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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

US quietly publishes once-expunged papers on 1953 Iran coup

John Gambrell First posted June 29, 2017 NB: President Biden was cited yesterday as saying ‘We’re gonna free Iran‘. This is calculated to weaken the Iranian people’s democratic protests. We have become used to American arrogance and idiocy raised to stratospheric heights by the talking baboon Donald Trump; but Biden is not far behind. The… Read More US quietly publishes once-expunged papers on 1953 Iran coup

Polluting elites

Fiona Harvey The top 1% of earners in the UK are responsible for the same amount of carbon dioxide emissions in a single year as the bottom 10% over more than two decades, new data has shown. The findings highlight the enormous gaps between what have been termed “the polluting elite”, whose high-carbon lifestyles fuel the… Read More Polluting elites

Victory Speech of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party, President-Elect of Brazil

(Translated from Portuguese) “No one is interested in living in a divided country, in a permanent state of war“ “Now, let’s fight for zero deforestation of the Amazon. Brazil and the planet need a living Amazon” “When an Indigenous child is murdered by the greed of the exploiters of the environment, a part of humanity… Read More Victory Speech of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party, President-Elect of Brazil