Month: March 2022

Ukraine: Women giving birth in basements and bunkers / Russian bombing of maternity hospital ‘genocide’

Russia’s war on Ukraine has seen it launch scores of rockets and drop countless bombs on cities, forcing pregnant woman to seek shelter and give birth in hospital basements. While unsuited for such purposes, such places are much safer than delivery rooms that could be hit by Russian fire. Many Ukrainian hospitals have been damaged… Read More Ukraine: Women giving birth in basements and bunkers / Russian bombing of maternity hospital ‘genocide’

Dilip

Chris Hedges: Worthy and Unworthy Victims / Noam Chomsky: US Military Escalation Against Russia Would Have No Victors

Chris Hedges: Worthy and Unworthy Victims     Dividing the world into worthy and unworthy victims is a tactic used to justify our crimes and demonize our enemies. Conflicts will not be solved until all nations abide by international law and all victims are deemed worthy.   Rulers divide the world into worthy and unworthy victims, those… Read More Chris Hedges: Worthy and Unworthy Victims / Noam Chomsky: US Military Escalation Against Russia Would Have No Victors

Dilip

Hegemony Changes Everything: Antonio Gramsci's theories of how the rich stay rich

On the night of November 8, 1926, policeman arrived at Gramsci’s apartment in Rome. Initially, he was sentenced to five years of “confined exile,” and began serving out his sentence on the island of Ustica. While there, Gramsci endeavored again to set up a cultural school. He offered lessons in history and literature, which were… Read More Hegemony Changes Everything: Antonio Gramsci's theories of how the rich stay rich

Dilip

Book review: The revolution will not be tweeted / Jeffrey Lawrence: Who Owns Your Academic Community?

The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas, Gal Beckerman Reviewed by Kit Wilson Radical change, as any good historian will tell you, never just comes out of nowhere. Even the most seemingly unexpected shifts in history can, with hindsight, be traced back to specific material, intellectual and political preconditions – even if,… Read More Book review: The revolution will not be tweeted / Jeffrey Lawrence: Who Owns Your Academic Community?

Dilip

Volodymyr Artiukh: The Western Left doesn’t understand Putin or the world outside the US / Tatyana Margolin & Yelena Litvinov: Putin is trying to silence his critics

Amid Russia’s shelling of Kharkiv, the limits to what we can learn from you are clear. Your knowledge was produced under the conditions of American hegemony, which has reached its limits at Russia’s blood-red lines. The US has lost its ability to represent its interests as common interests for Russia and China. It cannot enforce… Read More Volodymyr Artiukh: The Western Left doesn’t understand Putin or the world outside the US / Tatyana Margolin & Yelena Litvinov: Putin is trying to silence his critics

Dilip

Jason Fields: Putin's brutal record in Chechnya and Syria is ominous for Ukraine / My comments on Vladimir Putin's apologists

NB: Beneath this link are two comments I made in response to articles published in Scheerpost about the Russo-Ukraine war. One comment has appeared, the second not yet. DS Wars aren’t civilized. The very definition of war includes death and cruelty, and everyone who dies has loved ones who mourn them. But some wars are… Read More Jason Fields: Putin's brutal record in Chechnya and Syria is ominous for Ukraine / My comments on Vladimir Putin's apologists

Dilip

Why we need a new spirit of internationalism. By EDWY PLENEL; March 4, 2022

The invasion of Ukraine is now forcing the world to face up to the unprecedented threat posed by Russian imperialism. In this op-ed article, Mediapart’s publishing editor Edwy Plenel argues that what is needed is a surge of international solidarity to defend and help the Ukrainian people who are resisting that aggression. A new imperialism is threatening world… Read More Why we need a new spirit of internationalism. By EDWY PLENEL; March 4, 2022

Dilip

Rohini Hensman: The Historical Background to Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine / Chris Hedges: The Greatest Evil Is War

NB: An excellent and well-researched essay. The clinically neutral experts on mass media and academia might do themselves a favour by reading it. Beneath this essay is a comment I wrote yesterday to an article in Scheerpost by Michael Brenner, an American professor of international relations. Here is a far more humane essay on the… Read More Rohini Hensman: The Historical Background to Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine / Chris Hedges: The Greatest Evil Is War

Dilip

Rebecca Solnit: It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network / George Monbiot: We must confront Russian propaganda / Moscow police detain children for laying flowers at Ukrainian embassy

NB: The UN General Assembly has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for withdrawal. Putin is a gangster in absolute power, and those Indian commentators who find excuses for this brutal invasion in the name of ‘national interest’ are ethical nihilists. By the way, it was the Soviet Union, not ‘Russia’,  which stood by India’s… Read More Rebecca Solnit: It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network / George Monbiot: We must confront Russian propaganda / Moscow police detain children for laying flowers at Ukrainian embassy

Dilip