The Vatican has beatified a Polish family of nine – a married couple and their small children – who were executed by the Nazis during the second world war for sheltering Jews. During a ceremonious mass in the village of Markowa, in south-east Poland, the papal envoy Cardinal Marcello Semeraro read out the Latin formula of the… Read More Vatican beatifies Polish family executed by Nazis for sheltering Jews
I am reminded of a conversation years ago with Pakistan’s defence attaché in London, who later became the Director-General (Analysis) in the Inter-Services Intelligence. I got a call from Brigadier Javed Alam asking what I was doing then. I responded that I was working on my doctoral thesis and a chapter titled ‘threat perception in… Read More India calling itself Bharat fulfills Pakistan’s age-old wish
J.L. Austin: Philosopher and D-Day Intelligence Officer by M.W. Rowe Reviewed by Thomas Nagel Among philosophers of the 20th century, John Langshaw Austin is not a cultural celebrity like Heidegger, Russell, Sartre or Wittgenstein. But for a period after the Second World War, he was the leading figure of the school of ordinary language philosophy that dominated Oxford, achieved substantial… Read More Leader of the Martians
NB: This is an astonishing declaration, The most outstanding Rusian conservative of the twentieth century, an ex-Red Army officer, imprisoned in the Gulag for eight years for criticising Stalin, expelled from his homeland, and winner of the Nobel Prize, still invoking the democratic spirit of the soviets of 1917; and asking for civil dialogue amongst… Read More Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Letter to the Soviet Leaders (1974)
Chile is a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica – Henry A. Kissinger. By Melvin Goodman / CounterPunch Our 240 years of history have not produced a more controversial secretary of state than Henry A. Kissinger. There are enormous achievements associated with Kissinger, including the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in… Read More More Evidence Regarding Henry Kissinger’s Lies About Chile
By Juan Cole / Informed Comment Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – I heard Noam Chomsky speak in my youth about the press coverage of the Middle East in the United States, and as I remember it he at one point remarked that it was sometimes the regional newspapers, such as the San Francisco Chronicle that had the most… Read More Belgian Minister Says What Biden Won’t: Israel Is Wiping Entire Palestinian Villages Off the Map
The RSS… is aware that Hindu–Muslim couples are only acting out the oldest impulse of our species—the pairing off of two persons attracted to each other. This impulse is not easily curbed. It resurfaces in even the most difficult of circumstances. This means that its prevention requires the constant threat of violence, which can only… Read More Casting Them Out
Lionel Trilling crystallizes the cynical Cold War liberalism that sacrificed idealism for self-restraint.. Organized as much against the left as the right, these defenses not only rang hollow; they have failed to forestall the political crisis they promised to transcend. The result has been the reversal of Cold War liberal triumph into today’s mood of… Read More Liberalism in Mourning
Current decolonisation project drips with resentment. It conflates modernity merely with colonialism. To see the insidiousness of this project, just ask this question: What should be the terms on which citizens relate to each other? “Decolonise!” This imperative seems to be the ideological flavour of the moment. It is behind the calls to restructure education,… Read More Pratap Bhanu Mehta: The current talk of decolonisation is about an exclusionary political agenda
First posted October 11, 2012 Paper presented to the International Conference: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The Course Of His Life In The Context Of Greater Time 5-6 December 2008; Moscow NB: This is a brilliant and thought-provoking essay on the historic, literary and philosophical significance of the writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, one of the foremost witnesses of the history of… Read More Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Historian of Decline and Prophet of Revival. By Madhavan Palat
After the truth-shower 