Fox News has been exposed as a dishonest organization terrified of its own audience

By Oliver Darcy, CNN Business Fox News has been exposed like never before. A trove of newly-released text messages and emails have laid bare how the right-wing media giant operated with little regard for fact in the weeks and months following the 2020 presidential election. The correspondence reveals that the network’s senior-most executives and highest-profile hosts chose not… Read More Fox News has been exposed as a dishonest organization terrified of its own audience

The web is a Blade Runner nightmare, but there is a way to stem the tide of lies

Guardian revelations about the scale and reach of deliberate misinformation prove the need to reset our internet Peter Pomerantsev In 1996, John Perry Barlow, former lyricist for the Grateful Dead and guru of Silicon Valley’s hippy-tech idealists, wrote a stirring utopian manifesto about the future of the internet. Addressing the leaders of the world order gathered… Read More The web is a Blade Runner nightmare, but there is a way to stem the tide of lies

Nayantara Sahgal speaks to Ajoy Bose: ‘We have a nightmare which is worse than the Emergency’

On June 25, 1975, Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency in India that lasted for 21 months. The period saw widespread human rights violations, jailing of members of the Opposition and a clampdown on press freedom. Forty three years later, journalist Ajoy Bose, author of a newly relaunched book on the Emergency, interviews Nayantara Sahgal, who… Read More Nayantara Sahgal speaks to Ajoy Bose: ‘We have a nightmare which is worse than the Emergency’

EMERGENCY Archive / When the Supreme Court struck down Habeas Corpus

PUCL Bulletin, June 2001 – A.D.M. Jabalpur vs Shukla Supreme Court overrules Emergency era Habeas Corpus verdict April 28th, 1976 is a day never to be forgotten by any of us Indians who love the pledges of Justice and Liberty which we gave to ourselves in the Preamble of our Constitution. It was on this day… Read More EMERGENCY Archive / When the Supreme Court struck down Habeas Corpus

A masterclass in blame avoidance

Bharat Bhushan Narendra Modi’s blame avoidance has been made possible not only by his oratorical skills, but by televised proceedings of Parliament. Live-streaming allows soap-box oratory to supplant accountability Prime Minister Narendra Modi refused to address in Parliament the controversies and allegations surrounding businessman Gautam Adani’s meteoric rise and, now, his perceptible decline. By removing… Read More A masterclass in blame avoidance

Kingdom of God: Iran frees dissident Farhad Meysami after photos of his emaciated condition cause outrage online

NB: The Iranian theocracy is brutal, mindless and emblematic of the evil of authoritarian regimes the world over. DS An Iranian doctor and rights activist has been released from Tehran’s infamous Evin prison one week after photographs of his severely emaciated condition emerged on social media. Farhad Meysami was released from prison on Friday, according… Read More Kingdom of God: Iran frees dissident Farhad Meysami after photos of his emaciated condition cause outrage online

Narendra Modi is struggling to be both anti-Muslim strongman and global leader

The Indian prime minister’s attempts to suppress a critical BBC documentary show how sensitive he is to his international reputation. (NB: The problem is that the ‘parivar’ boasts about the same thing at home which its proponents wish to deny on the international stage. DS) Mukul Kesavan The clue to the Indian government’s thin-skinned response… Read More Narendra Modi is struggling to be both anti-Muslim strongman and global leader

‘We just want to live in a normal world’: China’s young protesters speak out, and disappear

‘Blank Paper movement’ decrying government policies rekindles dissent after Xi Jinping’s decade of iron-fisted crackdowns. Support the Chinese peoples struggle for democracy! A 25-year-old woman who had been interrogated by police after protesting in south China tells the Guardian that even though she is frightened by police, the protests have radicalised her as she has… Read More ‘We just want to live in a normal world’: China’s young protesters speak out, and disappear

On Post-Fascism: How citizenship is becoming an exclusive privilege by G. M. Tamás

First posted January 13, 2013 Cutting the civic and human community in two: this is fascism…. Citizenship is today the very exceptional privilege of the inhabitants of flourishing capitalist nation-states. The field had been chosen by post-fascism, and liberals are mistakenly trying to fight it on its own favorite terrain: ethnicity… We are faced with… Read More On Post-Fascism: How citizenship is becoming an exclusive privilege by G. M. Tamás

Schools and universities are ground zero for America’s culture war

… there is a more foundational reason why DeSantis and the far right are attacking education: it is the means by which our young people are made into citizens. Schools and universities are laboratories of aspiration, places where young people cultivate their own capacities, expose themselves to the experiences and worldviews of others, and learn… Read More Schools and universities are ground zero for America’s culture war