Tag: critical theory

Aseem Shrivastava: An Age gone blind // Mallika Bhanot – Char Dham Pariyojana: A High Risk Engineering Exercise

A strange fact has baffled naturalists recently. Rhododendrons and Himalayan daisies have been flowering in Ramgarh in the freezing winter of January, normally a snow-bound month of the Himalayan calendar. It has been one of the warmest winters in Uttarakhand. Ramgarh (at 2,100 metres) received half-a-dozen snowfalls during the winter of 2019-20. This season (and… Read More Aseem Shrivastava: An Age gone blind // Mallika Bhanot – Char Dham Pariyojana: A High Risk Engineering Exercise

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How America’s food giants swallowed the family farms / The Big Tech takeover of agriculture is dangerous / (Video) The reason the world is running out of farmers

When the vast expanse of rural Iowa was carved up for settlers in the 19th century, it was often divided into 160-acre lots. Four farms made a square mile, with a crisscross of dead-straight roads marking the boundaries like a sprawling chess board. Within each square, generations of families tended pigs and cattle, grew oats… Read More How America’s food giants swallowed the family farms / The Big Tech takeover of agriculture is dangerous / (Video) The reason the world is running out of farmers

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A moment of moral and political nihilism: Theologian Adam Kotsko on our current crisis

Rather than rail against the overheated apocalyptic rhetoric of others, Kotsko undertook his own cool-eyed, analytical version, saying, “I will follow my prophetic and apostolic forebears in diagnosing the root cause of that corruption and decadence as a failure to recognize the truth, which has resulted in a thoroughgoing moral and political nihilism.”..    Neoliberalism… Read More A moment of moral and political nihilism: Theologian Adam Kotsko on our current crisis

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Zack Stanton: Violent Christian Extremism in the USA

For two decades, the U.S. government has been engaging with faith leaders in Muslim communities at home and around the world in an attempt to stamp out extremism and prevent believers vulnerable to radicalization from going down a path that leads to violence. Now, after the dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory helped to motivate the insurrection… Read More Zack Stanton: Violent Christian Extremism in the USA

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Book review: Peter Pomerantsev's 'This Is Not Propaganda' is quietly frightening. By Steve Bloomfield

This Is Not Propaganda is an exploration of the wreckage of liberal democracy and a search for the signs of its revival. What can save us? Reading, for a start. In Beijing, Pomeranstev meets Angela Wu, who researches emerging technology and cultural change at New York University. She travelled across China interviewing readers of a blogging site called… Read More Book review: Peter Pomerantsev's 'This Is Not Propaganda' is quietly frightening. By Steve Bloomfield

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Godfrey Hodgson: a legendary author who predicted America’s unravelling

The legendary Godfrey Hodgson, author of essential books and reports on the US, a journalist with The Observer and then The Sunday Times Insight Team when they were in their prime, and in later life the head of the fellowships programme at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University, has died,… Read More Godfrey Hodgson: a legendary author who predicted America’s unravelling

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Andrew Rawnsley: The bill for Boris Johnson’s Brexit is coming in and it’s punishingly steep

I smiled to see that Roger Daltrey, the Leave-supporting lead singer of the Who, has joined the chorus of rock stars furious that the post-Brexit visa rules will ruin their prospects of touring across the Channel. Mr Daltrey will have to sing Won’t Get Fooled Again to himself before moving on to Boris the Spider and… Read More Andrew Rawnsley: The bill for Boris Johnson’s Brexit is coming in and it’s punishingly steep

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Militarized US Capitol is being called a ‘war zone’ / The Fall of the American Empire? / The Earth Does Not Belong to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk

For some Americans, including the Muslim and Arab Americans who have faced decades of government surveillance and suspicion, the war on terror has always been operating at home. But the reaction to the 6 January attack may represent a new stage of the “imperial boomerang”, in which tactics developed by empires to maintain control abroad… Read More Militarized US Capitol is being called a ‘war zone’ / The Fall of the American Empire? / The Earth Does Not Belong to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk

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Paul Rogers – The far right’s rise within armed forces is a global threat to democracy

Earlier this month, the world was shocked by the Capitol rioters’ assault on US democracy. But more chilling still is that those who swore to protect the institutions of state may have been among the attackers. One US army captain is under investigation for taking part in the 6 January rally that eventually led to the breach… Read More Paul Rogers – The far right’s rise within armed forces is a global threat to democracy

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