by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog There I was, back on the “Job Creators Red-Eye” from Silicon Valley to New York City, reading The New York Times. I was reading it the way God intended – in an actual newspaper. But when I logged onto my computer, I noticed The Times has a new feature: they now are writing footnotes to articles, putting them on the right side of
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog The fundamental problem with media coverage regarding regarding the Yellow Vests is that it fails to see it as an already-permanent movement, or even a possibly-permanent one: each week must be either the biggest one yet, or the very last one. The Yellow Vests see it similarly, but differently: for them each week is the very last one, too… because they will FINALLY
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog The demonstration for “Acte 16”, on March 2nd, was designed as a sight-seeing tour which passed by bastions of rich, traitorous criminals (the OECD, a school of luxury marketing, etc.) and so it concluded at a small roundabout in a ritzy area, Denfert-Rochereau. As protesters amassed and cops loaded up, and with time in between my on-air interviews for PressTV, I headed for
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog Somehow, the conception of the modern notion of freedom is wholly associated with Western Europe, but you know who I always thought was free? Kazakhs. I mean, what are those nomads doing up over there? Riding all around day, shooting stuff, coming home to hot, meaty meals – they are living the good life. Shepherding is the rare job where staring at the
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog Back in November 2008, Rahm Emmanuel, then president-elect Barack Obama’s chief of staff and later the detested mayor of Chicago, famously told The Wall Street Journal, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. … This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not before.” A wave of “socialise the losses” right-wing capitalism followed; millions lost
Macron Won’t Put Question of Resignation Up for French Referendum – Journo You can listen to the full audio of the interview here: https://soundcloud.com/radiosputnik/the-french-people-want-more-power-in-policy-making-journalist The first referendum in 14 years could take place in France in May as part of President Emmanuel Macron’s response to the ongoing series of weekend ‘yellow vests’ protests. The newspaper Journal du Dimanche reported that Macron was planning to organise the vote on the same
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog Like illegally jailed PressTV anchor Marzieh Hashemi, I am a journalist at Iran’s PressTV and also a dual-citizen of Iran and the US, with family in both countries. So should I cancel my next trip to the United States, then? Well, I refuse to. I visit the US at least once a year, and nothing could possibly prevent me from returning whenever I
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog There is a lot of talk about which economic bubble will burst first and burst the worst (sounds like a gangsta rap song, no?) The stock market, real estate, luxury goods, corporate debt and government bond bubbles, and other lesser bubbles, all jockey for the titles. It’s the “Everything Bubble” for good reason. The “good reason” is: the 1% owns everything of high
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog Let’s predict the likely trajectory of France’s Yellow Vest movement: What seems certain is that the only-on-Saturday protests will soon change into massive, permanent encampments in Paris, along the Champs-Elysées and Eiffel Tower. Other camps will be set up around the country, also at symbols of state power: the local city halls and tourist/historic attractions. This will make international news, because they will
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog The most important thing to understand about France’s Yellow Vest movement is that the Mainstream Media wants you to view it as an isolated incident which exists in a vacuum, when we are much better served to look at in a continuum. When the Yellow Vests started I was not foolish to say: “So what?” After all, the Yellow Vest movement is dwarfed
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog File it under “things we’d like to be true…so we never examine it”: The West’s unstated belief that their politics are exponentially morally superior to those of Saudi Arabia. “We only work with them – we are not at all like them,” is what it boils down to. This article aims to show just how similar “Oriental despotism” is to “Occidental domination” in
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog The most important thing to understand about Salafism is that it exists in every country, Islamic or not. Some will immediately close their minds to such an idea because they have been socially conditioned to believe that their culture should not have anything in common with Muslim culture. However, those who go along with me will find that this discussion should clarify much
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog I wouldn’t want readers to think that I egotistically view Jamal Khashoggi’s anti-Iran stance as his most important flaw…. Part two in this 4-part series only focuses on Iran because they provide a distinct counterpart to “Khashoggi Thought”: By laying out the differences between these two we can see how Khashoggi relates to the Middle Eastern world; then in Part 3 we can
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog (SPOILER ALERT! This article is not very good.) If House of Cards only had a first season and a final season it could have been remembered as almost genuinely dissident television. Season 1 did something never seen on American screens: It accurately showed that modern American Liberal Democracy is designed to be won by politicians who are amoral, individualistic and disgusting sociopaths. Season
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog In October of 1965, 2014 and 2018 three journalists were prominently assassinated: Mehdi Ben Barka, Serena Shim and Jamal Khashoggi. Most readers likely don’t know the first two, while the entire world seems to know about the last one. This is a 4-part series which explains what Jamal Khashoggi represented ideologically, the relevance of his ideology in the modern Islamic World, the perhaps-unexpected
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog Ten years ago my life was all screwed up by the economic crisis I had nothing to do with. In August 2008 AFP (Agence France Presse) said that if I learned French they’d give me a job. I moved in with my parents and studied five hours a day seven days a week for five months. By the time I arrived in France
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog It seems unlikely – as it defies 73 years of ongoing aggression, warfare, the near-warfare of constant tap dancing on the border, starvation-creating sanctions, false promises, broken promises, racist caricaturing, hysterical knee-jerk anti-socialism, and more besides – but what if Washington finally allows North Korea to reintegrate into the multinational world? North Korea has been so politically oppressed from without that they are
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog On September 22nd there was a terrible terrorist attack in the Iranian city of Ahvaz which killed 25 innocent people and wounded 70 other people. This was universally reported in the West as having occurred at a “military parade”, when it was actually a parade to commemorate the 1980 start of the Western-backed, Western-funded, Western-armed invasion which used Iraq to try to destroy
by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog I had a summer vacation this year, and I got so incredibly bored I started to dabble in masochism. By that I mean that I decided to tune into The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast by MSNBC from the US. I haven’t watched her for years (or ever, really) but since the election of Donald Trump Rachel Maddow has become the figurehead of a
