Notations From the Grid (Special Mid-Week Edition): On Our World

 

Please enjoy this alternative perspective on our World courtesy of the team at Jacobin:

The speech that got Yanis Varoufakis banned from Germany On April 13, Germany’s interior ministry issued a “betätigungsverbot” against Yanis Varoufakis, a ban on any political activity — not just a ban from visiting Germany but also from participation in Zoom events hosted in the country. Below is an excerpt of the plea for humanity and justice in Palestine that got him banned. You can read the full version in Jacobin here. Congratulations and heartfelt thanks for being here — despite the threats, despite the ironclad police outside this venue, despite the panoply of the German press, despite the German state, despite the German political system that demonizes you for being here. “Why a Palestinian congress, Mr Varoufakis?” a German journalist asked me recently. Because, as Hanan Ashrawi once said, “we cannot rely on the silenced to tell us about their suffering.” Today, Ashrawi’s reason has grown depressingly stronger, because we cannot rely on the silenced who are also massacred and starved to tell us about the massacres and the starvation. But there is another reason, too: because a proud, decent people, the people of Germany, are led down a perilous road to a heartless society by being made to associate themselves with another genocide carried out in their name, with their complicity. I am neither Jewish nor Palestinian. But I am incredibly proud to be here among Jews and Palestinians — to blend my voice for peace and universal human rights with Jewish voices for peace and universal human rights, with Palestinian voices for peace and universal human rights. Being together here today is proof that coexistence is not only possible — but that it is here already. Read the full version

Here’s the latest... The terrifying escalation of attacks between Israel and Iran is a predictable result of Benjamin Netanyahu’s clear desire to start a war with Iran — enabled, like everything else Netanyahu has done since October 7, by Joe Biden. Netflix’s new series Ripley, the latest iteration of Patricia Highsmith’s murderous con man from The Talented Mr Ripley, is an arty, inert snooze. Its flat portrayal of the title character doesn’t come close to the novels or other fantastic adaptations. Four months into his term, Argentina’s “anarcho-capitalist” president Javier Milei has drastically slashed public spending and sought to suppress wages. It’s a disaster for the country’s working class and its public institutions of research and learning.