The fact is that in 50 years, India’s democracy has swung between two extremes – from two years of the ‘darkest period’ to ten-plus years of the ‘deep-dark period.’ M.G. Devasahayam June 26, 2025, is the 50th anniversary of the infamous Emergency. As the anniversary year dawned in 2024, the top honchos of the ruling… Read More Fifty Years After the Emergency, India’s Democracy Is Dying in a Leadership Vacuum
The Iraq war was built on a lie. Now history is repeating itself Mohamad Bazzi In May 2003, George W Bush landed on the deck of a US aircraft carrier to deliver a triumphant speech, declaring that major combat operations in Iraq had ended – six weeks after he had ordered US troops to invade the country.… Read More Like George W Bush, Trump has started a reckless war based on a lie
In the Long Run, the Means to Nonproliferation Ends Matters Statement by Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director, Kelsey Davenport, Director for Nonproliferation Policy, and Thomas Countryman, Chair of the Board, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation and International Security, June 21, 2025 President Donald Trump’s decision to join Israel’s illegal attacks against… Read More Trump Decision to Strike Iran Sets U.S. Up for Wider War, and Undermines Nonproliferation Regime / Iran says US has begun a dangerous war
The reports on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction decided that the US invasion of Iraq could start. Today, we know that these weapons were fiction, an image produced to justify the war. Discussing Hannah Arendt and the Viet Nam war, Cathy Caruth shows that this type of political imagery has a long tradition in the… Read More Lying and history: Hannah Arendt and the Viet Nam war (2009)
During Operation Sindoor, the Indian media did not merely broadcast propaganda – it deliberately subverted the truth. Nissim Mannathukkaren The India-Pakistan conflict in May left a deep chasm in the subcontinent. It also revealed a breakdown on both sides of the border on what constitutes fact and the truth. This reflects an unprecedented polarisation of… Read More From Mumbai 26/11 to Pahalgam, India has entered the post-truth era
“If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam” – M. L. King “Civil disobedience arises when a significant number of citizens have become convinced either that the normal channels of change no longer function, and grievances will not be heard or acted upon, or that, on the contrary the government… Read More Seyla Benhabib: Breaking Silence, Hannah Arendt, and Martin Luther King
Guy Debord’s Comments on the Society of the Spectacle issue #19, 1991 As late as 1979, Guy Debord could write about his 1967 book of theory, which is entitled The Society of the Spectacle: “There is no a word to be changed . . . . [Since 1967] the spectacle has done nothing but meet more exactly… Read More Guy Debord’s Comments on the Society of the Spectacle
First posted March 2013 But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence… illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the… Read More Hans Magnus Enzensberger: The Industrialization of the Mind
We have previously written about the debates over the political relevance of the Enlightenment today, drawing on Antoine Lilti’s critical review of the histories of Jonathan Israel. We present the English translation of his essay, which has import far beyond any disciplinary boundaries: Viewpoint Magazine David A. Bell: The Uses and Abuses of Enlightenment: AV lecture; January 2025 ***… Read More How Do We Write the Intellectual History of the Enlightenment? Spinozism, Radicalism, and Philosophy
Israel’s prime minister sees himself not only as the protector of Israel, but the saviour of the West. This, he believes, is how he should go down in history, writes former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas. Mr Netanyahu can brag all he wants about how he has changed the course of history and how he has saved… Read More Israel’s attack on Iran proves Netanyahu is an unhinged messiah
After the truth-shower 