Tag: ideology

How the Vietnam and Gaza Wars Shattered Young Illusions About US Leaders

For vast numbers of Americans, disproportionately young, the monstrous warfare overseen by Presidents Johnson and Nixon caused the scales to fall from their eyes about the character of U.S. leadership. And like President Donald Trump now, President Joe Biden showed that nice-sounding rhetoric could serve as a tidy cover story for choosing to enable nonstop horrors without… Read More How the Vietnam and Gaza Wars Shattered Young Illusions About US Leaders

Dilip

Cynical Theories

In the end, traditional liberal values are what Lindsay and Pluckrose are plumping for…. They conclude with a set of proposals for rethinking concepts such as ‘justice’ and ‘equity’, along lines allegedly more harmonious with reason, proof, logic, evidence, individuality, and choice, and less encumbered by group-think and by obscurantist, inflammatory collectivist rhetoric. Less propaganda,… Read More Cynical Theories

Dilip

Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

A wise and wonderfully enjoyable book on the enduring power of stupidity. “Paul made possible the transformation of the Gospels’ beautiful moral ideal into an anti-intellectual ideology that was enshrined permanently in the Christian scriptures and has since passed into our secular societies. That ideology has attracted a certain sort of mind ever since –… Read More Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know

Dilip

Majoritarian buffet

The fact that the Supreme Court is willing to stay crucial parts of the Waqf (Amendment) Act suggests that the judicial deference that Modi government commanded as its due is not readily available Mukul Kesavan The Waqf (Amendment) Act 2025 is an exercise in premeditated bad faith. Its main provisions are designed to denotify historical… Read More Majoritarian buffet

Dilip

Trump Faces Palestine

Aviva Chomsky In the colonial view of the world — and, in its own strange fashion, Donald Trump’s view couldn’t be more colonial — White European colonizers were embattled beacons of civilization, rationality, and progress, confronting dangerous barbaric hordes beyond (and even, sometimes, within) their own frontiers. Colonial violence then was a necessary form of… Read More Trump Faces Palestine

Dilip

Zionism & Americanism are the front lines of Western civilisation and freedom in our world today: Pete Hegseth US Secretary of Defense

NB: The source of the above wisdom by America’s new Secretary of Defense is this fact-sheet. There are many others sources. Here are the latest figures of genocidal mayhem in Palestine accomplished by the vanguard of civilisation – viz, the USA and its proxy, Israel. Both main American political parties were and continue to be,… Read More Zionism & Americanism are the front lines of Western civilisation and freedom in our world today: Pete Hegseth US Secretary of Defense

Dilip

Trump’s Christian Fascists and the War on Palestine

Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argues that “Zionism and Americanism are the front-lines of Western civilization and freedom in our world today” — pedals the usual absurdity that the Hebrew Bible, written 4,000 years ago, can be used to draw contemporary national borders. Chris Hedges Christian Nationalists who form the bedrock of support for Donald Trump… Read More Trump’s Christian Fascists and the War on Palestine

Dilip