Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Maybe Mark Esper isn’t having fun anymore as Secretary of Defense. On Wednesday he appeared to be trying to commit political suicide by president, as he openly rejected the idea of invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act to send US troops into states over the objection of their governors, broached by […]
Don’t Hesitate to Raise a wine Glass High: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
For the earliest collection of verse attributed to Omar Khayyam see my just-published The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation from the Persian (NB: the poem above isn’t in this collection– there are lots of such anthologies, and Whinfield favored the late Indian manuscripts.) Here is what novelist Michael Chabon said about my new […]
How American cities were Reduced to Esper’s “Battlespace”: From Fallujah to Minneapolis
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Bush administration’s war of aggression on and military occupation of Iraq that began in 2003 shifted the United States to a militaristic society. Some 2.7 million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, an astonishing number. The Bush administration began the practice of sending to civilian police departments military […]
The Second Time as Farce: Donald Trump and James Madison and the Defense of the White House
In 1848 a series of popular uprisings broke out in Europe, including in France. They largely failed, and authoritarian, right wing governments reasserted themselves until 1870. In 1851, France had the misfortune to fall victim to a coup by the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, who styled himself Napoleon III. Karl Marx had […]
Gulf Security in the Age of Covid-19: Webinar, Qatar University
Gulf Studies Center, Qatar University Panel on Gulf Security in the Age of Covid-19
Jerusalem Demonstrations against Police Brutality after Autistic Palestinian Youth Shot to Death
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Nir Hasson at Haaretz reports that Israeli police on Sunday evening forcibly dispersed dozens of Palestinian demonstrators who had gathered at Damascus Gate to protest the killing on Saturday of Iyad Hallak, an autistic Palestinian young man* by two Israeli border police. On Saturday evening, 100 Palestinian-Israelis in Jaffa and […]
Roots of Anger: Top 3 Reasons African-Americans have Lost Most in the Coronavirus Depression
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Even before the nation-wide demonstrations that have racked the nation and led to arrests in 17 cities, over the wrongful death at the hands of a Minneapolis policeman of George Floyd, the situation of African-Americans in this country was cratering because of the pandemic and its associated economic Depression. Some […]
Trump’s ‘When the looting starts, the shooting starts’ is Classic Fascism, Classic Racism
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – “Between 18 and 20 December 1922 Turin Fascism unleashed a 3 day terror campaign on a recalcitrant anti-Fascist labour movement.” So informs us Antonio Sonnessa.* Turin (Torino) was a site of resistance to Fascism. It had a powerful labor union, dissident newspapers, a Communist Party (Antonio Gramsci was there and […]
Israel’s Netanyahu says the Quiet Part Out Loud: Palestinians to be “subjects,” not Citizens in Apartheid Annexation
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In an interview with corrupt casino mogul Sheldon Adelson’s free newspaper, Israel ha-Yom, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the quiet parts out loud. Although he did not use the word, he described an Apartheid regime in the Israeli-controlled Palestinian West Bank. He openly referred to the stateless Palestinians as […]
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