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The way mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and his private army have been waging a significant part of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has been well covered in the American media, not least of all because his firm, the Wagner Group, draws most of its men from Russia’s prison system. Wagner offers “freedom” from Putin’s labor camps only to send those released convicts to the front lines of the conflict, often on brutal suicide missions. At least the Russian president and his state-run media make no secret of his regime’s alliance with Wagner. The American government, on the other hand, seldom acknowledges its own version of the privatization of war — the tens of thousands of private security contractors it’s used... Read more

Source: The Army We Don’t See appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

It is almost as though Queen Elizabeth’s death has brought down the old scaffolding, writes Jonathan Lis

Culture wars are real ones We should have taken her more seriously. It was the summer of 2018 when a Twitter user named Amanda Blount inadvertantly launched a viral meme mocking Alex Jones’ claim that Democrats were planning to launch a second civil war over the July 4th holiday to unseat President Trump. Mimicking the Ken Burns miniseries, lefties had a field day with #secondcivilwarletters. Since then, “every accusation is a confession” has gained traction on the left. What conservatives accuse the left of doing is often what the extremist right is actually doing. A second civil war by “patriots” could look like the scattered, low-grade terrorism actually playing out across the country every day. Jeff Sharlet’s “January 6 Was Only the Beginning” appeared in the July/August 2022 issue of Vanity Fair. But hearing his audiobook reading in “The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War” delivers more punch. He lived it. He was there. At a Sacramento rally for MAGA martyr Ashli Babbitt.

Have you, yourself, described it as being bespoke?

If yes, it is absolutely bespoke.

If not, it might still be bespoke. Don’t get discouraged.

Was this item/experience/thing made specifically for you?

If so, congrats. It’s by definition bespoke.

If not, could you potentially lie to people and say it was made specifically for you? If you do this effectively and they believe you, then the item is (essentially) bespoke. As they say, bespoke is in the eye of the bespeaker.

Did you buy it off an Instagram advertisement?

It’s definitely bespoke. All items mass-produced and sold on Instagram legally have to be bespoke.

If not, did you buy it from Joanna Gaines’s Hearth & Hand Target collection? If yes, it’s bespoke too. If not, what’s your beef with Chip and Joanna? Do happy and successful couples make you feel insecure? Doesn’t sound like a very bespoke opinion to me.

Were you wearing a funny hat when you bought the bespoke item?

On the anniversary of VE Day, Mark Temnycky argues that Europe is more united than it has been since World War Two, but still needs to secure two more nations against Russian aggression

In the wake of Putin's invasion of Ukraine and brutal suppression of its culture, Matt Smith says Eurovision can provide another story of international solidarity and appreciation

Otto English joined the crowds to see if he would feel any emotion at the crowning of a new king. He did. Rage.

The prospect of luxury gifts and outside cash is designed to halt the historical trend of GOP appointees becoming more liberal.

Eddie Lopez was born in February 1942, the little brother to sisters Alice, Mary, and Bessie. His parents, Esteban (Stephen) and Bessie had met on their way to India while working with a travelling opera company, Bessie as a singer and Stephen as a manager. By the time Eddie was born they were settled in […]

We mark the fifth anniversary of Tribune’s relaunch in 2023, a landmark we will celebrate at the annual rally this September. It has been a hard road   — when we inherited the magazine it had no subscriber list, no money, and no functioning website. Today, it is the largest socialist publication in Britain since the […]

There was a time — in the 1970s and into the early 1980s — when there were as many as fifty industrial correspondents in the British media. Whether it was in print or on broadcast, you would struggle to tune in to the news without hearing about workers’ issues. Many of the country’s most prominent […]

In the 1970s, there were more than fifty industrial correspondents reporting the day-to-day news of the trade union movement. The Financial Times alone employed six on its labour desk. The period marked the high-water mark of British trade unionism, with 13 million members. The decline of trade union membership in the wake of Thatcherism and […]

On this week’s Movies vs. Capitalism, Rivka and Frank discuss 2005’s subversive action-thriller V for Vendetta.

Since their industrial dispute kicked off last year, posties have been on the picket line day after day. But the loss of wages amidst a cost-of-living crisis hasn’t been their only obstacle. Determined to break their union — the Communication Workers Union (CWU) — Royal Mail management has unleashed a months-long crackdown on their workforce. From sacking […]

A new account sheds light on the Ford administration's war against Sen. Frank Church and his landmark effort to rein in a lawless intelligence community.

The post How the Murder of a CIA Officer Was Used to Silence the Agency’s Greatest Critic appeared first on The Intercept.

Is it time to abandon the century-old idea that cancer is best met with a ‘fight’ from patients and their doctors alike?

- by Elaine Schattner

Read at Aeon

The good news is there are many effective anti-prejudice interventions, but the most promising remains relatively unknown

- by Wing Hsieh

Read at Psyche

In 1970, the Conservative government led by Edward Heath launched the most significant attack on trade unions in a generation. The preceding decade had been one of prosperity for British workers, with rising living standards, growing wages, and historically low unemployment. It was also a period of industrial calm, with relatively few strikes. But towards […]

South Africa has gone to the polls in an election in which the vast majority of the nation’s citizens were not able to vote, to return a Government dedicated openly and unashamedly to the principle of racial discrimination. This was how Tribune reported on South Africa’s 1948 election, which saw Daniel Malan’s National Party elected […]

Mass protests engulfed Israel after the new government announced its plans to reform the country’s independent judiciary. Every week since January hundreds of thousands of Israelis have marched through the streets of major cities or participated in acts of civil disobedience — blocking highways, engaging in mass ongoing general strikes — to show their opposition to the […]

Since the 2019 general election, there have been three Conservative Party leaders and prime ministers. While each professed to represent a clean break from their predecessors — whether on the economy, defence, or crime — there has been one alarming consistency in the respective policy prescriptions: the assault on civil liberties. The proposed ‘Anti-Boycott Bill’ embodies precisely […]

In the summer of 2020, the world was rocked by the execution of George Floyd by a police officer in the United States. The outpouring of collective grief and rage at the killing of yet another black man at the hands of the state reignited the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which had begun to […]

Every time there’s a recession, we’re told there might be an upside. An often-cited example is housing, one of the single largest sources of expenditure for any household. It tends to become less expensive — or at least stops getting more expensive — during economic downswings. This has more to do with the way housing is financed […]

Tribune readers might know Kenan Malik best from his weekly Observer column discussing everything from migration to religion and technology. But his background lies far from the pages of the liberal media. Born in India and brought up in Manchester, Malik was intensely involved in the political campaigns of the 1980s. Whether it was fighting […]