If the protests in the United States and elsewhere are about systemic racial oppression, then South Africa’s experience is that unless toxic concentrations of political power are addressed, deep structural changes are unlikely to occur
Naomi Klein
Coronovirus, meaningless numbers, disaster capitalism: Oligarchy’s dream come true
Some corporates, some philanthropists, and some governments, the United States in particular, have a vested interest in a global pandemic — and the stats of infection rates and deaths are useful to them.
The American fascist, the Canadian activist and the French poststructuralist
In the Preface to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s major work, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (University of Minnesota Press, 1983, p. xii) Michel Foucault — another formidable post-structuralist thinker — makes the following observation in his brilliant characterisation of the book, where he lists the hostile forces targeted by Deleuze and Guattari: Last but not […]
Will “Blockadia” help, or “Is Earth F**ked”?
One of the most revealing threads running through Canadian investigative journalist and tireless anti-capitalism activist, Naomi Klein’s rivetting book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), concerns what she terms the “new climate warriors”, or in one word, “Blockadia”. This unlikely-sounding word names a movement which has arisen in the shape […]
Bravo students: ‘The doors of learning and culture shall be opened’
The ongoing student protests across the country confirm, unambiguously, the failure of the neoliberal system in South Africa, which requires a hefty increase in student fees every year, given the fact that universities are now part of the invidious neoliberal economic system, instead of being state-funded public institutions. And don’t tell me that it is […]
Climate change: We have passed the 11th hour
In 2007, Leonardo DiCaprio — one of the few so-called celebrities in the world who seems to care about matters ecological — produced a disturbing film on runaway climate change called The 11th Hour, directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners. Like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth before it, it was a wake-up call, […]
New! Improved! Designer vaginas
Insecurity is big business. We probably wouldn’t bother with half the things we buy if we felt good about ourselves. Your breath isn’t fresh enough (that’s how Listerine got its big break). Your hair isn’t straight enough (cue GHDs and Brazilian blowouts). Your teeth aren’t white or straight enough (aesthetic dentistry). You’re too pale (fake […]