In a curiously upbeat account, The New York Times reported that Islamic militants have joined with Ukraine’s far-right and neo-Nazi battalions to fight ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. It appears that no combination of violent extremists is too wretched to celebrate as long as they’re killing Russ-kies. The article by Andrew E. Kramer reported that there were three Islamic battalions “deployed …
ARUN GUPTA – What Became of Occupy Wall Street?
One of the more puzzling aspects about Occupy Wall Street is not that there was a moment when millions of people hoped or feared it might overthrow the rule of the banks, but that so little is said about it four years on. Its anniversaries come and go without comment: Occupy’s founding on September 17, 2011, the high-water mark of …
David Morris – Sanding Down the Rough Edges of Capitalism Is Not Enough
The catalyst for a recent column by David Brooks was a speech delivered by his New York Times colleague Anand Giridharadas at the Aspen Action Forum. (Giridharadas writes the Letter from America column for the Global Edition of the Times) Giridharadas questioned the “Aspen Consensus” that the wealthy and powerful, the benefactors of the Aspen Institute, could be asked to …
Darwin’s Casino – John Michael Greer
Our age has no shortage of curious features, but for me, at least, one of the oddest is the way that so many people these days don’t seem to be able to think through the consequences of their own beliefs. Pick an ideology, any ideology, straight across the spectrum from the most devoutly religious to the most stridently secular, and …