By JOSEPH FRONCZAK One long century ago, on June 9, 1917, not quite halfway between the February Revolution and the October Revolution, Eric Hobsbawm was born in Alexandria, Egypt. The lifelong communist died only five years ago, in 2012 at the age of ninety-five. He spent his final years placidly convinced that socialism belonged still… Read More Eric Hobsbawm’s Long Century
Alfred W. McCoy ( Tomdispatch.com ) – In the first chapter of his 1874 novel The Gilded Age, Mark Twain offered a telling observation about the connection between past and present: “History never repeats itself, but the… present often seems to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends.” Among the “antique legends” most helpful in… Read More Imperial Decline in the Straits of Hormuz
Frances Stonor Saunders on MI5 and the Hobsbawm File First posted March 26, 2015 On 25 January 1933, the 16-year-old Eric Hobsbawm marched with thousands of comrades through central Berlin to the headquarters of the German Communist Party (KPD). When they arrived at Karl Liebknecht Haus, on the Bülowplatz, the temperature was –18°C. They shuffled and… Read More British Intelligence (MI5)’s file on Eric Hobsbawm
Alex Karp, Palantirianism, and the tech industry’s embrace of total war. By Jacob Silverman Last July, four high-ranking tech executives — all of them involved with artificial intelligence — were sworn into the US Army Reserves with the rank of lieutenant colonel. They were part of a new unit called Detachment 201, also known as the… Read More Keyboard warriors
Five soldiers were indicted over alleged violent abuse and rape of Palestinian man at detention centre in 2024. Israel’s military attorney general just gave his soldiers licence to rape, so long as the victim is Palestinian. “By abandoning the charges, the Israeli military has made clear that those who engage in the torture of Palestinians… Read More Israeli military drops charges against soldiers accused of Gaza detainee abuse
Defence analyst says torpedo strike is a ‘humiliation’ for Modi’s government that disregarded a US defence partner Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Dubai and Aanya Wipulasena in Colombo The distress call came in to Sri Lanka’s maritime rescue coordination centre just after 5am. The ship in trouble, they determined, was well within Sri Lanka’s obligation for rescue, being… Read More ‘Bit of treachery’: US attack on IRIS Dena undermines Indian security ties
NB: Barring honourable exceptions, Western establishments are irredeemably racist. For them, it is a rule of thumb that some of don’t count as human beings. Their behaviour reminds us of the Nazi laws on ‘life unworthy of life‘ DS Double standards in Europe and elsewhere are laid bare by the muted response to US and… Read More The Iran war and international law: it’s worse than a mistake; it’s a crime
NB: These are the kinds of bestial personality spawned by Zionism: monsters devoid of the slightest empathy for their fellow human beings. And Israel is the lawless state which has been funded, armed and protected by Western establishments for decades, aided and abetted by their Arab puppets. There will be no going back: the hypocrtical… Read More As a Palestinian Father Struggled to Save One Son, a Uniformed Settler Shot His Other Son, Too
The Trump administration is receiving pushback for its celebratory tone in describing the US strikes in Iran. In recent interviews, the president joked that it is ‘more fun’ to sink Iranian warships than to seize them, while the defense secretary boasted that ‘we are punching [the Iranians] while they’re down, which is exactly how it… Read More Trump team treating Iran war as spectacle
There are rules and world leaders must insist they be honoured in practice and in spirit. After this atrocity in Iran, a more effective tribunal for crimes against children is essential Gordon Brown The killing of a reported 168 people, primarily schoolgirls, in the bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab in Iran has shaken to… Read More Children killed, a school turned into a graveyard: even in wartime, we can’t accept this
After the truth-shower 