Guardian Editor on Coverage of Afghan War Logs: European Audience "Troubled More...By The Toll This War is Taking on Innocent People"

"WikiLeaks is Not One Person...We Are All the Threat"–Hacker Magazine Editor Says WikiLeaks is Bigger Than Julian Assange

Face the Nation, 07.25.10

Cornel West, Michael Dyson, Michael Gerson

Laclau: a critical reader

By Simon Critchley, Oliver Marchart

The Lacanian Left Does Not Exist

Following the publication of the groundbreaking 1985 work by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, the last two decades have witnessed a surge of books dealing with the odd couple of Lacanian psychoanalysis and political theory. While Hegemony only made a few explicit references to Lacan, it has nevertheless been retroactively construed as the work that made possible a marriage between Lacan and political analysis.

The reason for this construal has a name: Slavoj Žižek. This Slovene philosopher, also known as the giant from Ljubljana, not only re-read Hegemony in his first book written in English, The Sublime Object of Ideology, making the former perhaps more Lacanian than was intended, but was also the most industrious theorist among those who have tried to introduce psychoanalysis to political theory. Publishing books at an immense speed, Žižek has consistently poured his unique theoretical cocktail over the bald heads of boring and dull academics. He has, perhaps more convincingly than anyone else, shown how ideology operates not only at the level of meaning but also, and more forcefully, at that of enjoyment.

Starting out with an intense intellectual friendship, even publishing a book together (Butler, Laclau and Žižek, 2000), Žižek and Laclau have gradually parted. If before only an element of animosity smouldered, then now, after their heated debate in Critical Inquiry, following on from Laclau’s latest book, On Populist Reason, it has become clear that the two are open enemies.

What did this debate generate, beyond a portrayal of their mutual dislike? If it gave a few indications of their different understandings of Lacan, for example as concerns the notion of the Real, and their opposing views of what class struggle may bring about, it did not say much about their own respective theoretical standpoints.

Former USDA official Shirley Sherrod speaks out about her racially charged firing

Dyson: Far-Right Addicted to Paranoia About Race

"The Obama administration has been intimidated by the far-right wing, which is addicted to a kind of paranoia of race that then leads to paralyzing racial conversation," Rev. Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of sociology at Georgetown University and an author of many books on African-American issues, said. "There's no word from the White House that's positive about the issue of race."

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is John Perkins’ fast-paced autobiography, which reveals his career as an economist for an international consulting firm. Perkins says he was actually an “Economic Hit Man.” His job was to convince countries that are strategically important to the United States to accept enormous loans for infrastructure development and to make sure that the lucrative projects were contracted to U.S. corporations.

Perkins takes the reader through his career and explains how he created economic projections for countries to accept billions of dollars in loans they surely couldn’t afford. He shares his battle with his conscience over these actions and offers advice for how Americans can work to end these practices which have directly resulted in terrorist attacks and animosity towards the United States.

What Is An Economic Hit Man?

Perkins defines economic hit men as “highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign ‘aid’ organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.”

Vietnam's Forgotten War Victims

Three million Vietnamese suffers from exposure to Agent Orange, a toxic chemical US forces sprayed during the war to defoliate the dense jungles Viet Cong rebels used for cover.

In its manufacture, the chemical was contaminated with TCDD, or dioxin, "the most toxic substance known to humans", according to an investigation in the journal Science.

In his book Agent Orange on Trial published by Harvard University Press, Peter Schuck reported that companies who manufactured the defoliant knew "as early as 1952" that deadly dioxin had contaminated the chemical.

Between 1962 and 1971, the US military sprayed an estimated 80 million litres of Agent Orange and other herbicides on Vietnam, the journal Nature reported in 2003.

Hegel and Haiti

Slavery. Power relations. Western political philosophy. Enlightenment thinkers. Colonial slave laborers. Dutch hegemony in the slave trade. Portugal, France, England, Denmark. Hobbes. Locke. Sugar. Brutal intensification of labor explotation. Jacques Rousseau never in his writings mentions the Code Noir. Toussaint-Louverture. Exclusion. Saint-Domingue 1791, colonial plantations: sugar, tobacco, indigo. Anti-slavery mouvement. Live Freely or Die. Rather death Than Slavery. Haitian Revolution: the most radical political revolution of that age. Struggle for independence. Liberty or Dearh!

ZOÉ VALDÉS
El negocio de los presos cubanos

Syria Bans Full Islamic Veils At Universities

New Yorkistan

Spain Burqa Ban: Spanish Parliament To Consider Banning Islamic Veils In Public

Copying French ban on burqa would be un-British, says minister

Immigration minister Damian Green says ban on Muslim women covering faces in public would be at odds with 'tolerant society'

The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It

the role Goldman played in the food crisis of 2008 when the ranks of the world’s hungry increased by 250 million.

Chávez 'resucita' a Bolívar para salvarse

Chávez es de los que sospecha que Bolívar no murió de tuberculosis, como ha acordado la historia. Él sostiene que fue asesinado y que esa suposición es mucho más importante que cualquiera de los escándalos que envuelven hoy a su Gobierno. ¿Envenenado? ¿Baleado, tal vez? Eso es lo que van a determinar los 50 especialistas de la Fiscalía General y del Cuerpo Técnico de Policía Judicial que ayer mostró el canal del Estado, en plena faena y ataviados de trajes color blanco, como próximos a emprender un viaje al espacio.

Mientras Chávez teoriza sobre las causas de la muerte del Libertador, sus críticos aseguran que se trata de una maniobra de distracción para intentar tapar la cruda realidad de un país sumido en una profunda crisis. La inflación -en el 31% en junio, la más alta de América Latina- obliga a los ciudadanos a rascarse cada vez más el bolsillo; la economía entró en recesión el año pasado y siguió en números rojos en el primer trimestre de 2010. Además, se han hallado más contenedores con comida descompuesta por la supuesta mala gestión de la empresa estatal responsable de su importación (Productora y Distribuidora Venezolana de Alimentos, filial de Petróleos de Venezuela). En total, se han descubierto más de 130.000 toneladas de alimentos podridos en puertos y almacenes, que debían ser distribuidos en la red pública de mercados populares.

Oliver Stone: South of the Border

Beyond the rage

What the Mehserle verdict says about how far we've come -- and how far we have to go

Downtown Oakland became supercharged with emotion in the hours following the July 8 announcement of the verdict in the trial of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. And in the days that followed, the city remained electrified as residents struggled to make sense of the verdict, the rioting that occurred in its wake, and the historic significance of these developments.

Oliver Stone’s one-sided vision of South America falls short

BBC Hard Talk - Hugo Chavez

Naomi Klein to police: "Don't play public relations, do your goddamned job!"

POST-TRAUMATIQUE

Les soldats Etatsuniens sont plus en danger chez eux qu’en Irak (”New York Times”)

The Lacanian Left

Stieg Larsson – by the woman who shared his life

Haven't read Stieg Larsson yet? Then start here . . .
Everything you need to know about Stieg Larsson, the bestselling author of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

“El secreto de la existencia no consiste solamente en vivir, sino en saber para qué se vive” (Fiódor Dostoievski)

Book critic Sophie Rochester explains why Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy is such a huge publishing phenomenon

Stieg Larsson - The Millennium Trilogy

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

The novels come from Sweden, of all places, where the first one was published in 2005 and the next two over the following couple of years. They’re crime thrillers about a journalist named Mikael Blomkvist, who works for the magazine Millennium, and his sometime partner Lisbeth Salander, a startling and strangely appealing character who is a tattooed and pierced, bisexual computer hacker. Together this improbable pair solve mysteries involving spectacularly corrupt businessmen and politicians, sex traffickers, bent cops, spineless journalists, biker gangs and meth heads. In fact, not the least of the attractions of the books for American readers is that they introduce us to a Sweden that is vastly different from the bleak, repressed, guilt-ridden images we see in Ingmar Bergman movies and from the design-loving Socialist paradise we imagine whenever we visit Ikea. It’s a country that turns out to be a lot like the U.S.

Stieg Larsson

Stieg Larsson (1954-2004) was a Swedish writer and journalist.

Prior to his sudden death of a heart attack in November 2004 he finished three detective novels in his trilogy "The Millenium-series"which were published posthumously; "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo","The Girl Who Played With Fire" and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest". Altogether, his trilogy has sold more than 20 million copies in 41 countries (spring of 2010), and he was the second bestselling author in the world 2008.

STIEG LARSSON, 1954-2004

Before his career as a writer, Stieg Larsson was mostly known for his struggle against racism and right-wing extremism. Starting in the late 1970's, he combined his work as a graphic designer with holding lectures on right-wing extremism for the Scotland Yard. During the following years he became an expert on the subject and has held many lectures as well as written many novels on the subject. In 1995, when 8 persons were killed by neo-Nazis I Sweden, he was the main force behind the founding of the Expo-foundation, a group intended on exposing neo-Nazi activity in Sweden. From 1999 and on, he was appointed chief editor of the magazine Expo

LA TEORÍA CRÍTICA

El carácter autoritario. Helmut Dahmer, filósofo alemán

La Escuela de Frankfurt fundada en los años 30 por los filósofos Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno y Herbert Marcuse estimaba que la sociología no era ni una ciencia natural, ni del espíritu. En tanto “teoría crítica” está relacionada con las instituciones humanas, que una vez creadas se independizan de sus autores, que luego las perciben falsamente como “naturales”.

Israel's land grab in the West Bank

As President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet, a report reveals 42 per cent of territory is controlled by settlers

Demanda de Obama contra la anticonstitucionalley Arizona; el flujo de personas, tema federal

As Dalai Lama Marks 75th Birthday, A Look at His Views on the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Tibet

Maude Barlow: 'The World Has Divided into Rich and Poor as at No Time in History'

An Interview with Danny Glover

Lapidus: "En Suecia existe un profundo racismo oculto"

El lado oscuro de Estocolmo. Mafiosos yugoslavos, narcos, arribistas suecos, adictos de clase alta y policías con dudas morales.

una sociedad donde el ansia por el dinero ha alcanzado niveles de locura.

inmigrantes marcados por un trato racista por parte de profesores, trabajadores sociales... ¿Suecia no era el paraíso de la acogida de las minorías perseguidas?

La gente con orígenes no europeos no encuentra trabajo de la misma manera que los suecos de origen; en el Parlamento no hay representantes que vengan de las clases bajas.