Ceasefire 101: Israel fails at war goals, Hezbollah succeeds

November 28, 2024

Ali Rizk

Hezbollah has once again proven to be a handful for Israel, notwithstanding the heavy blows that were dealt to the resistance movement in the latest round of hostilities.  A ceasefire deal that has come into effect after over two months of full-scale conflict on the Lebanese–Israeli front falls far short of what Israel had hoped to achieve in the earlier stages of this conflict when the momentum seemed to be on its side.

 

A map indicating where the Israeli forces are currently deployed in south Lebanon one day after the ceasefire took effect.

Consumer Solar Surge: Pakistan Shows you Don’t Need Government Programs to Green the Grid

November 28, 2024

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – While no one was looking, the Pakistani public took matters into their own hands, adding 17 gigawatts of solar power this year. These installations are mostly in the form of Chinese panels for rooftop or ground level solar in towns and villages.

Greater Energy Levels by GOP Produce Victories Over Democrats

November 28, 2024

Ralph Nader

Over thirty years ago, Republican historian and political analyst, Kevin Phillips, remarked that the “Republicans go for the jugular while the Democrats go for the capillaries.” This serious disparity in political energy levels is rarely taken into account to explain election turnouts. The voluntary enfeebling of the Democratic Party started long ago. In 1970, writing in Harper’s Magazine, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, a co-founder of Americans for Democratic Action, wrote an article “Who Needs  Democrats? And What It Takes to be Needed?” He argued that if the Democratic Party does not take on the corporate and political establishment, it has no purpose at all.