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Archives for June 2020

Donald Trump
Can the president really order the military to occupy US cities and states?

Can the president really order the military to occupy US cities and states?

The Conversation

By Jennifer Selin | – After a week of both peaceful protests and violent chaos in the wake of George Floyd’s death, President Donald Trump announced, “If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States […]

Donald Trump
OK, Boomer:  The Trump Administration's Generational Lies Deepen America's Fissures

OK, Boomer: The Trump Administration’s Generational Lies Deepen America’s Fissures

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – These days, teaching graduating college seniors has me, as the Brits would say in the London Underground, “minding the gap.” In my case, however, it’s not the gap between the platform and the train I’m thinking of, but a couple of others: those between U.S. citizens and our government, as well […]

Omar Khayyam
Don’t Hesitate to Raise a wine Glass High: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Don’t Hesitate to Raise a wine Glass High: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Juan Cole

For the earliest collection of verse attributed to Omar Khayyam see my just-published The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation from the Persian (NB: the poem above isn’t in this collection– there are lots of such anthologies, and Whinfield favored the late Indian manuscripts.) Here is what novelist Michael Chabon said about my new […]

Bill of Rights
How American cities were Reduced to Esper's "Battlespace": From Fallujah to Minneapolis

How American cities were Reduced to Esper’s “Battlespace”: From Fallujah to Minneapolis

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Bush administration’s war of aggression on and military occupation of Iraq that began in 2003 shifted the United States to a militaristic society. Some 2.7 million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, an astonishing number. The Bush administration began the practice of sending to civilian police departments military […]

Arab Spring
The Authoritarian Logic of Killing Protesters

The Authoritarian Logic of Killing Protesters

David Faris

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – On October 9th, 2011, Egyptian army vehicles plowed into a Coptic Christian protest outside of the Maspero state television building in the capital city of Cairo, killing more than two dozen peaceful demonstrators. Less than a year after the Arab Spring came to Cairo and dislodged the country’s longtime […]

African-Americans
From Mississippi to Minneapolis: Not just Breathing but Breathing Free

From Mississippi to Minneapolis: Not just Breathing but Breathing Free

Jennifer Loewenstein

Tucson, Az. (Informed Comment) – In the early morning hours of August 28th, 1955, two white men burst into the Mississippi home of Moses Wright where 14-year-old Emmett Till slept. Till had come down from Chicago to visit his cousins and was accused of having flirted with a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, while at a […]

Constitution
Resisting Rotten Leadership: from Mencius to Robert Reich

Resisting Rotten Leadership: from Mencius to Robert Reich

Martin Powers

Ann Arbor (Special to Informed Comment) – Writing in The Guardian this past weekend Robert Reich spoke common sense: Trump’s nonfeasance goes far beyond an absence of leadership or inattention to traditional norms and roles. In a time of national trauma, [Trump] has relinquished the core duties and responsibilities of the presidency. He is no […]

Constitution
The Second Time as Farce:  Donald Trump and James Madison and the Defense of the White House

The Second Time as Farce: Donald Trump and James Madison and the Defense of the White House

Juan Cole

In 1848 a series of popular uprisings broke out in Europe, including in France. They largely failed, and authoritarian, right wing governments reasserted themselves until 1870. In 1851, France had the misfortune to fall victim to a coup by the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, who styled himself Napoleon III. Karl Marx had […]

African-Americans
Riots or Uprising?  If this Turmoil were in Iran, Trump would be Cheering on Arsonists and Dreaming of Regime Change

Riots or Uprising? If this Turmoil were in Iran, Trump would be Cheering on Arsonists and Dreaming of Regime Change

Omar Ahmed

(Middle East Monitor ) – The scenario is all too familiar: the almost casual murder in Minneapolis of an unarmed African American citizen — say his name: George Floyd — by police officers has sparked a wave of social unrest and protests across the country. Since Floyd’s killing on 25 May, we have seen what […]

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Gaza Yet Stands


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Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



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The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


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