Tag: current affairs – international

One Billionaire emits a Million times more CO2 than an Average Person. Protesters block Private Planes at Amsterdam

JUAN COLE Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Oxfam has a new study, Carbon Billionaires: The investment emissions of the world’s richest people. Zeroing on 150 billionaires in the sample, a tiny proportion of the top one percent numerically but a significant proportion of the latter’s wealth holdings, the study found that together they had a stake… Read More One Billionaire emits a Million times more CO2 than an Average Person. Protesters block Private Planes at Amsterdam

Dilip

Chris Hedges: The Politicians Who Destroyed Our Democracy Want Us to Vote for Them To Save It

Freedom for millions of enraged Americans has become the freedom to hate, the freedom to use words like “nigger,” “kike,” “spic,” “chink,” “raghead” and “fag;” the freedom to physically assault Muslims, undocumented workers, women, African-Americans, homosexuals and anyone who dares criticize their Christian fascism; the freedom to celebrate historical movements and figures that the college-educated… Read More Chris Hedges: The Politicians Who Destroyed Our Democracy Want Us to Vote for Them To Save It

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Apocalypse in the rear-view mirror

Magdalena Taube Krystian Woznicki The planet, as authoritarian capitalism’s plaything, is subject to real-world economic-ecological downward spirals. And yet exorbitant space exploration projects continue to build escapist dreams on extractivism. And the threat of nuclear war continues to push at the limits of tenuous environmental stability. Earthrise reloaded When the Tesla Gigafactory opened in Brandenburg, Elon… Read More Apocalypse in the rear-view mirror

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Digital culture wars

Understanding the far right’s online powerbase Millions of people are consuming, repeating and disseminating far-right ‘culture war’ material online, but if you do not seek out that content and are not served it by algorithms, you may never know it was there. Ben Little: People have used the term ‘culture wars’ for a long time, especially… Read More Digital culture wars

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The American Christian Right’s Flirtation with Political Violence and Far-Right Extremism

MATTHIJS KRONEMEIJER Toronto (Special to Informed Comment) – The November edition of First Things, a magazine of the Christian Right, features a lengthy statement from a group of theologians called Evangelicals and Catholics Together. The church friend who spontaneously sent me a link indicated that the statement is about Christian citizenship and that he is proud to be… Read More The American Christian Right’s Flirtation with Political Violence and Far-Right Extremism

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The Courts have been the Last Bastion of Sanity in Polarized America, but what if they Go MAGA too?

By Andy Kroll ( Tomdispatch.cm ) – For about a week in the summer of 2018, I caught an early-morning train from Washington, D.C., to the Albert V. Bryan federal courthouse in the suburb of Alexandria. Located a short drive from George Washington’s estate at Mount Vernon, that courthouse serves the Eastern District of Virginia.… Read More The Courts have been the Last Bastion of Sanity in Polarized America, but what if they Go MAGA too?

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Backlash in Iran against President Biden’s vow to “Free” the Country

JUAN COLE NB: Just what I wrote about here, this kind of moronic statement is calculated to assist the theocracy. DS Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – At a campaign event in California late on Thursday, President Joe Biden said, “Don’t worry, we’re going to free Iran, they’re going to free themselves pretty soon.” Biden’s pledge drew… Read More Backlash in Iran against President Biden’s vow to “Free” the Country

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Sixty years ago, true statecraft avoided a nuclear war. We need that again over Ukraine

Jonathan Steele NB: While I appreciate Steele’s evocation of moderation and restraint, there’s just one big problem with this article. One man alone saved the world from nuclear war in 1962, and his name was Vasili Arkhipov, one of three senior officers in the Soviet nuclear-weapon equipped submarine, the B-59, off the Cuban coast, which… Read More Sixty years ago, true statecraft avoided a nuclear war. We need that again over Ukraine

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The US is on a knife-edge. The enemy for Trump’s Republicans is democracy itself

Jonathan Freedland s in all the best horror movies, at first glance everything looks normal. It’s a classic scene of the American autumn: campaign rallies outside community centres, battle buses emblazoned with candidates’ smiling faces, kids wearing badges and holding up signs, while TV screens fill with debates, punditry and an endless loop of focus-grouped… Read More The US is on a knife-edge. The enemy for Trump’s Republicans is democracy itself

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