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ZEITmagazin: Professor Walzer, is Israel waging a just war against Hamas? Michael Walzer: Yes. Of central importance, however, is the distinction between ius ad bellum, the just reason for going to war, and ius in bello, the just conduct in a war. The massacre of October 7 is a just cause for going to war; Israel obviously has […]
by Brian Czech
Perhaps you’ve heard: Autocracy is on the march. Not just in the obvious places like Russia, China, and North Korea. Democracy has been declining throughout the world for decades, sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly, but invariably replaced by autocratic tendencies, politicians, and states.
What’s going on in places as far-flung as Hungary, Myanmar, and Nicaragua? Why, after the lessons of world wars, the Cold War,
The post Democracy Trumped at the Limits to Growth appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.
MAGA hates you. They really hate you. Maybe the problem with getting people to understand the threat posed by Donald Trump, by MAGA, and by Project 2025 is that it has no face. In the wake of the Supreme Court making the president a de facto king, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts just gave it one. Yes, the “radical left” is the enemy MAGA will defeat “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” And if we resist? The Biden-Harris campaign put a short clip on social media. Brian Beutler, responds, “Incredible to me that this stuff only surfaces because the Biden campaign and media watchdog types tweet it out. To the extent it figures into campaign coverage at all (even pre-debate) it’s just ho-hum, in passing, nbd, etc.” Actress Taraji P. Henson made a plea for paying attention during the BET Awards on Sunday. “The Project 2025 plan is not a game. Look it up!” No, it’s not a game, confirms Nicole Wallace.
The Reform Party is hovering around 18% of the vote, yet Farage's and his party's Facebook posts generated six times more reactions and shares than either Labour or the Conservatives and their leaders
Is there a chance that - despite a Labour landslide on Thursday, Keir Starmer’s own seat is in trouble?
Absent from hustings, media interviews, and social media, why are Nigel Farage's Reform champions quite so elusive?
Voters are about to hack First Past the Post on an epic scale
When COVID struck Rebecca Saltzman’s family, the virus unmasked a life-changing discovery: her husband and two of their kids had genetic heart disease. The kind where people drop dead. As their healthy wife and mother, Saltzman had a new role too—guiding her family through what Susan Sontag called the Kingdom of the Sick. In this column, she explores the anthropological strangeness of this new place, the mysteries of the body, and how facing death distills life into its purest form: funny, terrifying, and sublime.
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Read past installments of this column.
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Biden must go? And then what? Will Bunch observes: Over the course of a remarkable weekend, I saw the best minds of my boomer generation destroyed by madness — newspaper columnists and other big shots convinced they were cosplayers in a real-world episode of The West Wing, saving America by giving chief of staff Leo McGarry the best words to convince an ailing President Bartlet that it’s time to step down. Democrats, many of them, are panicked over President Joe Biden’s debate performance on Thursday. This is one time Democrats really do seem in disarray. The press is having a field day, of course. But reporters are wary enough of being blamed for holding the drum while the “Biden must go” team beats it that Brian Stelter tells CNN it is no longer us (the press) but Democratic officials turning against Biden. In the grocery store, online, on listservs, and in calls, “Biden can’t win” blares self-fulfilling prophecy in spite of the fact that, at least in the polls, there is no Biden free fall. One in three Democrats believes Biden should leave the presidential race, a Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded Tuesday finds.
‘An era can be said to end,’ wrote playwright Arthur Miller, ‘when its basic illusions are exhausted.’ Such exhaustion is palpable in Britain today. Everybody knows that the Thatcherite economic model of the past forty years is failing, with infrastructure crumbling, wages stagnating and public services at breaking point. And yet, a largely empty general […]
If someone’s go-to Fourth of July song is Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” they’re conservative.
If their go-to Fourth of July song is “American Tune” by Paul Simon, they’re liberal.
If it’s “This is America” by Childish Gambino, they’re liberal, and they’re not celebrating.
If a man is wearing a graphic tee with George Washington riding a bald eagle while wielding an AK-47, he’s conservative, but if the shirt features Ulysses S. Grant punching a bear in the face, he’s liberal.
If a woman is wearing oversized red, white, or blue sunglasses, she’s conservative. If the sunglasses are undersized, she’s liberal.
If a man is wearing a Pepsi-bezel Rolex GMT (the red and blue one with the obnoxiously big bubble on the date), he’s conservative. However, if a woman wears the same watch, she’s liberal. It’s rare but not unheard of for them to be married to each other.
If the party features a tie-dye station, the crowd is 89 percent liberal.
A roundup of The Lever’s best recent longreads.
Explained: How malicious bots and other automated programmes are used to spread misinformation - and how widespread they are
This election Compass is only backing candidates who recognise the "farce" of FPTP and will push to remove it in the next parliament
"The way David Meller speaks about his own family members when they are not around shows his true colours"
- by Aeon Video
- by Ruth Williams
Author Nathan Thrall’s recent book tells the story of one Palestinian family living under Israel occupation.
The post Understanding Israel’s “System of Domination” appeared first on The Intercept.
Inflation expectations were highest among people in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee in the years following the end of the COVID-19 recession.
It’s Wednesday and today I don’t comment on the US Supreme Court decision to embed criminal behaviour in the presidency (how much of a joke will the US become) or the Presidential debate, which has focused on the performance of Biden while, seemingly ignoring the serial lies told by the other contender. If these two…
Oligarchy is the default state of politics, and it is surging back. How do we stop it? By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 27th June 2024 We are about to return to normal politics. After 14 years of Tory corruption and misrule, a Labour government will put this country back on track. Justice and […]
You know what they say: “They always come in threes.” It’s been a rough couple of weeks for film buffs who grew up in the “New Hollywood” era. First, Donald Sutherland. Then Martin Mull. And now, as I’m just learning this evening: The gift of his words, indeed. Although, it’s possible that his true gift was gleaning exactly what was better left unsaid. As he once observed: “Good dialogue illuminates what people are not saying.” Quality, not quantity. A quick refresh on his credits reveals an impressive number of films of note on which he was “uncredited” for his contributions (Drive, He Said, Cisco Pike, The Godfather, The Parallax View, The Missouri Breaks, Marathon Man, et. al.) much less the classics that he is most well-known for. It’s difficult for me to come up with adequate words to honor such a wordsmith, so I think I’ll follow his sage advice by not getting too flowery. Here are my top recommendations: The Last Detail – Hal Ashby’s 1973 comedy-drama set the bar pretty high for all “buddy films” to follow (and to this day, few can touch it).