Tradspotting

July 4th, 2009

I. Welsh is emptying his bare cupboards and publishing the contents.  His lastest “book” is called reheated cabbage. The stench is awful. He has the effrontery to tell us that his muck appeared in “those toecurlingly Scotsploitation or drugspoilation anthologies”, for which he here accepts partial blame. (the Independent, 3 July 2009). At least he […]


Iran: ‘the crisis is far from over’

July 4th, 2009

Having reached the heart of the islamic regime, the crisis is far from being over, by Mohammad-Reza Djalili
“Within, [the crisis] has forced the authorities to lose a great part of its legitimacy. In fact, the elections in Iran-municipal, parliamentary and above all presidential  - do not have representation as goal since they are not democratic, […]


Galloway’s face off the back of a bus

July 3rd, 2009

More than 750 people, mostly Iranians at the protests outside the London Iranian embassy, signed our letter to Boris Johnson on the Press TV Ads. It was delivered to City Hall yesterday (a short version with a dozen signatures was delivered on Monday). It transpires that the ads are due to finish on Sunday. Let’s hope we […]


‘Ahmadinejad has only made it more difficult for the Palestinians’

July 2nd, 2009

‘Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric about Israel and Jews has only alienated people around the world and made it more difficult for the Palestinians.  In the real world, Ahmadinejad has done nothing to support the Palestinians other than sending some funds to Hamas. Despite rhetoric from […]


Robert Kurz - updating Marx for the 21st Century - public discussion tomorrow

July 1st, 2009

The German critical thinker Robert Kurz has been engaging with, and applying the insights of Karl Marx to the recent social and economic crises. So far, very little of his work has been translated into English. Join us in London on Friday 3 July to discuss the relevance of his ideas today.
The Lucas Arms, Grays […]


Iran: warp speed fetishism

July 1st, 2009

The article here by Kaveh Ehsani is a halfway house, pinko-leftist critique of the background to the crisis in Iran, but it does give an insight into the absolute mess the Iranian economy is in. Ehsani fails to consider the deep value threads that keep all classes stuck in situ: no wonder Seymour the moron […]


Mister Antarynezhad - your retirement has arrived

June 30th, 2009

Soon the Iranian people will put you in a cage in the Zoo -
IF you are lucky …

[Note to the unitiated - Iranians at the protests outside the London embassy have told us that ‘Antarynezhad’ is what most people in Iran call their “President” - it is a pun on the name Ahmadinezhad and Antary means ‘the monkey’]
Update and Newsflash […]


‘Tanstaafl’ - the new buzzword in finance

June 30th, 2009

(…) “It was Robert Heinlein, the libertarian science-fiction writer [in fact an ex-admiral who went for authoritarian scenarii] , who coined the adage : “There Ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” -Tanstaafl for short -in his book  The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, now a cult classic. [he also wrote A Stranger in […]


Tiqqun - French for ‘backward stew’

June 30th, 2009

Much noise has been made of the alinement of Tarnac in recent months owing to the arrest of the Tarnac 9 and the long incarceration of the spokesperson of that grouplet, Julien Coupat. The French State, by keeping him in prison, in fact made a mistake and turned him into some kind of cause celebre. […]


On the don

June 29th, 2009

Terry ‘Bovver Boot’ Eagleton lays into bourgeois Oxford with some surface analysis - perhaps he would prefer a bit of cultural revolution ultra-violence instead?
www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jun/27/isaiah-berlin-enlightening-letters-review
Robert Kurz talks about the two sides of liberalism, and what the grand old don of liberalism himself missed in Karl Marx:
www.exit-online.org/textanz1.php?tabelle=aktuelles&index=0&posnr=364