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I write in response to the recent critique by Terry Leahy of my article ‘Beyond green growth, degrowth, post-growth and growth agnosticism’ in JAPE (94, Summer 2024/2025).

While it is great to open this sort of debate, it is crucial, first and foremost, to clarify what is being argued. My article in JAPE should not be characterised as making an argument for ‘green growth’ – which is a position I reject as being poorly formulated, overly rigid and lacking in qualification and nuance. The key arguments I put forward in the JAPE article were actually as follows:  

participants in this debate need to be clearer, consistent and more precise in outlining their position and in the construction and use of concepts and terminology that they use to describe their position.
Economic growth is an aggregate measure that captures many diverse activities that range from environmentally helpful to harmful. The net environmental impact of economic is growth is inherently unstable and deeply dependent on a range of other variables. Given this, simplistic and fixed positions for (or against) economic growth are misconceived.

I keep reading about how if Europe increases military spending they’ll have to cut welfare spending.

Let’s look at a little history: back around 1960 West Germany spent 4% of GDP on their military. They were happy to do so. They also had a very generous welfare state. So did most of Western Europe and they were spending a lot on their militaries.

“But Ian,” you exclaim, “that’s not possible. If you have a warfare state, you can’t have a welfare state!”

Here’s the rule. Pick any two of the following three:

Pro-Palestine protesters at UCLA who were attacked by a mob allege that the school did little to stop nearly five hours of violence.

The post Victims of UCLA Mob Attack Sue to “Hold the Aggressors Accountable” appeared first on The Intercept.

Conor McGregor’s far-right pivot: from UFC star to Israel loyalist, Trump ally and anti-immigration crusader.

The post Fighting For Empire: Conor McGregor’s Far-Right Makeover appeared first on MintPress News.

Trump’s Yemen war is draining U.S. taxpayers—billions burned, no wins in sight.

The post Trump’s Attacks on Yemen Will Cost US Taxpayers Billions​ appeared first on MintPress News.

Unit 8200 wrote the programming and designed the algorithms that automated the genocide of Gaza and was also responsible for the pager attack in Lebanon. Now those who helped design the architecture of apartheid are being swallowed by the US tech-surveillance complex. This article was originally published by ¡Do Not Panic! On Mar. 18, Google bought Israeli cybersecurity company Wiz for $32 billion. The acquisition will mark the single largest transfer of former Israeli spies into an American company. This […]

The post Google imports ex-Israeli spies who automated Gaza genocide first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Google imports ex-Israeli spies who automated Gaza genocide appeared first on The Grayzone.

Yes, “shock and awe” is back in the second age of Donald Trump. His border czar, Tom Homan, used that very phrase to describe border policy from day one of the new administration and, whether the president has actually said it or not, it’s now regularly in headlines, op-eds, and so much else. If you remember, it was the phrase used, in all its glory, to describe America’s massive bombing and invasion of Iraq in 2003. (You remember! The country that supposedly threatened us with nuclear weapons but, in fact, didn’t have any!) We Americans were, of course, going to shock and awe them. But from that moment on (if not from the moment, in the wake of the 9/11... Read more

Source: Shock and Awe appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

It’s not that I failed to consider that most of us weren’t alive when Billy Joel released it as the fourth track off The Nylon Curtain in 1982. Nor did I neglect to perceive that comparing a group of guileless first graders who have gotten their asses absolutely handed to them in co-ed basketball for ten Saturdays in a row to a platoon of imaginary marines who survived (or did they?) the horrors of the Vietnam War might be considered, by some, to be tasteless. Nor was it lost on me that nothing about any of the other B-Ball Moms screams “Billy Joel aficionado.”

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- by Alexandra Plakias

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Source - Patreon

Source - Patreon