History

Denise A. Spellberg | (The Conversation) | – – An estimated 3.3 million American Muslims are celebrating the month of Ramadan. It was during this month that Prophet Mohammad first received revelations from God. The Thomas Jefferson memorial in Washington, DC. Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA The holiday has been celebrated at the White House with […]

Colonialism

Was/Is there an Islamic Enlightenment? (de Bellaigue)

contributors

William Eichler interviews Christopher de Bellaigue | Informed Comment | – – Eichler: 1. In the conclusion to The Islamic Enlightenment you describe modern jihadists as “miracle-grow Muslims” who have been “incubated in the hothouse of modernity.” You write it is hard to attach the label “Muslim” to them. What is the relationship between today’s […]

Far Right

Alabama Passes Bill to Protect Confederate Monuments even at cost of Economy

contributors

TeleSur | – – Some Southern cities are rethinking the appropriateness of keeping such emblems on public property. Not Alabama. Alabama lawmakers on Friday approved a bill that prohibits the removal of Confederate monuments and other long-standing historical markers. The bill, passed in both the House and Senate, prohibits “the relocation, removal, alteration, renaming, or […]

History

GOP Politician: ‘ISIS Has Won’ After Confederate Monument Removed

contributors

Cenk Uygur | (The Young Turks) | Video News Clip | – – “Hey Confederates: your side lost. Yankees kicked your traitor slaver asses. Deal with it. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down. “Corey Stewart, the former chairman of President Donald Trump’s Virginia campaign and a current candidate for Virginia governor, […]

Algeria

Dear Marine Le Pen: Only a Fascist would Praise Colonialism . . . Oh Wait

contributors

Jessica Northey | ( OpenDemocracy.net) | – – Marine Le Pen’s declaration that colonialism was a positive thing is not only a denial of France’s painful history, but an example of the fascism that we now face in Europe. When we see or hear evil we have a moral imperative to call it out. Otherwise […]

Arab World

Mideast Partition Plans won’t Bring Peace, just Imperial Social Engineering

contributors

By Laura Robson | (Informed Comment) | – – The idea that partition and population exchange might represent “solutions” to Middle Eastern conflict, long advocated by a wide variety of observers and commentators, is being put to the test. Diplomats and pundits alike have proposed the sectarian partition of both Syria and Iraq for years. […]

Donald Trump

Washington’s demonization of Foes jumps Shark with Sean Spicer on Hitler

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – White House spokesman Sean Spicer is as ill-suited for his job as his boss Donald Trump is ill-suited for his own. The most astonishing things routinely slip from the lips of both. But Spicer’s belligerent malapropisms soared to new heights of WTF on Tuesday with his […]

American Jews

What history reveals about surges in anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant sentiments

contributors

By Ingrid Anderson | (The Conversation) | – – This February, more than 100 gravestones were vandalized at the Chesed Shel Emeth Society Cemetery outside of St. Louis, Missouri and at the Jewish Mount Carmel Cemetery in Philadelphia. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called anti-Semitism in the U.S. a “very serious concern.” An ADL task […]

Archaeology

No, supremacists, the Vikings wouldn’t have put up with “Teuton” Donald Trump

contributors

By Keith Ruiter | (The Conversation) | – – It has been suggested that Donald Trump “may get his assertive rather than passive manner from his alleged Viking ancestors”. Or so says Russian genealogist Aleksey Nilogov, who has been finding some traction for his beliefs on nationalistic eastern European news sites such as the Estonian […]