Scandal individualises corruption, creating a spectacle that redirects anger away from structural power. By Yoav Litvin After the beginning of Trump’s second term, the connections between capitalism, white supremacy and imperial domination became increasingly clear. These have been highlighted through ICE raids as modern-day slave patrols, global criminal operations such as the kidnapping of Venezuelan… Read More Epstein and the politics of distraction
By Tom Engelhardt I grew up with a vision of a possible instant apocalypse, inspired (if, under the circumstances, such a word can even be used) by the nuclear obliteration of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II. It could happen at any moment, even if you were “ducking and covering”… Read More The President of No Return on a Hothouse Planet
As in The Iliad, the adoration of force has become “the true hero, the true subject” of our times. All the nightmares of our present are woven from its threads: genocide and oligarchy; thermobaric bombs and AI kill lists; fascist cults of masculinity and bare-knuckle machismo; masked men snatching children off American streets and narco-executions in… Read More The adoration of force
By Matt Spetalnick and Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON, March 7 (Reuters) – One week into the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran that has plunged the Middle East into turmoil, President Donald Trump faces a growing list of risks and challenges that raise questions about whether he will be able to translate military successes into a clear geopolitical… Read More Reuters Analysis-One week into Iran war, the dangers for the US and Trump multiply
Hanin Majadli Israelis believe that Israel and the U.S. are fighting for democracy, freedom and human rights in Iran, but if human rights were their guiding principle, the state of affairs would not be as it is in the West Bank, and the Gaza war would not have reached the dimensions of genocide. There are… Read More It’s Astonishing How Israelis Can Identify Cruel, Evil Regimes, but Just Not Their Own
By Dilip Simeon Ideology is the most devilish variation of the lie: Hannah Arendt To speak of reaction is to counterpose it with progress. This terminology is not helpful. Stable issues of political life, such as legitimate authority, justice, transparent government, clarity on the means vs ends problem; along with issues of character such as… Read More Domination and chaos: India’s radical conservatism
Alfred McCoy, author most recently of the history book Cold War on Five Continents, makes clear today, by now Donald Trump and decline have (or at least should have) become literal synonyms in his increasingly nightmarish second term in the Oval Office. In almost every imaginable way, he now seems intent on taking this country down… Read More America’s Date With Destiny
There is no end in sight to the pollution caused by a ‘broken’ system. Experts say it could even be getting worse Sandra Laville Sarah Lambert took her usual morning swim for 40 minutes off Exmouth town beach before her volunteer shift helping disabled people get access to the water. A wheelchair user herself, Lambert’s… Read More Dirty water, death and decline: the inside story of a privatisation scandal
The Captive Mind, Czesław Miłosz’s searing anatomy of authoritarianism, highlights the dangers of self-deception in the name of ‘realism’ The Captive Mind, Czesław Miłosz’s searing anatomy of authoritarianism, tells a story drawn from an older Polish novel by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Insatiability. Europe is about to be overrun by a Sino-Mongolian army that dominates from… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes: From a book on authoritarianism, lessons on ‘realism’ for India
How a Washington Post columnist laundered the Sangh’s violent history Dhirendra K Jha THE RASHTRIYA SWAYAMSEVAK SANGH has been on a spree, celebrating a century of its existence. Over this period, it has demonstrated its ability to patiently expand, mobilise and grow. Thousands of people, including the former president Ram Nath Kovind, attended the hundredth… Read More Manufacturing Legitimacy
After the truth-shower 