By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – In the period from roughly 610 to 622 CE (“AD”), Muhammad ibn Abdallah of the noble Quraysh tribe in the western Arabian city of Mecca preached monotheism to an outraged polytheistic city dedicated to the worship of ancient Near Eastern goddesses, and the commerce of which deeply depended […]
- Africa (255)
- Asia (1,275)
- Australasia (36)
- Authoritarianism (404)
- Canada (9)
- Culture (585)
- Economy (1,082)
- Agriculture (3)
- Banking (67)
- Boycotts (1)
- Carbon Footprint (6)
- Corporations (56)
- Cryptocurrency (2)
- Debt (21)
- Degrowth (1)
- Democratic Socialism (20)
- Demographic Decline (1)
- Development (26)
- Downward Mobility (1)
- Employment (118)
- Food Insecurity (21)
- Homelessness (17)
- Industry (5)
- Inequality (428)
- Inflation (5)
- infrastructure (11)
- Insurance (1)
- Investment (93)
- Market Crash (12)
- Middle Class (61)
- Monopolies (8)
- Neoliberalism (205)
- Plutocracy (636)
- Poverty (209)
- Poverty (17)
- Regulation (3)
- Retirement (1)
- Sanctions (5)
- Tariffs (4)
- Taxes (38)
- Technology (4)
- Trade (121)
- Weapons sales (8)
- Education (198)
- Energy (1,782)
- Agrovoltaics (3)
- Batteries (53)
- Coal (140)
- Electricity Cost (2)
- Fossil Fuels (332)
- Fracking (50)
- Geothermal (7)
- Green ammonia (5)
- Green Energy (428)
- Green Hydrogen (8)
- Heat Pumps (6)
- Hydroelectric (2)
- Hydroelectric (16)
- Mining (1)
- Natural Gas (107)
- Nuclear Energy (161)
- Petroleum (303)
- Power Grid (12)
- Pumped Hydro (6)
- Solar Energy (436)
- Tar Sands (13)
- Wave Energy (10)
- wind energy (356)
- Environment (2,767)
- Climate Change (1,688)
- Acidification of Oceans (54)
- Agriculture (26)
- Biodiversity (15)
- Climate Refugees (6)
- CO2 (133)
- Dehydration (5)
- Denialism (154)
- Desalinization (5)
- Desertification (163)
- Divestment (2)
- Dust Storms (7)
- Environmental Investment (1)
- Extreme Heat (403)
- Extreme Weather (300)
- Flooding (139)
- Food Supply (3)
- Forests (18)
- Green New Deal (42)
- Green Recycling (2)
- Greenwashing (3)
- Mass Extinction (63)
- Methane (21)
- Net Carbon Zerio (8)
- Nitrous Oxide (2)
- Rainforests (19)
- Rivers (12)
- Sea Level (341)
- Soil Carbon Release (14)
- Super Storms (266)
- wildfires (244)
- Wood Buildings (1)
- Climate Crisis (1,393)
- Drought (299)
- Ecology (2)
- Ecology (12)
- Environmentalism (393)
- Green Transportation (259)
- Ice Melt (141)
- Invasive Species (2)
- Islands (3)
- Oceans (106)
- Oil Spills (8)
- Pollution (234)
- Water (100)
- wildlife (23)
- Climate Change (1,688)
- Europe (1,404)
- Featured (4,387)
- Haiti (1)
- Health (717)
- History (375)
- Human Rights (1,671)
- Apartheid (263)
- censorship (335)
- Death Penalty (31)
- Disappeared (4)
- Displaced and Refugees (584)
- Food Insecurity (31)
- Gay rights (29)
- Genocide (80)
- Human Rights Watch (93)
- Indigenous Rights (1)
- Migrants (4)
- privacy (21)
- Rights (92)
- Slavery and Trafficking (16)
- Starvation (5)
- Torture (103)
- Trans Rights (5)
- Transgender Rights (5)
- Unlawful Imprisonment (111)
- Unlwful Killing (84)
- War Crimes (433)
- War Rape (9)
- International Politics and Economy (2,146)
- Arms Sales (75)
- BRICS (3)
- Corruption (269)
- Crime (133)
- Democracy (337)
- Dissent (456)
- Domestic Terrorism (15)
- Drones (113)
- Espionage (1)
- G20 (1)
- Guns (9)
- Hacking (8)
- Immigration (22)
- Immigration (5)
- Islamophobia (384)
- Migrants (2)
- military (125)
- nationalism (118)
- NATO (38)
- Neocolonialism (1)
- Peace (147)
- Policing (2)
- Politics (309)
- Politics&Culture (21)
- Propaganda (13)
- Race (2)
- Smuggling (1)
- Juan Cole (271)
- Latin America (106)
- media (491)
- Middle East (10,283)
- Arab World (5,350)
- Iran (1,410)
- Israel (994)
- Israel/ Palestine (3,827)
- Israel/Palestine (9)
- Kurds (296)
- Red Sea (1)
- Turkey (608)
- Turkiye (135)
- Patriarchy (11)
- racism (479)
- religion (1,538)
- robots (3)
- Romance (1)
- science (177)
- Secular (West) (9)
- Secularism (30)
- Spirituality (22)
- Statelessness (15)
- Stranded Assets (1)
- Surveillance (283)
- Terrorism (1,096)
- Tolerance (6)
- Uncategorized (8,088)
- United Nations (183)
- Urbanization (4)
- US Foreign Policy (1,418)
- US politics (5,584)
- Anti-War Movement (13)
- Campaign Finance (31)
- Censors (22)
- Central Intelligence Agency (63)
- Charity (1)
- Civil Rights (96)
- Congress (82)
- Conspiracy Theories (24)
- Constitution (417)
- Courts (15)
- crime (12)
- Democratic Party (977)
- Democratic Socialists of America (22)
- Domestic Terrorism (20)
- Drone Warfare (27)
- Espionage (124)
- Ethnicities (397)
- Far Right (403)
- FBI (48)
- Federal Government (1)
- Foreign Policy (204)
- Gay Rights (17)
- Guns (97)
- Immigration (257)
- Israel Lobbies (131)
- Marijuana (4)
- Militarization (274)
- National Security State (477)
- Native Americans (41)
- Nuclear arsenal (8)
- penitentiaries (6)
- Pentagon (580)
- Police (43)
- prison reform (10)
- Private Prisons (4)
- Progressive Politics (15)
- Puerto Rico (30)
- Religious Right (16)
- Reproductive Choice (69)
- Republican Party (3,161)
- Supreme Court (133)
- Voter suppression (36)
- Whistleblowers (7)
- Xenophobia (9)
- Veterans (35)
- Voting Rights (16)
- War (632)
- White Supremacists (241)
- wikileaks (8)
- women (572)
- workers (235)
- Writing (5)
- Youth (219)
US politics
“Bug Splat”: Body Counts, Drones, and “Collateral Damage”
Tom Englehardt | (Tomdispatch.com) | – The Obama administration has adamantly refused to count. Not a body. In fact, for a long time, American officials associated with Washington’s drone assassination campaigns and “signature strikes” in the backlands of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen claimed that there were no bodies to count, that the CIA’s drones were […]
US Airstrike in Syria kills 53 Civilians, 6 Children
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) As Mariam Karouny reports for Reuters, the US air strike on Friday that inadvertently hit a village of non-combatants, killing members of six families, raises new questions about the Obama administration’s approach to fighting Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) in Syria. Despite months of bombing raids, Daesh has lost no […]
Could the New USA Freedom Act stop NSA Bulk Collection of Americans’ Telephone Records?
By Mark Jaycox and Rainey Reitman | (Electronic Frontier Foundation) A bipartisan group of congressional leaders has reintroduced the USA Freedom Act. The bill is an attempt to rein in the intelligence community’s “Collect It All” strategy, and passing USA Freedom is a first, small step in the right direction. However, it has serious faults […]
Global Connections: World History as Social History – a New Synthesis
I and colleagues have just brought out a world history. Because of the fine and exciting writing of my co-authors, it is more than just a textbook. My readers often ask me about history books – here’s one I can recommend. By John Coatsworth, Juan Cole, Michael Hanagan, Peter C. Perdue, Charles Tilly, and Louise […]
Iran’s Khamenei weighs in on Baltimore: ‘Hollywood-style Policing’
Elliot Hill and Mark Sovel | (TheLipTV) The anchors debate the following speech from last Sunday of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he contrasted Iranian policing to the “Hollywood-style policing” of the United States, and slammed the treatment of African-Americans. The anchors discuss the question of whether, while the ayatollah has a point, he […]
What the Police Broke in Baltimore (Political Cartoon)
Via MacLeod Cartoons
Baltimore Protests: What The Media Isn’t Showing You
AJ+ | – “Burning buildings, shattered glass, riot police: This looping portrait of Baltimore – on TV and online – has become the defining narrative of protests spurred by the death of Freddie Gray. But beyond sensational headlines, his death has also brought community, faith and art to the front line.” AJ+: “Baltimore Protests: What […]
Assassination as Policy in Washington and How It Failed, 1990-2015
By Andrew Cockburn | (Tomdispatch.com) | – As the war on terror nears its 14th anniversary — a war we seem to be losing, given jihadist advances in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen — the U.S. sticks stolidly to its strategy of “high-value targeting,” our preferred euphemism for assassination. Secretary of State John Kerry has proudly […]