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Created
Tue, 17/10/2023 - 06:30
It’s the only way to work your way through the moral morass October 16th, 2023Statement on Behalf of Israel-based Progressives and Peace ActivistsRegarding Debates over Recent Events in Our Region: We, Israel-based academics, thought leaders and progressive activists committed to peace, equality, justice, and human rights, are deeply pained and shocked by the recent events in our region. We are also deeply concerned by the inadequate response from certain American and European progressives regarding the targeting of Israeli civilians by Hamas, a response which reflects a disturbing trend in the global left’s political culture. On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched an unprecedented attack that included mass murder of innocent civilians in their homes, indiscriminate violence towards women, the elderly, and children, and mass kidnappings of Israeli citizens. Entire families were wiped out in this carnage, whole communities were reduced to ashes, bodies were maimed, infants were massacred. It is impossible to overstate the damage caused by these events, both on a personal and a collective level.
Created
Tue, 17/10/2023 - 06:00

Over the past decade, two, intertwined research agendas on international financial subordination (IFS) and subordinate financialization (SF) have proposed to identify how an increasingly finance-dominated global capitalism incorporates the (Semi-)Peripheries.

The IFS research agenda recognizes that a “subordinate” national currency comes with a risk premium increasing the costs of financing public debt – in other words, the current, US dollar-based currency hierarchy acts as a structural fiscal constraint in the Global South, limiting the scope for badly needed public investments. Foreign capital – in the form of foreign currency-denominated sovereign and private debt-, foreign aid, and foreign direct investment – is then touted as a solution to this artificial and unfair developmental constraint.

Created
Tue, 17/10/2023 - 05:00
When asked who you plan to vote for you really don’t need to say anything else: Also, the incumbent president isn’t the world’s greatest sore loser who is currently under 91 felony indictments. There’s that too.
Created
Tue, 17/10/2023 - 04:56
Can Australia reconcile the American and Chinese strands of its foreign policy? Soon the Prime Minister will be meeting the heads of government of the two contending great powers of the Asia-Pacific: China and the United States. What will the background be? Many years ago, when the Timor crisis was at its height, I felt Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 17/10/2023 - 04:55
Mainstream Western coverage of the recent Hamas foray into Israel and its aftermath has been marked by sensationalism, lack of historical context, and superficial moralising. The decision of Hamas to attack Israeli towns and villages can be fairly described as ethically indefensible and strategically senseless. Resistance against oppression is a right and a duty. The Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 17/10/2023 - 04:50
The speech by former Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison in Taipei on Wednesday 11 October, 2023, was clearly designed to undermine the forthcoming visit of Prime Minister Albanese to Beijing. It continued to drive forward the American objective of goading China into war over Taiwan. His assertion that “the status of Taiwan is deliberately ambiguous, Continue reading »
Created
Tue, 17/10/2023 - 04:00

You, step forth.

What is this… jean… you wear about your waist, child?

A “’90s Crop”? Is that really what they call it now? You dare speak of the Wide-Leg jean? You think I do not know their secrets, their deep magicks, their bountiful pockets? You dare, even, to don them in my presence?

Ha! The youth mocks me with my own image. It was I whose jeans once billowed freely in the summer winds! The ancient labels: Pepe Jeans, True Religion, JNCO—I wore them all. You will never know their rivets as I have known them. You will never bear their weight as I have, heavy with mud and PBR. My denim was vintage, its holes earned through wear, not carved by the machines of many falsehoods!

Yes, it was I who did battle with the sorcerer Ed Hardy. And then we made love… the wallet chains of all the earth were surely rattled that day.

This was before I sold them. I sold my own Wide-Leg jeans for black skinnies that would achieve clout on MySpace…