By Nicky Reid / CounterPunch Every single American war has been bullshit. They all come with different excuses and some of them are pretty goddamn convincing but every major conflict that this country has ever engaged in has been motivated by greed and power, and every single war we’ve fought has ended the exact same way, with… Read More Exposing the Myth of the ‘Good War’
Marina Hyde: Donald Trump just appointed ‘never Trump guy’ as his running mate Encouraging scenes from the Republican national convention (RNC), where US politicians and the wider world are being told to dial down their rhetoric by a crowd of people rhythmically raising their right fists and screaming “Fight, fight!” It’s just a hunch, but… Read More History’s most iconic ear injury (sorry, van Gogh) + one low information joker
The gulf in voter turnout between haves and have-nots has widened. The result is no politics for those who can’t afford it Nesrine Malik It’s weird isn’t it, this bit? That period right after a new government has taken over with its all-new faces and fresh starts. The imperative to celebrate feels almost mandatory. Even… Read More Hidden behind Labour’s ‘landslide’ win is a depressing disfranchisement
Yossi Verter Based on the public utterances of senior rabbis – Ashkenazi and Sephardi alike – with the imminent issue of draft notices to a few thousand yeshiva students, it would seem the coalition is headed for collapse. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant will be sending out some 3,000 notices in the coming month, meaning while… Read More Netanyahu Will Nix a Hostage Deal to Save His Coalition
Chris Hedges The assassination of Trump would not remove the yearning of tens of millions of people, many conditioned by the Christian right, for a cult leader. Most of the leaders of the Christian right have built cult followings of their own. These Christian fascists embraced magical thinking, attacked their enemies as agents of Satan… Read More Chris Hedges: Statement on Attempted Trump Assassination
The history of many centuries, including our own, shows that the default state of politics is not redistribution and general welfare, but a spiral of accumulation by the very rich, the extreme exploitation of labour, the seizure of common resources and exaction of rent for their use, extortion, coercion and violence. Normal is a society in which… Read More Things are not going to get better as long as oligarchs rule the roost in our democracies
First posted February 28, 2014 In Culture and the Death of God he deploys all his formidable skills to explain how the high hopes of many generations of secular materialists collapsed along with the twin towers. Culture and the Death of God – Terry Eagletonreviewed by Jonathan Rée Atheism is in trouble, according to Terry Eagleton. Throughout the 20th century it… Read More Culture and the Death of God: Terry Eagleton
First posted March 10, 2015 The latest issue of Oxford Left Review has a number of engaging articles on the nature and consequences of neoliberalism. Neil Davidson from the University of Glasgow examines the changing social base of neoliberalism, where he explores the shift from vanguard to ‘social’ neoliberalism and the relationship of the latter to the middle… Read More Elizabeth Humphrys: Anti-politics and the illusions of neoliberalism
First posted December 15, 2019 Barclays, HSBC and Santander among names behind companies implicated in rainforest destruction Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley also among key financiers. The burning of the Brazilian Amazon this summer illustrated in the most graphic way possible humanity’s war on the planet. But such scenes play out… Read More MONEY TO BURN: Over 300 banks and investors back 6 of the world’s most harmful agribusinesses to the tune of $44bn
First posted September 14, 2017 Enzo Traverso is an Italian historian of the Holocaust and totalitarianism The Aporias of Marxism: In a letter to Walter Benjamin, dated 13 April 1933, Gershom Scholem described the rise of Nazi Germany as ‘a catastrophe of world‑historical proportions’ which permitted him for the first time ‘to comprehend deeply’ the expulsion… Read More The Aporias of Marxism / Archaism and Modernity. By Enzo Traverso
After the truth-shower 