The opening weeks of the second Trump administration have produced daily headlines that read — no, this is not hyperbole! — like science fiction. The spectacle of a South African tech billionaire and his cronies staging a twenty-first-century cybercoup with the acquiescence of an aging lunatic of a president beggars belief. Elon Musk has given… Read More Juan Cole: Cyberpunk Nation
The Ministry of Truth, Part 1: How the Prime Minister’s Office has ordered a systemic operation to discredit and ‘fix’ global rankings which show the government in bad light. And, to home-cook some charitable replacements. Shreegireesh Jalihal New Delhi: In Hyderabad’s Taj Deccan last year, Smriti Irani, then India’s Women and Child Development Minister, took… Read More Inside Modi Govt’s War Room to Whitewash Global Indices
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ A Massive Database of Evidence, Compiled by a Historian, Documents Israel’s War Crimes in Gaza My remarks at the Oxford Union debate President of Refugees International Condemns Biden Admin for Role in Gaza Israel’s war in Gaza amounts to genocide, Amnesty International report finds / Former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing Rashid Khalidi: ‘Israel… Read More ‘In America we do not kill people in cold blood’ etc. But elsewhere…
A rare statement issued last week by dozens of Chinese people living in Japan condemned the assault and called for reflections on the “underlying causes.” “The extreme nationalist hate education against Japan has been prevalent in China for a long time. It has obscured some Chinese people’s understanding of Japan, and even indulged ignorance and evil,” the statement… Read More ‘Education of hatred’: Killing of Japanese boy sparks soul searching in China over rising nationalism
Carole Cadwalladr It was a breaking news alert to lift the spirits and make the heart sing. A tech billionaire arrested as he stepped off his private jet and detained by the French authorities. Happy days! Because while the UK police have been charging individuals who incited violence online during this summer’s riots, the man who helped to fuel… Read More Elon Musk and his tech bros-in-arms are winning the global battle for the truth
DOCUMENTS: BOOKS: IMAGE & SOUND: Editor’s Picks: o o Books of Note: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Seeking ideological uniformity on the issue, western officials and their media accomplices have long recognised the centrality of language to their political indoctrination project Joseph Massad n the official West and its mainstream regime media, there exists a specialised dictionary and thesaurus to translate to the western public all matters Israeli and Palestinian. Officials and journalists… Read More Policing language: Why the West created a new dictionary for Israel and Palestine
According to the Indian Express, the university also initiated a disciplinary inquiry against the student’s supervisor, who subsequently resigned. New Delhi: The citation of American linguist Noam Chomsky’s criticism of the Narendra Modi government in a doctoral research proposal has resulted in a show-cause notice for the PhD scholar and a disciplinary inquiry against his supervisor… Read More South Asian University Issues Notice to PhD Student Who Cited Criticism of Modi: Report
First posted April 25, 2012 NB: Over the past four months, the Deoband Ulema has contributed to the climate of intolerance and religious bigotry in India. First by opposing Rushdie’s presence at the Jaipur Literature Festival, and now by sabotaging a perfectly legitimate subject for research. In the first instance they succeeded by riding on the… Read More Academic research on Rushdie’s literary work sabotaged by Deoband Ulema / Resist the Climate of Intimidation in Academics
Heinrich Heine, arguably one of the most famous of German authors, had prophetically announced that wherever they burn books, they will one day burn humans. Pramod K. Nayar German cultural production, as is well known, in the decades leading to Nazidom set about creating a ‘national’ culture by destroying Jewish, communist, humanist and other artwork,… Read More Burning Books and The Nazification of Literature
After the truth-shower 