NB: An excellent commentary; except for one misnomer: when it comes to Western imperial establishments and their hangers-on, it’s not their moral stupidity, but their moral depravity that we are confronted with. The truth is as clear as crystal: they are irredeemably racist, as racist as the Nazi jurists who concocted the phrase ‘life not… Read More Gaza and the Problem of Moral Stupidity
The cultural fascination with the middle ages rarely acknowledges that power is still won and abused in the same wayIt makes a mockery of the idea that we use “medieval” as a term of abuse to fling at others, when really it’s a term that correctly defines enduring and deeply shameful characteristics of our own… Read More Our tendency to persecute others is as alive today as in medieval times
Imagine then, for a moment, not the darkness of the cinema so much as the darkness of the king and queen’s pillared hall, where guests are gathered for feasting and for telling stories. Against the flickering fire, the bard strikes up with his harp and starts to sing, performing tales of adventure and loss, return… Read More ‘More postmodern than ancient’: why the Odyssey is everywhere, from Oz to Westeros
Seham Tantesh in Gaza and Julian Borger in Jerusalem A Palestinian driver bringing food aid from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) into Gaza has been killed by an Israeli soldier “in a field execution”, according to witnesses and the local truckers’ association, which said it may suspend operations in protest. Ahmad Esleem was shot in the head on… Read More IDF accused of ‘field execution’ of Palestinian driver bringing aid into Gaza
An interview with Magdi el Gizouli Adam Benjamin Sudan’s ongoing war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has killed thousands and displaced millions. The current crisis follows years of political upheaval across the country. In late 2018 and 2019, mass protests calling for democratic rule led to the collapse of the… Read More Marketing War (2023)
Tim Barker, Dylan Saba Martin Luther King once called the United States government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” That formulation may be controversial, but no one denies that the US is by far the world’s biggest arms dealer, with a 42 percent share of the global arms export market. Since the Cold War, Congress… Read More Selling American Bombs
A look at the world’s largest military industries Anna Stavrianakis In 1934, a US Senate Committee chaired by the Republican Gerald Nye began eighteen months of hearings on the domestic arms industry, investigating the enormous profits it had generated from World War I, amid speculation that the “merchants of death” might soon drag America into… Read More Arms Markets
Hussam Abu Safiya faces ‘tangible danger to his life’ following 18 months in prison without charge or trial Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem, Lorenzo Tondo and Sufian Taha One of Gaza’s most prominent doctors is almost unrecognisable because of severe injuries inflicted in Israeli detention, his lawyer has said, and faces “tangible danger to his life” after being held for… Read More Detained Gaza doctor almost unrecognisable after injuries in Israeli jail, lawyer says
The liberation of the American peoples cannot be achieved without the shedding of imperial weight, writes the Pulitzer prize-winning author in this somber essay marking the semiquincentennial VIET THANH NGUYEN The word I think of to describe the United States on its 250th anniversary is cruelty. There are other words, of course, that could describe… Read More ‘250 Years of Cruelty’ – Two essays on the ‘American Empire’ and How to Save the U.S.
Mapping the world’s largest military-industrial complexes, their relationships to one another, and their overlapping structures of corporate ownership suggests that their expansion is, in the final estimation, subtended by the violent functions of statecraft itself ANNA STAVRIANAKIS In 1934, a US Senate Committee chaired by the Republican Gerald Nye began eighteen months of hearings on… Read More Arms Markets across the World
