By JOSEPH FRONCZAK One long century ago, on June 9, 1917, not quite halfway between the February Revolution and the October Revolution, Eric Hobsbawm was born in Alexandria, Egypt. The lifelong communist died only five years ago, in 2012 at the age of ninety-five. He spent his final years placidly convinced that socialism belonged still… Read More Eric Hobsbawm’s Long Century
Alfred W. McCoy ( Tomdispatch.com ) – In the first chapter of his 1874 novel The Gilded Age, Mark Twain offered a telling observation about the connection between past and present: “History never repeats itself, but the… present often seems to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends.” Among the “antique legends” most helpful in… Read More Imperial Decline in the Straits of Hormuz
‘At the core of both our nature, and our way of being within nature, is a relentless, collective conversation about what is good and what is true.’ Richard Bernstein Richard J. Bernstein. The Vicissitudes of Nature: From Spinoza to Freud. New York: Polity Books, 2022 During the past few decades, our practices have been destroying nature,… Read More Alex Betancourt reviews The Vicissitudes of Nature
Frances Stonor Saunders on MI5 and the Hobsbawm File First posted March 26, 2015 On 25 January 1933, the 16-year-old Eric Hobsbawm marched with thousands of comrades through central Berlin to the headquarters of the German Communist Party (KPD). When they arrived at Karl Liebknecht Haus, on the Bülowplatz, the temperature was –18°C. They shuffled and… Read More British Intelligence (MI5)’s file on Eric Hobsbawm
Alex Karp, Palantirianism, and the tech industry’s embrace of total war. By Jacob Silverman Last July, four high-ranking tech executives — all of them involved with artificial intelligence — were sworn into the US Army Reserves with the rank of lieutenant colonel. They were part of a new unit called Detachment 201, also known as the… Read More Keyboard warriors
Shoaib Daniyal India had no role to play in starting the Iran war. But outside of the Gulf states, it is one of the countries most affected. Indians are seeing widespread shortages of cooking gas given India is highly dependent on the supply from West Asia and the country has almost no storage capacity. Faced with rising public anger over… Read More Can propaganda on Iran allowing Indian ships hide Modi government’s failure to secure gas supply?
Pranjali Bandhu A stalwart of India’s freedom movement, Gandhian economic philosopher, pioneer in the development of village and cottage industries and advocate of a decentralised, localised economy of permanence and freedom, it is unfortunate that J C Kumarappa (1892-1960) remains practically unknown to the present generation of Indians. The reasons for this are many, but… Read More J C Kumarappa’s Concept of an Economy of Permanence
Five soldiers were indicted over alleged violent abuse and rape of Palestinian man at detention centre in 2024. Israel’s military attorney general just gave his soldiers licence to rape, so long as the victim is Palestinian. “By abandoning the charges, the Israeli military has made clear that those who engage in the torture of Palestinians… Read More Israeli military drops charges against soldiers accused of Gaza detainee abuse
Defence analyst says torpedo strike is a ‘humiliation’ for Modi’s government that disregarded a US defence partner Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Dubai and Aanya Wipulasena in Colombo The distress call came in to Sri Lanka’s maritime rescue coordination centre just after 5am. The ship in trouble, they determined, was well within Sri Lanka’s obligation for rescue, being… Read More ‘Bit of treachery’: US attack on IRIS Dena undermines Indian security ties
NB: Barring honourable exceptions, Western establishments are irredeemably racist. For them, it is a rule of thumb that some of don’t count as human beings. Their behaviour reminds us of the Nazi laws on ‘life unworthy of life‘ DS Double standards in Europe and elsewhere are laid bare by the muted response to US and… Read More The Iran war and international law: it’s worse than a mistake; it’s a crime
After the truth-shower 