History

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – If you were away from news on Friday, you might like to know that in addition to hot wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Yemen (and maybe Somalia and Libya), the Trump administration talks as though it is on the brink of opening new fronts in […]

Central Intelligence Agency

Want Iranian Democracy? We had one & CIA overthrew it

contributors

By Joseph McQuade | (The Conversation) | – – The US and Iran have a complicated relationship. At the moment, it is tense, divisive and delicate. Just over 60 years ago, things were not that different. In 1953, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) organised a coup to oust Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Muhammad Mossadegh. […]

Civil Rights

What can today’s Activists learn from the Summer of Love and the New Left?

contributors

Ira Chernus | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – It’s the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love. What better place to celebrate than that fabled era’s epicenter, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, where the DeYoung Museum has mounted a dazzling exhibition, chock full of rock music, light shows, posters, and fashions from the mind-bending […]

Arms Sales

First, the Soviets Collapsed: Is it America’s Turn Now?

contributors

By William J. Astore | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Jump into your time machine and let me transport you back to another age. It’s May 2001 and the Atlantic Monthly has just arrived in the mail. I’m tantalized by the cover article. “Russia is finished,” the magazine announces. The subtitle minces no words: “The […]

History

Why Thomas Jefferson’s vision of American Islam matters today

contributors

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 […]