Iran has shifted the entire calculus and achieved something long thought impossible. For years it was considered unthinkable that Iran would ever strike Israel directly, even after Iran was hit first. Then Iran began responding to Israeli attacks, first with ‘demonstrative’ strikes, … Read More »
Surge capacity means maintaining slack – plant standing idle – to enable a near instant stepping up of arms production when needed. Such wastefulness from a profit-centric standpoint requires levels of state oversight which are anathema to the neoliberal mind. … Read More »
Time and hindsight can bring the kind of clarity which, provided we take care to monitor and continually adjust our evolving understanding in light of new evidence duly reflected on, goes beyond the complacently self-serving. Looking back on over a … Read More »
Time passes slowly when the days are uneventful and for the most part lived in the horizontal. It seems far longer than twenty days since I wrote my last substantive post, a photo-record of the Palestine March in Central London … Read More »
At these events I seldom ask permission to take a picture, but for this lady made an exception. Given din level and fleeting window of opportunity – the one unconducive to verbal exchange, the other making speed of the essence … Read More »
And the people bowed and prayed, to the neon Gods they’d made. Paul Simon, The Sound of Silence A commodity appears a trivial thing easily understood but its analysis shows that it is in reality a queer thing, abounding in … Read More »
Here’s another blistering sermon from the pen of the Presbyterian minister and Pulitzer prize winner, Chris Hedges. In my previous post, Washington cuckoos its allies, I wrote: In the case of the aggression on Iran, my efforts are focused less … Read More »
Cuckooing is when criminals take over someone’s home to use for dealing drugs, storing weapons, sex work or other illegal activities. They target vulnerable people: someone with a drug or alcohol problem, money troubles, a mental health issue or disability, … Read More »
Lebanon’s rivers are more than lifelines. They lie at the heart of a long-standing struggle shaped by external ambition. From the Litani to the Wazzani, Israeli efforts to dominate regional water show that control over Lebanon’s water has been pursued … Read More »
I guess I like inserting the word ‘stupid’ in post titles. Here’s my reply to a comment by Anne on that of April 14, Blockade: US empire is evil, not stupid! For brevity I’ve omitted her comment, while retaining in block … Read More »