[audio http://bedeutung.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/obamas-war-tariq-ali.mp3]
If the player doesn’t work, click below:
Obama’s War – Tariq Ali
Posted in audio/podcasts, comment/analysis, current affairs, politics Tagged london review of books, obama, tariq ali, USA politics Leave a comment
The End of Politics (2): Europe
by Costas Douzinas
How different does Europe look today from ten years ago. In 2000, influential commentators hailed the dawn of the ‘new European century’ to replace the atrocious ‘American’ 20th century. Europe was on the way to becoming the model polity for the new world. The re-unification of Germany, the successful introduction of the Euro [...]
Posted in articles, comment/analysis, current affairs, politics Tagged 2010 politics, douzinas, euro, europe, european union, germany, greek financial crisis Leave a comment
The end of politics and the defence of democracy
In this month of the ‘Greek passion’ one thing is certain. The country will never be the same again. But while the commentators, academics and ‘experts’ discuss endlessly the economic crisis, the deep political malaise has gone unnoticed. The three ‘waves’ of ‘stability’ measures have befallen Greece like an evil tsunami which will turn the current recession into a depression with no clear end. But they also attack the foundations of democracy. The unfolding events offer a panorama of the symptoms of ‘the end of politics’.
Thatcher, Thatcher, Thatcher
by John Gray
from the London Review of Books
There wasn’t anything inevitable about David Cameron’s rise. If Kenneth Clarke had stirred himself into running something like a campaign when competing for the leadership with Iain Duncan Smith and been ready to appear more tractable on Europe; if David Davis had moved decisively in the immediate aftermath [...]
Why Google is the Nike of the internet
by Alexandros Stavrakas
from The Guardian
Google decided two weeks ago to shut down its hitherto self-censoring search service in China. This allegedly costly gesture, intended as a bold statement rather than a formal articulation of corporate “foreign policy”, is congruous with the company’s liberal philosophy and juxtaposed to the aged conformity of, say, Microsoft. But far [...]
Posted in articles, comment/analysis, current affairs, philosophy, politics Tagged censorship, china, freedom of expression, google, guardian, internet Leave a comment
Peter Hallward on “Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment”
from Democracy Now
Haitian President Rene Preval said Sunday that the death toll from the earthquake could reach 300,000 once all the bodies are recovered from the rubble. We speak to Peter Hallward, professor of Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University. “Unless prevented by renewed popular mobilisation in both Haiti and beyond, the perverse international emphasis [...]
Posted in comment/analysis, current affairs, videos Tagged casualties, haiti 2010 earthquake, international aid, peter hallward 1 Comment
Badiou/Zizek: Philosophy in the Present
To mark our comeback, after a long period of inactivity, here’s a copy of Philosophy in the Present by Alain Badiou & Slavoj Zizek.
Posted in books, philosophy Tagged badiou, books available online, philosophy, zizek Leave a comment
Our role in Haiti's plight
by Peter Hallward
from The Guardian
Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti’s capital city on Tuesday afternoon, but it’s no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone. Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest [...]
Posted in articles, comment/analysis, current affairs Tagged guardian, haiti 2010, international aid, peter hallward, Port-au-Prince Leave a comment
Slavoj Žižek – Living in the End Times
[vodpod id=Groupvideo.4452279&w=600&h=400&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]
Posted in comment/analysis, current affairs, politics, videos Tagged contemporary continental philosophy, philosophy, video, zizek 1 Comment
Inhuman Thoughts // by Asher Seidel
Inhuman Thoughts is a philosophical exploration of the possibility of increasing the physiological and psychological capacities of humans to the point that they are no longer biologically, psychologically, or socially human. The movement is from the human through the trans-human, to the post-human. The tone is optimistic; Seidel argues that such an evolution would be [...]
Posted in books, philosophy Tagged asher seidel, ethics, human being, human nature, philosophy, post-humanity Leave a comment
Slavoj Zizek: Catastrophic But Not Serious