The following is an extract from the book The Crises of Multiculturalism: Racism in a Neoliberal Age, by Gavan Titley and Alana Lentin, which was published by Zed Books on July 10th. The preface was written by the Guardian and The Nation journalist Gary Younge and is available on The Nation website. There is also [...]

Let me recap on what I think is the effectiveness of the idea of Real Democracy Now / Democracia Real Ya element of the 15-M movement. When it works, it engages people as citizens - but not merely as formally constituted political subjects but also as the primary constituents of society- and enables them to develop [...]

One of the most interesting aspects of the protests in Spain has been the emergence of the debate on democracy. Since September 11, democracy, or at least the Western capitalist conception of democracy, has been held as a sacrosanct ideal, heroically achieved by the people of Europe, America and the ‘West’ in general.
George W Bush [...]

An article by Michael Hudson, on today’s “Icesave” Referendum in Iceland. Republished with permission. Thanks to Gunnar Skuli Armannsson for passing it on.
A year ago, in March 2010, Iceland’s economy was so small that it did not warrant much attention when 93% of its voters rejected the Social Democratic-Green government’s surrender to Gordon Brown [...]

Book Review: Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now - Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything, by David Sirota (New York, Ballantine Books $25)

We had a unusually cold spell in the west of Ireland in January 1984 with snow remaining on the ground for a week or [...]

Here’s Pirooz Daneshmandi’s Near FM interview with Noam Chomsky, which aired on the 1st of March 2011. In it Chomsky explains his analysis of the causes of the current economic crisis and how to avoid a future one as well as the recent uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, the wars in Iraq [...]

Creature of habit that I am, this month means a getaway to somewhere hot and sunny. The heat is for my better half’s arthritis, the sun is for my ageing flesh. It also means an opportunity for some light reading that can’t be done on the train for fear of ostracism. I can still remember [...]

Special TASC Encounter
Rev. Jessie Jackson in conversation with Myles Dungan,
Liberty Hall, Monday 14th February, 7.00pm
Facebook Event
‘TASC Encounters’ is a series of discussions featuring well-known public figures and commentators. For this Special TASC Encounter we are privileged to host the prominent American Baptist Minister, civil rights leader and political activist, Rev. Jesse Jackson. In the 1960s, [...]

Many of us travelling to the European Writers’ Parliament, convened in Istanbul for that city’s Capital of Culture year, were puzzled. Taking its lineage from previous gatherings of writers (during the Spanish Civil War, WWII, the occasion of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, etc), it seemed to us that this parliament lacked a focus. We [...]

Each time I update my LibraryThing catalogue with my latest reads I feel guilty about not offering an opinion for the benefit of friends. It’s rare that anyone would actually want to read anything accumulating there unless prompted by the recommendations of others or as punishment for some ineffable crime. Even so, the odd book [...]