Bill McKibben writes at Tomdispatch.com The history we grow up with shapes our sense of reality — it’s hard to shake. If you were young during the fight against Nazism, war seems a different, more virtuous animal than if you came of age during Vietnam. I was born in 1960, and so the first great […]
Has Military Suppression of Political Islam ever Worked?
The Egyptian military’s obvious determination to crush the Muslim Brotherhood involves serious human rights violations, apparent in the appalling scenes of the siege of members in a mosque on Saturday. A separate question, which any political pragmatist would ask, is, can it work? If we look at long term attempts to limit political expressions of […]
New Hot Zones now cover 5% of Earth; Only Fix is Halting CO2 (Lazare)
Sarah Lazare writes at Commondreams.org A new study dishes out some very bad news about the global warming crisis. It is too late to stop a “several folds” increase of deadly heat waves caused by greenhouse gases—and the floods, fires, and storms they bring. The report comes as a record heat wave hits North Asia, […]
It’s not about Democracy: Top Ten Reasons Washington is Reluctant to cut off Egypt Aid
another 80 people died in violence in Egypt on Friday, as Muslim Brotherhood crowds protested the military crackdown on their sit-ins that cost hundreds of lives this week. Some of the violence resulted fro police heavy-handedness, some from an armed Brotherhood attack on a police station. The continued unrest upped the pressure on the Obama […]
Egypt’s Waco
Within Egypt, and in many other Arab countries, the shocking killings of Black Wednesday have elicited horror in many quarters, but have actually been supported in many others. I am in the horrified camp, and ask myself how in the world people can be indifferent to or even justified what the Egyptian military did. It […]
Iran, Israel, and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Opposition to Zionism (Goldman)
Shalom Goldman writes at Islamicommentary: In the past few weeks the war of words between Jerusalem and Tehran has intensified. In what now seems a cyclical phenomenon, the politicos in both capitals hurl invectives and warnings at each other, and then retreat back into relative silence. The actual shadow war between the countries continues in […]
Cairo Burning (Aerial Video)
Aerial video of Cairo in the wake of the military atrocity against the Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins shows Cairo aflame. ITN compares it to the 1973 war, but it reminds me of 1952, when angry crowds attacked British-linked establishments in events that helped provoke the Young Officers’ coup.
Egypt’s Transition Has Failed: New Age of Military Dictatorship in Wake of Massacre
The horrible bloodshed in Egypt on Wednesday marked a turning point in the country’s modern history, locking it in to years of authoritarian paternalism and possibly violent faction fighting. The country is ruled by an intolerant junta with no respect for human life. Neither the Brotherhood nor the military made the kind of bargain and […]
Yep, We’re Screwed: Top Ten Recent Climate Change Findings that should Scare You
1. A warmer planet will spur aggression and violence, according to UC Berkeley scientists. 2. Climate change is causing animals to migrate into new areas, spreading diseases across species: “Earth’s changing climate and the global spread of infectious diseases are threatening human health, agriculture and wildlife,” say the National Science Foundation’s Sam Scheinter of a […]
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