A series of armed attacks by young Palestinians against settler targets in Jerusalem and the West Bank is forcing world attention to the simmering intifada across Palestine. The crisis over Al Aqsa has already raised the temperature. The Israeli offensive on Gaza lifted Palestinian sentiment to boiling point. Now the confluence of a polity of […]
18 Nov
When Elizabeth Humphrys and I originally wrote “Anti-politics: Elephant in the room” on Left Flank just over a year ago, we were trying to summarise the changes in our thinking over the causes and consequences of the “crisis of representation” that the blog had been focused on since its inception. The post has been widely […]
14 Nov
The first part of Left Flank’s series exploring the rise of Podemos looked at the positive incorporation in the project of the “Indignados” (15-M) movement’s participatory democracy and radical opposition towards “politics”. Here Luke Stobart looks more critically at the “radical populism” that has shaped the approach of its dominant grouping (and now formal leadership) […]
06 Nov
Comments Off on Left Flank at Historical Materialism in London
Historical Materialism’s 11th annual conference — How Capitalism Survives — begins tomorrow at SOAS, Vernon Square, in London. Four writers and contributors to Left Flank are speaking. On Friday morning at 9.45am, Elizabeth Humphrys, Tad Tietze and Luke Stobart are speaking in a session on ‘Anti-politics, social movements & the practical critique of the state’ (Room V121) — along […]
05 Nov
What Podemos’s present success reveals is the breakdown, the crisis or the collapse (choose the term you prefer) of the Spanish party system. Because in reality the Transition regime is sinking like the Titanic and Podemos is merely the iceberg that caused this. So as soon as the cock crowed on 25-M, all the captains […]
01 Nov
In the latest post at her personal blog, An Integral State, Left Flank’s ELIZABETH HUMPHRYS challenges Naomi Klein’s celebrated “shock doctrine” thesis of neoliberal transformation by looking at the Whitlam dismissal and the Fraser government’s failure to drive through neoliberal reform. But despite these concurrent ‘shocks’ — the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression […]
02 Oct
I’ve written a piece on how no-one seems to want to come to terms with the homegrown nature of the current terrorist threat in Australia. It’s up today at New Matilda. When Sydney’s Daily Telegraph ran a front page on Numan Haider titled “Jihad Joey” it was not to agonise over what kind of country […]
29 Sep
GUEST POST BY KEVIN LIN The past week has seen a dramatic escalation of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, against the Chinese government’s obstruction in Hong Kong’s electoral process. In scenes reminiscent of the Arab Spring uprisings, 30,000 college students and supporters occupied streets in Hong Kong’s central financial district, encircled by riot police armed with […]
24 Sep
This is a version of my paper from the Historical Materialism Australasia conference in Sydney earlier this month, which was part of a panel on Thomas Piketty’s Capital In The Twenty-First Century. I’d like to thank my fellow panelists Anitra Nelson and Mike Beggs. It an unlikely bestseller: Thomas Piketty has written a thick book […]
21 Sep
I was inspired partly by an exchange of well-made points on my Facebook wall between two great friends Jay and Paddy. But the main reason for taking time out to write this on a sunny Sunday morning in east London is because a funny thing happened on my way home last night. I really hope […]
04 Dec
Comments Off on Palestine: Towards a new intifada