“On all things that really matter to the human condition, to the human soul and spirit, including the terrain of the moral, ethical, and the political, he got it pretty much as right as is humanly possible.” - about Dr Mumtaz Ahmad
From Junaid's perpetual "Challenger"
“Take examples of your favoured radicals. People like Fisk and Chomsky find themselves on the right sides of Asads and Putins simply bypassing what they did: to his own people incase of Asad and to the Chechens and for the Russian oligarchy by Putin. How convenient it becomes for the radicals to look away only because they ‘stand up’ to the US imperialism.”
“When you have ‘dreamers’ willing to BOTH challenge foolish dogmas AND to have a clear understanding of where the society is, have the necessary awareness-raising energy to engender mass political literacy (the organizing and mobilizing usually done by the conscientious more privileged layers of society who are ashamed of their county’s disparities and disappointments). It’s important to dream. And it’s important to remember that dreams can come through dedicated efforts and sacrifice.”
“I’m really fascinated by how many times we’re reminded of the ‘liberal’ credentials of these economists? Perhaps we should start clarifying and defining these terms before deploying them so casually. For example, how do you distinguish them from classical conservative economists. Second, you do know that the modern origins of liberal economics comes from the post Depression era of the 1930s in which it was recognized by the leading liberal economist that Keynesianism and social spending in your ‘human capital’ is the way forward, and the state has a central role in that. Neoliberalism of course hated that, and so since the 70s and 80s we have had the restoration of class power to once again make sure nothing changes and in fact in many places, things get worse…”
“…What are we FOR, therefore, becomes the more substantive question, and sadly the cruelties of the world system are compelling us to move from merely a rights-based political logic to one that meets two fundamental criterion: social justice and sustainability (in an increasingly unsustainable world).”