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Created
Fri, 06/10/2023 - 01:30
Did Lincoln lose his soul or save a nation? And you don’t need to win over 100 percent of the people on the other side or on any side. In a democracy, what you need is a majority. — NPR’s Steve Inskeep to Anand Giridharadas at The.Ink Aggressive gerrymandering by GOP-led legislatures means in many places it takes much more than a simple majority to win power. Otherwise, Inskeep is correct. What Democrats must do in such places is shave the other side’s vote margins. That’s doable. Non-Democrats are not monolithic, nor are Trump supporters, as John Russell of The Holler found in Erie, Pennnsylvania. Democrats campaigning conservatively by avoiding all contact with such voters won’t cut it. Nor will giving potential allies the side-eye when they move in our direction. The left is too liberal with sticks and way too stingy with carrots. Inskeep (“Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America“) makes a case for political frenemies in conversation with Giridharadas: I don’t know if you’ve read Frank Foer’s new book on the Biden presidency.
Created
Fri, 06/10/2023 - 00:34

For 18 years, I’ve been writing articles for TomDispatch on the never-ending story of the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility. And here’s my ultimate takeaway (for the moment): 21 years after that grim offshore prison of injustice was set up in Cuba in response to the 9/11 attacks and the capture of figures supposedly linked to them, and despite the expressed desire of three presidents — George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden — to close it, the endgame remains devastatingly elusive. At times due to a failure of will, at times due to a failure of the system itself or the sheer complexity of the logistics involved, and at times due to acts of Congress or the courts, efforts... Read more

Source: Closing Guantánamo? appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

Created
Fri, 06/10/2023 - 00:15

A defender of war crimes, like Gilad Erdan, must not be allowed to serve two roles: an apologist for the mistreatment of women in Palestine and a freedom fighter for women anywhere else.

The post Ambassador of Israeli Crimes: How Gilad Erdan Become a Defender of Women’s Rights in Iran appeared first on MintPress News.

Created
Fri, 06/10/2023 - 00:00
The best adjectives for Bruno Schulz’s stories are not so much intellectual as sensual. They’re sticky, fuzzy and so richly textured that they seem almost rotten. The stories move in such a private and self-sufficient way that they seem to leave no room for interpretation. It isn’t immediately clear how Schulz expects a reader to make contact.
Created
Fri, 06/10/2023 - 00:00
DeSantis has sought to impose a far-right, Christian nationalist vision. His ‘war on woke’ has targeted educational institutions and teachers, who are accused of ‘indoctrinating’ children with left-wing ideologies. While such policies are not unique to Florida, under DeSantis they have extended to criminalising those who oppose them and asserting unprecedented powers in the name of ‘freedom’.
Created
Fri, 06/10/2023 - 00:00
The Republic of Artsakh has gone, but what was it? From the perspective of Azerbaijan’s government, and probably that of international law, Artsakh was an illegal entity. In Armenia it was held up as a critical part of the modern Armenian state, to be defended on that basis and because of the obvious desire of the population now living there not to be ruled by Azerbaijan.