Auteur/autrice : Heidi Barathieu-Brun

Freedom vs. Stability: are Dictators Worse than Anarchy? *

Published on Spiegel Online International, a commentary by Christiane Hoffmann, Oct 8, 2014.

  • Although there is always reason to celebrate the toppling of an autocrat, the outcome of the Iraq war and the rise of Islamic State have demonstrated in horrific terms that the alternative can be even worse.
  • In mid-April 2003, German author Hans Magnus Enzensberger published a piece in the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in which he celebrated the fall of Saddam Hussein. He wrote of his « deep, » even « triumphant » joy upon learning of the end of Iraq’s brutal dictatorship. The article was also full of derision and mockery for the skeptics who warned against the wisdom of US President George W. Bush’s invasion.   Continuer la lecture de « Freedom vs. Stability: are Dictators Worse than Anarchy? * »

Syria: Siege of Kobane / Kobani

Published on Frontline.in, by VIJAY PRASHAD, October * 2014.

The fate of half a million people in Kobane hangs in the balance as Islamic State fighters try to capture the Syrian city. If they take Kobane, the Islamic State will have control over the entire length of the central span of the Turkish-Syrian border … //

… Why has Daesh put so much of its firepower and its fighters into the fight against the city of Kobane? Over the course of the past two years, Daesh has tried to capture as much territory as possible towards the Turkish border. Turkey has, despite its claim to close its border posts, been—for reasons to be explored below—lax with its border posts.   Continuer la lecture de « Syria: Siege of Kobane / Kobani »

Big Banks Face Another Round of U.S. Charges

Published on New York Times, by BEN PROTESS and JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG (and with Jenny Anderson and Matthew Goldstein), Oct 6, 2014.

The Justice Department is preparing a fresh round of attacks on the world’s biggest banks, again questioning Wall Street’s role in a broad array of financial markets … //

… The charges will most likely focus on traders and their bosses rather than chief executives. As a result, critics of the Justice Department might view the cases as little more than an exercise in public relations, a final push to shape the legacy of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who was blamed for a lack of criminal cases against Wall Street executives.   Continuer la lecture de « Big Banks Face Another Round of U.S. Charges »

Banned TED Talks

Continuer la lecture de « Banned TED Talks »

SYRIZA Rising: What’s Next For The Movements In Greece?

Published on ZNet (first on ROARMAG), by  Antonis Broumas and Theodoros Karyotis, Oct 4, 2014.

… Left-Wing Bureaucracy and the State:

In theory, the communist left relates with the state in instrumental terms. The conquest of the bourgeois state is presented as a necessary evil on the road to workers’ power. This approach, however, is immersed — even on a purely theoretical level — in a series of contradictions. Even in its most sophisticated versions it fails to address the issue of the dialectic relation between the vanguard party bureaucracy and the autonomy of the world of labor, or the possibility of achieving a transition towards an egalitarian society, when there is such disparity between the means employed and the goals proposed.   Continuer la lecture de « SYRIZA Rising: What’s Next For The Movements In Greece? »