World Politics

[auscyclefan94]

I created a thread for Thatcher's passing. If people want to merge into this one, let a mod know.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Nobody better than Alan Curbishley to talk about Thatcher.

Very Nice and astute

 

[Alphabet]

I can't believe that made Sky Sports News.

 

[aphronesis]

Good thing the BBC has re-opened the debate on class in GB lately: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/21970879

And doubleplus good thing that the sociological conception of class is also put under scrutiny: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/04/class-what-do-you-mean-bbc

Perhaps there is such a thing as society, after all. So, I suggest you take heed and do your homework, ACF!

As Lily Braden says in Slapshot, I underlined the fukc-scenes for you:

For example, consider today's experience of a Tory-led government filled with millionaires, implementing policies designed to enrich the ruling class, and depress the living standards of the working majority. Official conceptions of class, being descriptive, will evolve and chart the effects of these policies: new "classes" will be devised in their wake. But these conceptions cannot explain such policies. But by employing a radical class analysis, "austerity" can be seen as a political class strategy for redistributing the social product and consolidating the wider political and ideological power of the rich. This is not just a matter of interpretation: it is strategic, for it explains the doggedness of their clinging to policies that "don't work", and also calls into question what sort of class capacities and strategies we could activate in opposing "austerity".

A more theoretically speculative return to class--and affective, or emotional, than a Bourdieu based sociological analysis--was published a few years ago in Italy.

Write-up of it here: http://www.italica.rai.it/scheda.php?scheda=cavalletti_classe&cat=harvard diary&hl=eng

As far as I know it's not been translated--probably won't be.

 

[AndyMMT]

Nobody better than Alan Curbishley to talk about Thatcher.

very good

 

[Cobblestones]

Iraq: 33 killed and 160 wounded in attacks on Monday

One of the deadliest days in Iraq just before the regional polls. This is a terrible tragedy, particular when considering this sort of violence has been ongoing for years with varying intensity. Iraq has been a failed state for so long now. Practically all the institutions which make up a state have been broken down and never built up again. Or when an attempt was made, the new structures were built along ethnic divides leading to ethnic cleansing throughout most of the country.

 

[The Principal Sheep]

Speechless. I am in shock. Omg.

So horrifying. So incomprehensible.

My thoughts are with the victims.

cowardly *******s who did this.

This is just horrible, my condolences go out to everyone affected by this tragedy. I can't imagine what the people on the scene and those directly affected must be going through.

Think or pray for those are dead or may or my be dying. Only that. I would encourage a time of silence.

It's just horrible!

It truly is disappointing and upsetting that people still have to live their daily lives with the fear of this, hopefully this country and the indeed the rest of the world will one day not be subject to living in such dread and hatred.

 

[86TDFWinner]

Title is misleading, thought it was 3 people who died, not 33 as you mentioned? Regardless, it is indeed a tragedy.

 

[Contadoraus Schlecks]

Title is misleading, thought it was 3 people who died, not 33 as you mentioned? Regardless, it is indeed a tragedy.

Think you are getting this confused with the Boston Marathon. Refers to deaths in Iraq

 

[Amsterhammer]

Without the slightest intention of sounding callous or uncaring, I nevertheless question the wisdom of a new topic for a 'bad day in Iraq'. There have been many 'bad days' in Iraq, and there will be plenty more bad days to come.

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

And still the world is filled with people like George Galloway that compares these nihilistic *******s as to be the equalient to the american minutemen

 

[The Hitch]

And still the world is filled with people like George Galloway that compares these nihilistic *******s as to be the equalient to the american minutemen

It was michael moore who said the minutemen thing.

galloway isnt a "useful idiot", he's 100% on their side as seen by the fact that he has been known to personally congratulate the people behind previous such attacks.

 

[sublimit]

Somebody posted this pic on twitter.. I guess Blair still thinks he did the right thing along with his pal Bush.

 

[hiero2]

Without the slightest intention of sounding callous or uncaring, I nevertheless question the wisdom of a new topic for a 'bad day in Iraq'. There have been many 'bad days' in Iraq, and there will be plenty more bad days to come.

I couldn't find the thread "bad day in Iraq" - or I would have merged them.

If you give me a link, I can do so if I agree it is appropriate when I see it.

 

[Amsterhammer]

I couldn't find the thread "bad day in Iraq" - or I would have merged them.

If you give me a link, I can do so if I agree it is appropriate when I see it.

I am not aware of any other similar topic, though to be honest, there could have been one in the last couple of months when I was not posting or reading here.

What I meant was simply that I questioned the point of having any such topic like this as a separate one, because there have been, and will continue to be, 'bad days' in Iraq, 'bad days' in Afghanistan, and probably elsewhere too. Are we to have a new topic every time something 'bad' occurs in places where 'bad things' happen with regularity? That was my only point. Again, I have no intention of disparaging the loss of life or suffering caused to any victims of senseless, gratuitous violence, wherever it may take place.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

After some consideration, I'm moving this thread into the World Politics discussion. While this day, and similar ones in war are horrifying, I believe they inevitably fall into the political realm, such as the photo posted.

 

[The Principal Sheep]

After some consideration, I'm moving this thread into the World Politics discussion. While this day, and similar ones in war are horrifying, I believe they inevitably fall into the political realm, such as the photo posted.

And the 'Explosion at Boston Marathon' thread hasn't got political at all...

 

[rhubroma]

Without the slightest intention of sounding callous or uncaring, I nevertheless question the wisdom of a new topic for a 'bad day in Iraq'. There have been many 'bad days' in Iraq, and there will be plenty more bad days to come.

It all boils down to some extinguished lives have more relevance than others in so far as a certain media is concerned and hence a certain world view.

Fathers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, friends, grandchildren, cousins notwithstanding.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

And the 'Explosion at Boston Marathon' thread hasn't got political at all...

Warning up. It's likely to be moved into US Politics soon...

 

[Echoes]

And still the world is filled with people like George Galloway that compares these nihilistic *******s as to be the equalient to the american minutemen

The more I read about Galloway the more I like him. Left-wing equivalent to Farage perhaps.

This being said I'm not really well informed about UK politics.


However I came back here for a special article dedicated to ACF.

Julia Gillard is an Imperalist

(It's meant to be negative, from my part.)

 

[rhubroma]

Carl Marx day at Trier, by the Porta Nigra:

http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/201...rlo_marx_in_piazza-58097637/1/?ref=HRESS-15#1

 

[Zam_Olyas]

Syria air strike: Israel has the right to defend itself, says William Hague

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ight-to-defend-itself-says-William-Hague.html

 

[python]

Syria air strike: Israel has the right to defend itself, says William Hague

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ight-to-defend-itself-says-William-Hague.html

this move by israel against a weak, desperate arabic regime involved in a mortal struggle for survival is truly perplexing ...and, frankly, seems too opportunistic to the point of being reckless and surely counterproductive.

the managed western media reports that the strikes were against missile shipments from iran to lebanon's hezbollah are even more perplexing without any evidence.

one could as easily make a case for striking tel aviv or washington or boston (i know this reference may cause indignation and fresh emotions) for shipping weapons to the israeli war machine that was indeed proven responsible without a shadow of any doubt (and in many cases admitted) for the deaths of hundreds and thousands of innocent palestinian civilians including small children.

what seems happening here is that the 'little devil' is emulating the behavior of the 'big devil'.

that is, i currently own the bigger gun than you, and thus my way or a highway.

israel seems quick to forget the lessons from its own history.

the historically defenseless oppressed groups often eventually find a way to their own sling shots, then a machine gun and, god spare us, the terrible nuclear weapons.

imo, as i read the most recent events, israel will have to blame its own brashness and its own trigger-ready culture for a situation where this bigger gun in the hands of it's sworn enemies will act as the bigger guns supposed to. but this time, calling them anti-Semitic will be the stupidest and shortest form to self-destruction

 

[Echoes]

Andreotti died.

 

[rhubroma]

Andreotti died.

Many indeed will be celebrating, though he was an icon of a Cold War cynicism and realpolitik.

Obscure points? Conspiracies? Collusion with the secret services? Mud on this much discussed political figure? Let us limit ourselves to remembering Andreotti’s infatuation for Michele Sindona and the accusations of the journalist Mino Pecorelli according to whom Andreotti, in addition to receiving money from Sindona (while that Sindona had given money to the Christian Democrats was confirmed on TV by Piccoli), had protected 500 tax evaders of a famous list that was just as difficult to discover. Pecorelli was then murdered at Rome in an ambush.

Now the silent exit of Umberto Ambrosoli from the Lombardy regional parliament while Andreotti was commemorated is one of the most eloquent epitaphs of his recent passing. As noted – though just as salutary to not forget – Umberto’s father was the lawyer Giorgio Ambrosoli – a conservative, pro-monarchy, economic liberal, a “bourgeois hero” in a country that unfortunately is in great need of them (see Berlusconi), who fell under the fire of one of Michele Sindona’s hit-men. Sindona was a mafia banker very much supported by Andreotti. Ambrosoli, on behalf of the same State that also employed Andreotti (the Italian State is a work provider of a decidedly lax screening of its personnel…) , was the capital provider of Banca Privata, the financial arm of Sindona. He, Ambrosoli, knew that managing those dirty portfolios was putting his life at stake.

In Italy one desperately searches, at times obsessively, the judicial truth among the many black cases and infinite scandals. It would be enough in many cases to arrive at a political truth, which often marks the distinction between right and wrong. In Andreotti’s biography, among his entourage and that of his colleagues of power, those with an infamous reputation were many. Sindona summarizes all of them. The story of Sindona and Ambrosoli is enough to give “Andreottism” a rather cut and dry judgment.