By Nasim Ahmed | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – Reading the reflections of one of Israel’s most celebrated contemporary public intellectuals on the apparently never-ending occupation of Palestine, I was reminded of an old saying about the nature of truth. “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is […]
Archives for September 2021
The Land of the Free, Where So Many of the Brave Are Homeless: Resisting Evictions Amid a Pandemic
( Tomdispatch.com) – Over the past weeks, multiple crises have merged: a crisis of democracy with the most significant attack on voting rights since Reconstruction; a climate crisis with lives and livelihoods upended in the Gulf Coast and the Northeast by extreme weather events and in the West by a stunning fire season; and an […]
Human Activity is Threatening 1/3 of Tree Species with Extinction
By Adrian Newton | One in three of the world’s tree species are at risk of becoming extinct, according to a recent report by the Global Tree Assessment – the first attempt to estimate the conservation status of all of Earth’s trees. Well-known species, including magnolias, oaks and maples are among those at risk. More […]
China slams US Sanctions on Taliban, Eyes investments in Afghan Minerals
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Laura Zhou at the South China Morning Post reports that Zhao Lijian, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, on Wednesday called on the United States not to sanction the Taliban in Afghanistan and to cease sequestering $9.5 billion in Afghanistan government funds that Washington is withholding from the Taliban. Zhao […]
Forty-Two Years in Afghanistan: Can a New US Foreign Policy avoid Hyper-Masculinist Ego?
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment) – Every member of Congress attended the September 14, 2001 memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral for the nearly 3,000 victims of September 11 attacks in New York City, Washington DC and Pennsylvania. In that service Dean of the Cathedral Reverend Nathan Baxter invoked “Let us also pray […]
Does Israel want to end its forever wars in Gaza?
Daud Abdullah | – ( Middle East Monitor) – Israel is finally waking up to the stark reality that it can no longer continue with its forever wars in Gaza. This was the critical message from Foreign Minister Yair Lapid when he spoke at a conference at Reichman University in Herzliya last weekend: “The State […]
Critical race theory is an important tool in better understanding how religion operates in America
By Tiffany Puett | – ( The Conversation) – The debate over critical race theory has played out in TV studios, school board meetings and state legislatures across the U.S. It has also found its way into churches. The theory comprises a set of concepts that frame racism as structural, rather than simply expressed through […]
“We are on the way to a right-wing coup:” Milley secured Nuclear Codes, Allayed China fears of Trump Strike
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As a historian, I am fascinated by the practical appeals to history that appear throughout the story of Gen. Mark A. Milley’s struggles with Trump in the last months of the latter’s presidency. Milley believes that Jan. 6 was just an initial skirmish, sort of like the failed 1905 revolution […]
Afghanistan and Wars of Unintended Consequences
( Tomdispatch.com)- Disagreements over how to assess the American exodus from Afghanistan have kept the pundits busy these last weeks, even though there wasn’t much to say that hadn’t been said before. For some of them, however, that was irrelevant. Having overseen or promoted the failed Afghan War themselves, all the while brandishing various “metrics” […]