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Archives for March 2020
If America is going to Fight Forever Wars, Should we Bring back the Draft?
By Nan Levinson | – (Tomdispatch.com) – Bizarrely enough, the spate of phone calls from recruiters began a couple of years ago. The first ones came from the Army, next the Marines, and then other branches of the military. I’m decades past enlistment age. I’ve been publicly antiwar for most of that time and come […]
Behind the Turmoil: Russia Provoked Oil Price Fall to Protect its Markets from US Frackers, which could now Collapse
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Last weekend, OPEC Plus, an expanded cartel of petroleum exporters, considered a plan for members to cut back on their oil production so as to support prices in the face of a slowing world economy owing to the novel coronavirus. The Russian Federation rejected the plan put forward by OPEC, […]
Arif “The Greatest Ears in Town” Mardin: How a Turkish Muslim Nurtured the Music of Aretha Franklin, Dione Warwick, and Nora Jones
Middlebury, VT (Special to Informed Comment) – In the mid-twentieth century many American jazz musicians converted to Islam . Some took Muslim names ( Ahmed Jamal and Yusef Lateef) ; others identified as Muslim but kept their Christian names (Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner). These musicians helped shape the sound of American music and no less […]
Civil Disobedience in the Time of Climate Crisis
On March 27, 2018, a Massachusetts judge found thirteen protestors who obstructed construction of a high-pressure fracked gas pipeline in West Roxbury, Massachusetts not responsible for their crime of trespassing and disturbing the peace. The judge ruled that the potential environmental and public health impacts of the pipeline – including the risk of climate change […]
“Children of Men” Come True: Trump Immigration Crackdown outdoes Cuaron’s Science Fiction Dystopia
Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – Like the dystopian nightmare imagined in the 2006 science fiction masterpiece Children of Men, Trump’s xenophobic efforts to terminate immigration result in death, suffering, humiliation, and destroyed lives. Under Trump, the speed of America’s plunge into casual barbarism is breathtaking. Along with the illusory border wall, the immigration clampdown […]
“A Toothpick in a Tsunami”: US Big Oil Faces Bankruptcy as Prices Plunge 30% on Saudi Expansion
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Oil prices plummeted by 30% on Monday morning in Asia on news that Saudi Arabia intended actually to cut its prices and increase its production on April 1 to more than 10 million barrels a day. As a result, Asian markets also took a huge hit. Riyadh’s move came after […]
Could Instability in Lebanon Further Strengthen Hezbollah, or Will the Sectarian order Collapse?
Detroit (Special to Informed Comment) – Since its inception as a French mandate at the San Remo Conference in 1920, Lebanon has lived on the cusp of chaos economically, militarily, and politically. For many, life in the mountainous country has been synonymous with major political crises (like the events of 1958 and Operation Blue Bat, […]
Feeling the Bern? Why Trump is Terrified of having to go up Against Sanders
( Tomdispatch.com) – Donald Trump filed his paperwork to run for reelection only hours after his inauguration in January 2017, setting a presidential record, the first of his many dubious achievements. For a man who relished the adulation and bombast of campaigning, it should have surprised no one that he charged out of the starting […]
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