One thing I always wonder about: when did the people who consider themselves hip start to worry about what the hell was on television? When did they begin to write long, earnest disquisitions about the box set of some TV show? When did they start to dig deep into the philosophical and sociocultural implications of what a TV news anchor — a professional liar by trade — says about himself …. or anything? I guess I’m too old to understand. I’m not pretending I hung around with Ginsberg and Burroughs or anything, but I do remember very well a time

Last week, the Obama Administration announced it is sending troops to Ukraine to “train” the Ukrainian National Guard. The folly of this move — which, as later stories showed, is only the beginning of a much larger U.S. military involvement in Ukraine — is so astounding and appalling as to defy comprehension. What it amounts to, in essence, is deliberately provoking a crisis that will bring the world closer to a nuclear war than it has been since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, all for the sake of a territorial and political dispute in one corner of Ukraine.  In following

Rooting around in my files for something else tonight, I ran across a letter I sent to the Guardian a few months back. They didn’t print it, of course. They ran a fair few of my letters back in the Bush-bashing days, but not so much in recent years. Anyway, as it deals with a perennial theme — the yearning of “savvy” liberals for “tough” leaders — I thought it might be worth a brief airing, especially in light of one of the likely electoral outcomes next year. To the Editor: Timothy Garton-Ash wonders what would have happened if Hillary

WASHINGTON – The White House faces a serious threat from drones, administration officials said today, after a recent incident in which a small, private drone crashed on the lawn near the president’s home. This episode, though minor, has alerted the White House to a wider problem, the official said. “The drone campaign conducted by President Obama in countries all over world threatens to make the term ‘White House’ synonymous with murder, destruction, violence, terror and cowardly sneak attacks that have claimed hundreds of innocent lives,” said the official. “Even now, there are many people who, when they hear the words

Old evils never die.  You think you’re got them whipped — but they spring up again, years or decades (or centuries) later, as virulent as ever.  Our cursed 21st century has given ample proof of this, both at home and abroad: ancient ills returning with horrific force (torture, racism, repression, oligarchy, feudalism, imperialism, militarism, etc. etc.), old battles to be fought over and over again. This is also true for the “electrics in our brain,” of course, a stubbornly enduring pattern of the individual human psyche. Anyway, here’s the lovely Velma and Pansy the Dancing Horse to tell us all

(UPDATED BELOW) Let’s be clear about this. The Putin regime is odious. What it is doing to the Russian people — the degradation of their liberties; the imposition of Tea Party-style willful ignorance, false piety and bellicose nationalism on the culture; the crippling corruption of its klepto-capitalism (which almost, but not quite, approaches the level in the US and UK, where trillions of dollars have been transferred from working people to a tiny sliver of politically connected elites on Wall Street); its brutal prison system (which, while rivalling the American gulag in its harshness, lags far behind it in the

In keeping with the concept of “unmournable bodies” limned by Teju Cole in the New Yorker (more on this below), news arrives today of yet another clutch of unimportant, unmournable deaths at the hands of extremist violence. From McClatchy: A U.S.-led coalition airstrike killed at least 50 Syrian civilians late last month when it targeted a headquarters of Islamic State extremists in northern Syria [the town of Al Bab, near the Turkish border], according to an eyewitness and a Syrian opposition human rights organization. … The Syrian Network for Human Rights, an independent opposition group that tracks casualties in Syria,

Arthur Silber — naturally — has something of depth and insight to say about the Hebdo case, and the self-righteous mob mentality it has provoked — on a worldwide, witless scale — in the aftermath. As always, do yourself a favor and go read the whole thing. (Especially his startling and perceptive connection of the current mindset to the words of John Brown and Abraham Lincoln.) Meanwhile, here are just a few excerpts: “Nothing can justify the Charlie Hebdo murders. All civilized people must condemn these murders absolutely and unequivocally.” Endless variations of such proclamations have issued from almost everyone

Juan Cole has some insightful words on the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. As he points out, the shooters were neither “attacking free speech” nor “defending Mohammed”; they were using a time-honored tactic of radical extremists (of all stripes): “sharpening the contradictions,” hoping to provoke an overreaction that would lead to repression and persecution of Muslims in general — thus helping the extremists recruit new members. This is what bin Laden did with such spectacular success with 9/11: provoking an endless global war, with Western “interventions” and “targeted assassinations” and drone strikes that have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent

As you might expect, the very secular “Angry Arab, As’ad AbuKhahlil, has some pertitent observations on the Charlie Hebdo attack. You should read the whole piece, but here are some excerpts from his “Notes on the shooting in Paris“: I feel strongly about the right to offend and to mock as an artist (and as a human being).  That right should be absolute. .. Muslims do need to lighten up, and should feel secure enough to stomach mockery and satire against their religion. And they should not allow their enemies (even the bigots among them) to provoke them so easily….