The drone war, as it has been fought to this point, has featured an effective interweaving of military and ideological considerations. Grégoire Chamayou’s A Theory of the Drone represents the most comprehensive attempt to untangle the most politically complex aspects of drone use, and to explore its and psychological implications. (More…)
British tabloid coverage of Mohammed Emwazi (“Jihadi John”) has been predictably irritating. The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Star, and more have all printed obscene headlines about the man, with the clear objective of terrifying their readers into supporting counterterrorism. (More…)
Last May, I posted piece on the publication of the Schwarze Hefte, the heretofore unpublished notebooks kept by the prominent German philosopher Martin Heidegger. This event was getting a lot of press at the time, much more so than the emergence of unpublished works by a thinker few people have read and even fewer understand would usually do. (More…)
War is hell, or so the adage goes. Especially when we think back to the twentieth century, to events like Dresden, and Hiroshima. 2014 was an especially poignant year in this regard, as Europe observed the 100th anniversary of WWI, and Russia went to war again, in the Ukraine. 100 years didn’t seem like a long time, in the grand scheme of things. The world remained stuck on the cusp of the 19th century. (More…)
We are tired of the “hypocrisy argument”. From the response of the left to the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks to the dumbing down of public discourse on domestic surveillance, too many progressives appeal to arguments about personal consistency, and avoid the harder questions about policy, ethics, race and media freedom. (More…)
Mike Elk, the labor reporter for Politico, is under fire. It’s not for any story in particular. It’s about who he is. Elk, a prominent labor journalist from a union family who was formerly with In These Times, is trying to organize the staff at the Beltway news organization. (More…)
More than just a graphic novel, This is Not Uganda is like peeking over the shoulder of the artist, the Berlin-based Tine Fetz, and seeing everything she sees. The book, released late last year by German publisher Ja Ja Verlag, is a chronicle of the time that Fetz spent studying and traveling in Israel. (More…)
Faster than you can say “manufacturing consent”, “Je suis Charlie” has become another “Yes we can!”, a slogan for the self-herding masses, an opiate for the iPhone generation. If that wasn’t clear when it became the Facebook meme of the decade, it sure as hell should be obvious now (More…)
Debate on the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the various sieges and stand-offs which followed quickly focused on lots of the wrong things but two in particular. (More…)
Countless cries of ‘Je Suis Charlie’ (I am Charlie) have emerged in the wake of the violent attack on satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo—one that has left 17 dead. And almost as swiftly, and now almost as furiously, comes the backlash. This backlash, and its proponents, are careful to condemn the attack, but nonetheless declares, ‘I am not Charlie’ as it tries to call attention to the racism inherent in many of the publication’s political cartoons. (More…)
A few weeks ago, Facebook users began posting the Year in Review posts automatically generated by the social media company’s mysterious algorithms. While these strange collages came with a customization option, most people seemed content to post theirs as-is. As I waited for my turn, I wondered whether I could do the same. 2014 was a rough year for me and my family. (More…)
At a fundamental level, there is something very attractive about the writings of Murray Bookchin. The work of this often prickly autodidact, who died in 2006, evinces an enduring to commitment to something that might (in the best sense of the word) be termed “humanism.” (More…)