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The British cannot help themselves.  They are a meddling island people who conquered huge swathes of the earth in a fictional fit of absentmindedness and remain haughty for having done so.  They have fought more countries they can name, engaged in more wars they care to remember.  They have overthrown elected rulers and sabotaged incipient democracies.  In the twilight of empire, Britain sought, with heavy hearted reluctance, to become wise Greek advisors to their clumsy Roman replacement: the US Imperium.

US politics, to that end, remain a matter of enormous importance to the UK.  Interfering in US elections is a habit …

There exists a significant amount of literature and debate regarding modernity, urbanisation and social change in India. Critical inquiries persist, not least on the impact of change on the daily lives of individuals and the ways in which they navigate their identities amid the tensions between modernity and tradition in an increasingly dynamic urban environment.

At the heart of this urban landscape are the working poor, who play a crucial role in India’s economy. Engaged in diverse occupations, such as construction, goods transport, waste recycling, domestic service and street vending, their contributions are vital for the functioning of the economy.   

Informal workers …

In April, the U.S. House passed H.R. 6408: “An Act To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to terminate the tax-exempt status of terrorist supporting organizations.” It was introduced in the Senate as S. 1436.

It sounds benign, but it reaches well beyond any narrowly defined or momentarily intended targets. If enacted into law, it can be used against any non-profit which engages in any issue not favored by whatever Administration is in power in the future.

The Act details procedures for the Secretary of the Treasury to designate organizations as having provided material support to groups deemed to …

I recently signed a letter drafted by Amnesty UK to MPs which included this message:

“The human rights violations taking place in Gaza have long been at catastrophic levels. Despite knowing this, the UK still hasn’t suspended all transfers of arms to Israel. Stopping some arms isn’t enough, there should be no loopholes and no UK arms to Israel

“The International Court of Justice has warned of a plausible risk of genocide against Palestinians by the Israeli authorities. Continuing to allow some arms transfers is not in line with international legal standards and demonstrates a dire need for accountability in arms transfers.”

Our …

No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.

— Edward R. Murrow, broadcast journalist

America is in the midst of an epidemic of historic proportions.

The contagion being spread like wildfire is turning communities into battlegrounds and setting Americans one against the other.

Normally mild-mannered individuals caught up in the throes of this disease have been transformed into belligerent zealots, while others inclined to pacifism have taken to stockpiling weapons and practicing defensive drills.

This plague on our nation—one that has been spreading like wildfire—is a potent mix of fear …

If you believe, as I do, that the war of ideas is a critical front in political struggle, then clarity and logic become a necessity in that war. Indeed, the war of ideas can often become a war of words or phrases. When we allow or accept phrases like “the axis of evil” or words like “deplorables” to uncritically enter popular discourse, we have lost a skirmish in the ideological struggle.

This project is not the same as the language-policing so popular with liberals. It is not an excuse for shaming, embarrassing, or demeaning people because they are ignorant or dismissive …

The real happily ever after story.

Dan Cohen, an American Jew whose family in Lithuania had been wiped out by Hitler’s forces, is one of the great investigative journalists on Israel-Palestinian affairs, and he headlined on October 21, “US authorizes CIA mercenaries to run biometric concentration camps in Gaza Strip.” He opened:

The Biden administration has approved the deployment of 1,000 CIA-trained private mercenaries as part of a joint U.S.-Israeli plan to turn Gaza’s apocalyptic rubblescape into a high-tech dystopia.

Starting with Al-Atatra, a village in the northwestern Gaza Strip, the plan calls to build what the Israeli daily Ynet …

(Full article …)

The US presidential election is only a dozen days away and the Biden-Harris complicity in the mass murder of Gazans by Jewish Israelis should be the key issue for decent Americans. However, the expert UK estimate of 335,500 Gaza dead (mostly children) is ignored by legacy media, Trump and Harris. Only Dr Jill Stein (Greens), Dr Cornel West (independent) and Chase Oliver (Libertarian) would stop the Kid-Killing Kamala (KKK) Harris-complicit Gaza Genocide.
 A widely-reported mainstream estimate is of about 40,000 Gazans killed since 7 October 2023 (1,139 Israelis killed) in the Jewish Israeli-imposed Gaza Genocide or 50,000 including 10,000 …

I was disappointed to find two of my old comrades (avowed Marxists) distributing a video appeal to vote for Harris-Walz to save “American representative democracy” from the threat of Trump “fascism”.  Whatever one believes about a possible 2nd Trump presidency, there are enormous defects in said video appeal (which largely repeats the same narrative as do other “Marxist” backers of the Harris-Walz campaign).

Video content. One of said old comrades asserts that disseminating said video will enable people “to be informed”.  In fact, it is a disinformation propaganda piece repeating the hypocritical Harris-Walz campaign narrative.  It …

More than 90% of Canadians are “anti-vaxxers” now.

As the U.S. presidential election goes into its final sprint, efforts to portray one candidate or the other in a good or bad light are increasingly evident. In this vein, we see Donald Trump called a fascist, including by Kamala Harris and John Kelly, former Trump chief of staff. Meanwhile, Harris is doing her utmost to disassociate herself from the Biden presidency. This is so even though what she stands for is essentially the same as what both Biden and Trump stand for. Namely, to strengthen the police powers at the disposal of the president to provide U.S. control of …

Paulo Paulino “Lobo” Guajajara, Guardian of the Amazon, was killed in an ambush by loggers in his people’s territory, Arariboia. © Sarah Shenker/Survival International

Five years after the killing of Paulo Paulino Guajajara, an Indigenous Amazon Guardian who was gunned down by illegal loggers, his family still waits for justice.

Paulo’s death was widely covered by the world’s press, but despite the global outcry, the killers have never been brought to trial. …

Every day when breakfast is served, Americans come face to face with the impact of immigrant workers without whom breakfast items would be too expensive for everyday consumption and/or if short on time, the nearest drive-through fast-food establishment, cars lined up for blocks, would charge an arm and a leg for a simple egg, cheese, and sausage sandwich. Without immigrant workers, costs will skyrocket beyond the reach of many Americans. And thankfully, undocumented immigrants are safer for US citizens than their own neighbors.

“A NIJ-funded study examining data from the Texas Department of Public Safety estimated the rate at which undocumented …

It’s been a long time but worth remembering, if you can, that when the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, the whole world watched in horror.  The events of that day were repeated on television over and over and over again, to the point where they became afterimages lodged in people’s minds.

As a result, although the buildings were not brought down by the impact of planes (no plane hit Building 7) but by explosives planted in the buildings (see this and this, among extensive evidence), most people thought otherwise, …