A further word on the subject of issuing instructions on how the world ought to be: philosophy, at any rate, always comes too late to perform this function. As the thought of the world, it appears only at a time when actuality has gone through its formative process and attained its completed state. This lesson… Read More The Owl of Minerva and the Spirit of Trust
Sunil Kandar, Ghoramara Island, India: I live in the Hatkhola locality of Ghoramara. I remember how on this island, during my childhood, I had a very happy and enjoyable life. We had a big mud-walled house. We also had large farmland of our own where rice and other vegetables grew. We sold a big part of… Read More Ghoramara island has been shrinking: living on the frontline of global heating
According to a new exhibition at the Design Museum, the most ubiquitous hallmark of the Anthropocene is not a game-changing material, nor the mastery of technology. It’s trash. “We are arguably living in the waste age,” says Justin McGuirk, the London museum’s chief curator, who has spent the last three years rifling through rubbish with… Read More This is the age of waste
NB: Given the state of affairs in many (there are exceptions) English language departments wherein ‘theory’ is shorthand for the ideas of Derrida and Foucauld, and where the notion of truth is sneered at, this newest upsurge of the antisemitic propaganda around the Dreyfus case ought to be an alert. I don’t think it will… Read More Jon Henley: Rise of far right puts Dreyfus affair into spotlight in French election race
Anyone with even an iota of intelligence and an understanding of our dysfunctional legal eco-system knows that there is something deeply problematic and rotten with the Aryan Khan case. The NCB’s (Narcotics Control Bureau) conduct is deeply suspect, even without the personal allegations now levelled against its Zonal Director Sameer Wankhade. The entire case, with… Read More Avay Shukla: SPEAK UP! THEY'RE COMING FOR YOU ANYWAY
The U.S. wars lost in Iraq and Afghanistan showed imperial overreach beyond what even 20 years of war could manage. That the defeats were drawn out for so many years shows that domestic politics and the funding of the domestic military-industrial complex were, more than geopolitics, the key drivers of these wars. Empires can die… Read More Richard Wolff: How the troubled U.S. empire could quickly fall apart
If Assange is extradited and found guilty of publishing classified material, it will set a legal precedent that will effectively end national security reporting, allowing the government to use the Espionage Act to charge any reporter who possesses classified documents, and any whistleblower who leaks classified information, under the Espionage Act. For the past two… Read More Chris Hedges: The most important battle for press freedom in our time
The United States is a nation of militantly ignorant people, arrogant in their beliefs, unable to change their minds and unwilling to try. We lack education. And the lack of education in this country is such a problem that national security adviser Jake Sullivan described it this week as a critical issue for our national… Read More BRIAN KAREM – Dumbass nation: Our biggest national security problem is America's "vast and militant ignorance" / ExxonMobil's campaign to fund climate science denial
NB: After willfully neglecting Fr Stan Swamy‘s bail pleas and subjecting him to unusual punishment without trial, our criminal justice system literally presided over his death in custody. He was 84 years old, weak and ailing; and had suffered enormously in jail. After he died, spokesmen for the government repeated the allegations against him as… Read More Bhima Koregaon: Kin of jailed activists write to authorities to not discontinue telephone calls / How the ‘anda cell’ is used to discipline prison inmates
NB: I have just one comment to make on this issue, communalism of every hue thrives on state support whether open or covert. This is the ideology of choice for the ruling classes of South Asia. It has led to the criminalisation of state structures and the near-complete erosion of justice. It remains to be… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Bangladesh's dysfunctional secularism
