.................RATIONAL THINKING.................. مرا جهل در کامِ دیو میبَرَد.............از آن دوستی میکنم با خِرَد
August 29, 2022
Ex-Mossad chief Yossi Cohen said that Israel carried out 'countless operations' against Iran when he headed the spy agency
Former Israeli intelligence and military officials have urged Israel to prepare for military action against Iran as Washington and Tehran are negotiating a revival of the nuclear deal, The Palestine Chronicle reported on Monday.
August 30, 2022
There is much confusion surrounding the concept of industrial policy, starting at the definitional level. If we think of industrial policy as a set of policies designed to favor certain industries, then we are always doing industrial policy.
August 26, 2022
The Orbánization of Fascist Politics
The malicious passions of fascism are with us once again, evident in the emergence of diverse regimes of predatory repression and exclusion that increasingly legitimate their hatred of democracy through appeals to a notion of illiberal democracy—a project that calls for the elimination of freedom, dissent, and justice as essential elements of political life, if not democracy itself. Of particular importance is the growing attraction of nationalist Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, to conservatives in the United States. Orbán’s popularity is due to his disdain of democracy and his use of political power to implement a range of reactionary policies, especially his belief that “there is a liberal plot to dilute the white populations of the US and European countries through immigration.” Expressing a notion of white replacement embraced by much of the Republican Party leadership, he has argued that “the western world was ‘committing suicide’ though immigration,” and has declared: “I see the great European population exchange as a suicidal attempt to replace the lack of European, Christian children with adults from other civilizations — migrants.” Orbán’s notion of the nation is critical of the principles of freedom and equality because they lead “inevitably to greater immigration and equality between races” and are at odds with a notion of the nation that defines itself assertively through the logic of white supremacy and racial purity. Orbán made this point clear in a July 22, 2022 speech. As Shaun Walker and Flora Garamvolgyi reported in The Guardian, Orbán stated: “We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race … and we do not want to become a mixed race,” said Orbán on Saturday. He added that countries where European and non-Europeans mingle were ‘no longer nations.’” Zsuzsa Hegendus, a long time Orbán advisor, resigned in response to Orbán’s mixed race comments stating that his remarks were comparable to “a pure Nazi text worthy of Goebbels.”
August 23, 2022
In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin complained, "What happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them. But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: ‘The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.’ Where are those guarantees?"
August 26, 2022
The other day an Australian journalist was giving me a hard time for not criticizing Russia and China the way I go after the US empire, calling me “morally bankrupt” for not criticizing all governments equally. He said the ethical thing to do would be to criticize the US, but also criticize the governments the US doesn’t like for balance.
I had a look at this fellow’s work online and did indeed see articles sharply criticizing China and Russia, as well as much weaker governments like Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and the Taliban.
But guess what government I didn’t see in his crosshairs?
August 26, 2022
On August 22, in response to the question, "Under what conditions is Russia ready to resort to the use of nuclear weapons," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov cited the "Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the field of nuclear deterrence.” He said that Russia "hypothetically" could allow the use of nuclear weapons if there is "aggression using conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is threatened." He then translated that policy: "In other words, the use of nuclear weapons by Russia is possible only in response to an attack – for self-defense in emergency circumstances."
August 22, 2022
Soaring needs and wealthy countries’ focus on Ukraine have left aid agencies with too little money to address the world’s other crises, forcing them to cut programs.
Camps for Syrian refugees in northern Iraq have cut access to clean water, sanitation and electricity. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, many people forced from their homes face life without shelter or basic tools like fishing or farming gear. In South Sudan, there will be no secondary school this fall for some refugee children.
August 24, 2022
It is not easy being someone who cares about the world and opposes the status quo. It’s a series of disheartening failures and crushing disappointments amid an endless deluge of information saying that everything is getting worse and worse.
The environment keeps degrading. Ruling power structures keep getting more and more controlling. Capitalism gets more and more imbalanced and exploitative. World powers get closer and closer to a mass military confrontation of unspeakable horror.
And what do we get when we try to oppose these things? Letdown after letdown. Politicians we support lose their elections, often after brazen interference from the very power structures we’d hoped they’d oppose. Political organizing breaks down in sectarian infighting. Activist leaders get caught up in sex scandals. Agendas we helped push for fizzle into impotence. Power wins time after time.
تاریخِ هفت هزار صفحهایِ طبری (یا بقول خودش: تاریخ الرسل و الملوک) از خلقت این جهان آغاز میشود، و تا نزدیک به زمانی که طبری این تاریخ را نوشت ادامه مییابد. بنابراین، دید طبری یک دید تحقیقی و تاریخی، متناسب با علوم آن زمان بوده است، و نه یک دید مطابق با علم امروز که داستان خلقت را زیر پرسش میبرد.
علم امروزین بر اساس فرضیه مهبانگ و دنیای چند جهانی است، گرچه هنوز اکثر مردم دنیا به خلقت و یک آفریدگار اعتقاد دارند، چرا که اکثر حکومتها چنین تفکری را، به دلیل منافع بیشماری که برای حاکمان و سرمایهداران دارد و در اینجا قابل بحث نیست، تشویق میکنند. چنانکه اشاره شد، در آن زمان علم مانند امروز پیشرفت نکرده بود، با اینکه شخص طبری یک فیلسوف اسلامی بود بر کلیه اطلاعات علمی آن زمان چیره بود. گرچه به نظر نویسندهٔ این چکیده، و با توجه به دانش طبری، میتوان نتیجه گرفت که او به پوشالی بودن این عقیده واقف بود، و به همین دلیل این تاریخ را برای آیندگان نگاشت. لیکن با توجه به جو آن زمان، شاید خود جرات این را که اعتقادات خرافی را بدور بیفکند، نداشت. ا
By the numbers: Keeping track of the single largest arms transfer in US history
August 18, 2022
With the constant flow of news about the war, it can be hard to keep track of all these weapons packages, so we at Responsible Statecraft decided to put together a timeline of every arms shipment that has been announced since the war began. And whenever a new transfer is announced, we’ll update this page to reflect it.
Henry Kissinger: US Responsible for Bringing Itself to ‘Edge’ of War With China and Russia
August 14, 2022
The 99-year-old former secretary of state warned against stoking tensions with the two powers
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned of the dangers of the US policy toward Russia and China in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that was published on Friday.
“We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,” Kissinger said.
August 12, 2022
There’s a scene in The Usual Suspects where Kevin Spacey tells the fable of the mysterious Keyser Soze and how he became a crime lord.
“One story the guys told me, the story I believe, was from his days in Turkey,” he says. “There was a gang of Hungarians that wanted their own mob. They realized that to be in power, you didn’t need guns or money or even numbers. You just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn’t.”
August 13, 2022
Salman Rushdie, Booker Prize-winning novelist, was repeatedly stabbed on Friday at a literary event at Chautauqua Institution in western New York, where he was arguing that the U.S. should give asylum to persecuted writers. Allegedly one Hadi Matar of New Jersey, wearing a black mask, leaped up onto the stage before 2,500 people and repeatedly stabbed Mr. Rushdie before being taken down by security. As I write, Mr. Rushdie is in intensive care. He will likely lose an eye, nerves in his arm have been severed, and his liver was damaged by he knife blade. Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989) had in 1988 issued a fatwa of death against Rushdie over his novel, Satanic Verses, which Khomeini had not read. The fatwa was lifted by the government of President Mohammad Khatami, a translator of modern German sociologist Jürgen Habermas and a proponent of civilizational dialogue, in 1998. On this occasion I am reprinting the one essay I ever wrote about Mr. Rushdie, which I read to him and an audience of about 1,000 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on the occasion of the 2003 staging of the play based on his novel, Midnight’s Children at the proscenium theater of the Power Center on the central campus of the University of Michigan. The Republic of Letters has suffered a horrifying assault, an assault on all thinking people. I wish him the fullest possible recovery, and extend to him and his loved ones my deepest sympathies.
August 12, 2022
The Inflation Reduction Act includes a remarkable innovation. If it becomes law in its current form, share buybacks will be taxed at a 1.0 percent rate. This is a huge deal, not only because it taxes money that was often escaping taxation at the individual level, but it is a move away from basing the corporate income tax on profits, to taxing returns to shareholders.
August 11, 2022
Recent events in Ukraine and Taiwan have presented President Biden with an opportunity to showcase his statesmanship. Both situations presented Biden with a red line. Both times he crossed it.
Giving Biden a red line not to cross does not seem to be a good idea. Seemingly demonstrating the psychology less of a statesman and more of a school yard bully, red lines seem to challenge Biden to show that no one can tell him what he can and cannot do.
August 8, 2022
During the furor over Nancy Pelosi’s incendiary Taiwan visit last week, I was watching an appearance by Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp on the show Rising which brought up the under-discussed point that US officials going to Taipei is actually a continuation of a trend that had already been happening under the Trump administration.
Aug. 8, 2022
President Biden released a statement on Sunday night after a ceasefire was announced for Gaza following a three-day Israeli bombing campaign, which left at least 45 Palestinians dead, including 16 children.
The bombing campaign started on Friday when Israel targeted a leader of the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad in Gaza. The initial strike killed an Islamic Jihad leader, as well as a five-year-old girl, a 23-year-old woman, and seven other Palestinian men.
John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark
July 1, 2022
The issue of survival can be put into the form of a fairly rigorous question: Are present ecological stresses so strong that—if not relieved—they will sufficiently degrade the ecosystem to make the earth uninhabitable by man? If the answer is yes, then human survival is indeed at stake in the environmental crisis. Obviously no serious discussion of the environmental crisis can get very far without confronting this question.
—Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle (1971)1
August 5, 2022
I suppose there are more risible politicians on the scene today than Nancy Pelosi, but few come clad in her power accessories or with as much potential to inflict carnage on a global scale. Even the banshee of the backwoods Marjorie Taylor Greene is a mere pipsqueak compared to the malevolent lunacy we’ve seen lately from Pelosi.
