The world of secret offshore companies is outrageous. The rich and corrupt, seeking to hide assets and income from taxes, set up shell companies, foundations and trusts – by the hundreds of thousands – every year. Despite the harm it does to local government and the likely illegality of it, the industry holds public trade… Read More Book Review: 'Secrecy World' by Jake Bernstein
Neoliberalism has been neatly described… as the disenchantment of politics by economics. It sees politics as an ineffective or illegitimate means of social improvement. Decision-making should be transferred to “the market”, a euphemism for the power of money. Through buying and selling, we establish a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Any attempt to interfere… Read More George Monbiot: The US was lucky to get Trump, Biden may pave the way for a more competent autocrat / Zeynep Tufekci: America’s Next Authoritarian Will Be More Competent
When I first spoke with Joseph Tainter in early May, he and I and nearly everyone else had reason to be worried. A few days earlier, the official tally of Covid-19 infections in the United States had climbed above one million, unemployment claims had topped 30 million and the United Nations had warned that the… Read More Ben Ehrenreich: How Do You Know When Society Is About to Fall Apart? Meet the scholars who study civilizational collapse
Whatever his political position of the moment, he reflected one thing above all: the underlying chaos and bad faith of a world of wealth, power, and ever-growing inequality, a world, as it happened, just waiting to go down. Now that he’s defeated, count on one thing: he’ll take as much of this country with him as… Read More Tom Engelhardt: State of Chaos // Nick Turse: A Convergence of Calamities
By ordering Arnab Goswami’s arrest, the Shiv Sena led government of Maharashtra has managed to do that which he had claimed Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was incapable of. The Establishment that facilitated the rise of Goswami has done little more than made noises about championing the freedom of expression while Goswami cools his heels in a makeshift jail. Journalists are… Read More Bharat Bhushan – Arnab Goswami's arrest: Will the saga lead to introspection in the media?
Why won’t Democrats take yes for an answer? After being scared out of their wits by the opening night of America’s mad election, you would have thought that Biden’s return from the dead would have been the cue for boneless relief and celebration, but no. As Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania first teetered and then… Read More Mukul Kesavan – Biden as Batman: Dumping the Joker
This week Joe Biden – few people’s idea of an outstanding candidate – won the biggest presidential vote in United States history. Seven times in the last eight such contests, the Democrats have got more votes than the Republicans. You could see this latest popular-vote victory as further confirmation of a theory that’s been promoted by some… Read More Andy Beckett: The left urgently needs to lose its inferiority complex // Owen Jones: Even if Biden wins, the world will pay the price for the Democrats' failures
NB: A brilliant article. The USA has intervened militarily and politically, with disastrous consequences, in many parts of the world, not least during the Bangladesh war in 1971; Vietnam between 1963 and 1975, and Chile in 1973. America under this ruthless buffoon is invading itself. I wish America’s Democratic voters well, and hope they succeed… Read More Mohammed Hanif: The rest of the world has had it with US presidents, Trump or otherwise
Presented with an opportunity for a wholesale rejection of a highly divisive, race-baiting, xenophobic, media-hating, anti-science, lying, juvenile incumbent, a sizable swath of America’s voters decided to take a pass and pull the lever for Donald Trump, and that speaks volumes about who we are as a nation. But all this didn’t happen in a… Read More Arick Wierson: America's standing in the world took a big hit on election night / Amanda Marcotte: What does it mean to be an American?
NB: Chris Hedges is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Presbyterian minister, and TV host. He is also one of the most perceptive commentators on contemporary politics. The only caveat I would place on his title is that ‘us’ is not just America. The entire global population is and has been placed at risk by the… Read More Chris Hedges – The politics of cultural despair: That's what's killing us, not Donald Trump
