by B. R. GOWANI

CBS The Late Show with Steven Colbert host was mad at POTUS:

“And now for the next ten months, the gloves are off. I can finally speak unvarnished truth to power and say what I really think about Donald Trump starting right now.”

but then when was Steven Colbert not outraged at Pres Donald Trump?

he has been poking fun at Trump for a very long time

Trump is a terribly disgusting person,

and it seems Trump played a role in Colbert getting fired

but Colbert has always had his gloves off in regards to Trump

the facts:

• CBS is part of Paramount Global, a giant multinational company
• David Ellison’s Skydance wanted to acquire Paramount Global
• on July 17, 2025, CBS dumped Colbert’s show

Trump gloated on news that Colbert will leave in May 2026:

“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! [Fox News late night host] Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.”

Colbert vented his anger:

“How dare you, sir? Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism? Go fuck yourself.”

on Trump’s comment on Kimmel, Colbert said:

“Nope, absolutely not, Kimmel. I am the martyr. There’s only room for one on this cross, and I’ve gotta tell you, the view is fantastic from up here. I can see your house!”

if Colbert was really on a cross, he would be begging for Trump’s mercy …

but the way things are going, that time seems not too far away …

unless he joins other real protest movements to oppose unfolding fascism …

rather than cracking jokes and pocketing millions of dollars

on 24 July, Trump govt approved Skydance-Paramount Global merger

Skydance paid $8 billion to takeover Paramount Global

David Ellison is the son of Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle

who is worth $251 billion, and the world’s 2nd richest person

Trump got his goonda tax of $16 million from paramount Global

he also expects to get $20 million from the new owners

if Colbert would have spared some time for Palestinians,

his huge popularity could have really made a difference …

especially if he had shown outrage at repeated Palestinian massacre

as much as he was furious at Netanyahu for Israel’s attack on WCK

World Central Kitchen was struck killed 7 workers in Gaza

Spanish chef Jose Andres, Colbert’s friend, runs the WCK charity

“And as many of you know, the World Central Kitchen is near and dear to my heart. It was founded by our friend, Chef José Andrés, to bring food to hungry people after natural disasters and in war zones.”

Netanyahu tried to defend himself with the lame excuse:

“This happens in war. We are conducting a thorough inquiry and are in contact with the governments. We will do everything to prevent a recurrence.”

Colbert shot back:

“Nothing just happens. You are responsible. If your answer is, ‘This happens in war,’ then maybe consider ending the war.”

Colbert was mad for the death of WCK workers – a very good gesture

but Colbert never talked about 59,106 Palestinians killed by Israel

(that include about 30% children, that is, at least 17,400 children)

actually over 400,000 Palestinian deaths …

and growing by the day as Ralph Nader points out …

this is the power of the Israeli Lobby’s hold on the US politics

Colbert could say “go fuck yourself” to Trump …

but could not mention Israeli genocide or ask US govt to stop arming Israel

Colbert doesn’t talk about Israel’s killing/starving/humiliating Palestinians …

but Colbert didn’t forget to question Zohran Mamdani about …

Israel’s right to exist

many people criticized CBS for firing Colbert

Colbert is making $15 million a year for his Late Show

he makes more money as a voice actor, stage performer, & author

his net worth is $75 million

with such money and fame, Colbert will find a way to continue working

the real danger is not the end of the Late Show but …

it is the merger of the two giants Skydance and Paramount Global

a decade and a half back, Ramzy Baroud had warned us about merger:

“How will democracy, mass participation or public interest be served by the Comcast Corp.’s purchase of NBC’s Universal or the Disney Company’s acquisition of Marvel Entertainment Inc.? The media industry has turned into a jungle, where the survival of the fittest is determined not by value of content, or by contribution to society, but rather by ‘smart’ business deals that ensure survival in an increasingly demanding media market.”

when a company merges and gets bigger

the profits increases manyfold

but …

• workers lose job
• people’s voices vanish
• democracy becomes a joke
• freedom of speech for the elite enhances

Paramount Global/Skydance merger is clearly the more dangerous

and should generate more scrutiny and publicity …

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

DEMOCRACY NOW

We continue our conversation with Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa about her new Netflix documentary, Apocalypse in the Tropics. The film delves into the explosive growth of evangelical Christianity in Brazil and how it fueled the rise of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who is facing trial for an alleged coup attempt following his defeat in the 2022 presidential election.

“I really see this film as a parable of our times, where we have leaders that are trying to destroy democracy from within,” says Costa. “Instead of proposing solutions for a world that is in danger and going towards ultimate collapse, they’re actually trying to accelerate that collapse. And that has very much to do with this apocalyptic theology.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We’re joined now for Part 2 of our conversation with Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa. Her 2019 film, Edge of Democracy, was nominated for an Academy Award. It traced the rise and fall of democracy in Brazil from 1985 through the first election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, through the years in power of the Brazil’s Workers’ Party until the impeachment of Lula da Silva’s protégée, Dilma Rousseff, in 2017.

In her new documentary, Petra Costa traces the rise of Christian nationalism in Brazil and its power in politics. It’s called Apocalypse in the Tropics. Let’s go to a clip from the film which begins with images of crowds of supporters surrounding former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after he was released from prison. He had been jailed following a corruption conviction that was later annulled. The first voice in the clip is director Petra Costa, followed by a leading evangelical pastor and adviser to former President Bolsonaro, Silas Malafaia.

PETRA COSTA: When he was sent to prison, half the country felt robbed of the chance to vote for their candidate, while the other half felt that he deserved it. Now that he was out, joy and anger had switched sides, and the memory of his two terms as president, where millions were lifted out of poverty, prematurely launched the next presidential race and put him ahead in every poll.

Democracy Now for more

by NADEEM FAROOQ PARACHA

“Iqbal set out to create a self-actualised Muslim collective that would come into being through the dialectic process between reason and revelation, science and tradition, physics and metaphysics”

In 1918, when the First World War was coming to an end, the already depleted Ottoman Empire was facing defeat and rebellions. The Ottomans, headquartered in Istanbul, had sided with Germany in the hope that their empire would be able to restore its rule over at least some of the territories that it began to lose from the 19th century onwards. But the Ottoman armies were routed by allied forces led by the British. When the British facilitated Arab tribes in Arabia to rise up against the Ottomans, Dr Ansari, a member of the All India Muslim League (AIML) invited some ulema to an AIML session in Delhi. The ulema agreed to attend.

But not all AIML leaders were so thrilled by this. For example, an AIML leader Choudhry Khaliquzzaman feared that the party’s program would be overshadowed by the emotion of ‘jihad’ being popularised by the ulema and the Pan-Islamists. He warned Dr Ansari of the dangers of Islamising politics. But Khaliquzzaman was unable to keep AIML from joining the ‘Khilafat Movement’(Caliphate Movement) that aspired to dissuade the British from dismantling the Ottoman caliphate. Once Khilafat became a powerful symbol in the minds of India’s Muslims, the ‘modernist’ leadership of the AIML was marginalised. The ulama, as the custodians of religion, came forward to lead the Muslims of India. According to the Pakistani historian Mubarak Ali, many Muslim leaders who had started their political careers as moderates, were won over by the ulema and became ‘maulanas with beards.’

However, men such as the barrister Muhammad Ali Jinnah who had once been a member of Indian National Congress (INC) before joining the AIML, took Khlaiquzzam’s line. In 1919, when the INC leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was planning to bolster the Khilafat Movement with INC’s own anti-British programme, Jinnah wrote to Gandhi warning him that the movement would unleash religious passions and that the Hindus and Muslims would lose the political and economic gains that they had negotiated with the British.

The Friday Times for more

by FRANCESCA ALBANESE

“Palestine will have written this tumultuous chapter—not as a footnote in the chronicles of would-be conquerors, but as the newest verse in a centuries-long saga of peoples who have risen against injustice, colonialism, and today more than ever neoliberal tyranny.”

Remarks of Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, at the Hague Group Emergency Conference of States in Bogotá, Colombia.

Excellencies, Friends, 

I express my appreciation to the government of Colombia and South Africa for convening this group, and to all members of the Hague Group, its founding members for their principled stance, and the others who are joining. May you keep groing and so the strength and effectiveness of your concrete actions. 

Thank you also to the Secretariat for its tireless work, and last but not least, the Palestinian experts—individuals and organisations who travelled to Bogota from occupied Palestine, historical Palestine/Israel and other places of the diaspora/exile, to accompany this process, after providing HG with outstanding, evidence-based briefings.  

And of course all of you who are here today/ 

It is important to be here today, in a moment that may prove historical indeed. There is hope that these two days will move all present to work together to take concrete measures to end the genocide in Gaza and, hopefully, end the erasure of the 

Palestinian for what remains of Palestine—because this is the testing ground for a system where freedom, rights, and justice are made real for all. This hope, that people like me hold tight, is a discipline. A discipline we all should have.  

The occupied Palestinian territory today is a hellscape. In Gaza, Israel has dismantled even the last UN function—humanitarian aid—in order to deliberately starve, displace time and again, or kill a population they have marked for elimination. In the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, ethnic cleansing advances through unlawful siege, mass displacement, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detention, widespread torture. Across all areas under Israeli rule, Palestinians live under the terror of annihilation, broadcast in real time to a watching world. The very few Israeli people who stand against genocide, occupation, and apartheid—while the majority openly cheers and calls for more—remind us that Israeli liberation, too, is inseparable from Palestinian freedom. 

The atrocities of the past 21 months are not a sudden aberration; they are the culmination of decades of policies to displace and replace the Palestinian people.  

Against this backdrop, it is inconceivable that political forums, from Brussels to NY, are still debating recognition of the State of Palestine—not because it’s unimportant, but because for 35 years states have stalled, refused recognition, pretending to “invest in the PA” while abandoning the Palestinian people to Israel’s relentless, rapacious territorial ambitions and unspeakable crimes. Meanwhile political discourse has reduced Palestine to a humanitarian crisis to manage in perpetuity rather than a political issue demanding principled and firm resolution: end permanent occupation, apartheid and today genocide. And it is not the law that has failed or faltered—it is political will that has abdicated. 

But today, we are also witnessing a rupture. Palestine’s immense suffering has cracked open the possibility of transformation. Even if this is not fully reflected into political agendas (yet), a revolutionary shift is underway—one that, if sustained, will be remembered as a moment when history changed course.  

And this is why I came to this meeting with a sense of being at a historical turning point —discursively and politically.  

First, the narrative is shifting: away from Israel’s endlessly invoked “right to self-defence” and toward the long-denied Palestinian right to self-determination—systematically invisibilised, suppressed and delegitimised for decades. The weaponisation of antisemitism applied to Palestinian words, and narratives, and the dehumanising use of the terrorism framework for Palestinian action (from armed resistance to the work of NGOs pursuing justice in international arena), has led to a global political paralysis that has been intentional. It must be redressed. The time is now. 

Second, and consequentially, we are seeing the rise of a new multilateralism: principled, courageous, increasingly led by the Global Majority it pains me that I have yet to see this include European countries. As a European, I fear what the region and its institutions have come to symbolize to many: a sodality of states preaching international law yet guided more by colonial mindset than principle, acting as vassals to the US empire, even as it drags us from war to war, misery to misery and when it comes to Palestine: from silence to complicity. 

But the presence of European countries at this meeting shows that a different path is possible. To them I say: the Hague Group has the potential to signal not just a coalition, but a new moral center in world politics. Please, stand with them.  

Millions are watching—hoping—for leadership that can birth a new global order rooted in justice, humanity, and collective liberation. This is not just about Palestine. This is about all of us. 

Principled states must rise to this moment. It does not need to have a political allegiance, color, political party flags or ideologies: it needs to be upheld by basic human values. Those which Israel has been mercilessly crushing for 21 months now. 

Meanwhile I applaud the calling of this emergency conference in Bogota to address the unrelenting devastation in Gaza. So it is on this, that focus must be directed. The measures adopted in January by the Hague Group were symbolically powerful. It was the signal of the discursive and political shift needed. But they are the absolute bear minimum. I implore you to expand your commitment. And to turn that commitment into concrete actions, legislatively, judicially in each of your jurisdictions. And to consider first and foremost, what must we do to stop the genocidal onslaught. For Palestinians, especially those in Gaza, this question is existential. But it really is applicable to the humanity of all of us.  

In  this context my responsibility here is to recommend to you, uncompromisingly and dispassionately, the cure for the root cause. We are long past dealing with symptoms, the comfort zone of too many these days. And my words will show that what the Hague Group has committed to do and is considering expanding upon, is a small commitment towards what’s just and due based on your obligations under international law. 

Obligations, not sympathy, not charity. 

Each state immediately review and suspend all ties with Israel. Their military, strategic, political, diplomatic, economic,  relations – both imports and exports –  and to make sure that their private sector, insurers, banks, pension funds, universities and other goods, and services providers in the supply chains do the same. Treating the occupation as business as usual translates into supporting or providing aid or assistance to the unlawful presence of Israel in the OPT. These ties must be terminated as a matter of urgency. I will have the opportunity to elaborate on  the technicalities and implications in our further sessions but lets be clear, I mean cutting ties with Israel as a whole. Cutting ties only with the “components” of it in the oPt is not an option. 

This is in line with the duty on all states stemming from the July 2024 Advisory Opinion which confirmed the illegality of Israel’s prolonged occupation, which it declared tantamount to racial segregation and apartheid . The General Assembly adopted that opinion. These findings are more than sufficient for action. Further, it is the state of Israel who is accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, so it is the state that must be responsible for its wrongdoings. 

As I argue in my last report to the HRC, the Israeli economy is structured to sustain the occupation, and has now turned genocidal. It is impossible to disentangle Israel’s state policies and economy from its longstanding policies and economy of occupation. It has been inseparable for decades. The longer states and others stay engaged, the more this illegality at its heart is legitimised. This is the complicity. Now that economy has turned genocidal. There is no good Israel, bad Israel. 

I ask you to consider this moment as if we were sitting here in the 1990s, discussing the case of apartheid South Africa. Would you have proposed selective sanctions on SA for its conduct in individual Bantustans? Or would you have recognised the state’s criminal system as a whole? And here, what Israel is doing is worse. This comparison— is a legal and factual assessment supported by international legal proceedings many in this room are part of.  

This is what concrete measures mean. Negotiating with Israel on how to manage what remains of Gaza and West Bank, in Brussels or elsewhere, is an utter dishonor international law. 

And to the Palestinians and those from all corners of the world standing by them, often at great cost and sacrifice, I say whatever happens, Palestine will have written this tumultuous chapter—not as a footnote in the chronicles of would-be conquerors, but as the newest verse in a centuries-long saga of peoples who have risen against injustice, colonialism, and today more than ever neoliberal tyranny.

Progressive International for more

by SHARON ADARLO

Biological science has made such astonishing leaps in the last few decades, such as precise gene editing, that scientists are now tackling the next logical — yet inherently controversial — step: fabricating human DNA from the ground up.

Details are a bit vague, but a team of scientists in the United Kingdom have embarked on a new project to construct what they describe in a statement as the “first synthetic human chromosome.”

The scientists hope that the five-year Synthetic Human Genome project will result in better understanding of the essential building blocks that make human life possible and find clues to cure diseases and debilitating genetic conditions — so it’s not like they are trying to make life from nothing like God, a well-used plot line in lots of science fiction movies.

“The ability to synthesize large genomes, including genomes for human cells, may transform our understanding of genome biology and profoundly alter the horizons of biotechnology and medicine,” said Jason Chin, a biology professor at Oxford University and one of the project leads.

The medical non-profit, Wellcome Trust, is kicking in an initial $13.7 million for the project, which builds on the successfully completed project to map the entire human genome, which Wellcome also funded, according to the BBC.

Making synthetic genomes isn’t an entirely novel endeavor. Back in 2010, scientists managed to make from scratch the whole genome of a simple bacterium, and then plugged its genetic material inside an empty cell of another bacterium, making something entirely new that they cleverly dubbed Synthia. Scientists have also synthesized viral and yeast cells in other research.

But a human genome is an entirely different proposition. For one thing, it involves a vastly more complex organism than some bacteria. And two, ethical concerns abound. Any whiff of messing around with human DNA has the stink of designer babies and eugenics.

Because of these concerns, the project has a social research component.

“Over the next five years, the team will undertake a transdisciplinary and transcultural investigation into the socio-ethical, economic, and policy implications of synthesising human genomes,” the statement on the research reads.

That sentence does feel a bit vague — so we’ll be closely watching this project to see how it plays out in more concrete terms.

At the end of the five years, the project leaders hope they’ll have a finished human chromosome. That will be a huge step for biological progress — but there will no doubt be many ethical questions to unpack. Starting with: what’s the meaning of life, if we can make it ourselves?

Futurism for more

by PELMAN SALEHI

Once a symbol of anti-imperial unity, BRICS now risks becoming the very thing Bandung opposed: a club of powerful states reproducing global inequality in a new key.

At the BRICS Dialogue with Developing Countries in Nizhny Novgorod in June 2024, South Africa’s then Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, when asked about BRICS’s tangible support for African countries, emphasized the need to “expand dialogue capacities” and “create space for the voices of the Global South to be heard.” While diplomatically worded, her response clearly illustrated that even at the highest levels, BRICS remains distant from offering concrete support mechanisms for the continent. This symbolic exchange sets the tone for a deeper reflection on how far BRICS has moved from the founding spirit of Global South solidarity first articulated at the 1955 Bandung Conference.

In 1955, leaders of 29 Asian and African countries gathered in Bandung, Indonesia, in a landmark conference that challenged colonial domination and Western imperialism. The Bandung Conference sought to assert a new vision of sovereignty, solidarity, and self-determination among the recently decolonized nations. It laid the foundation for the Non-Aligned Movement, inspired Pan-Africanism and Asian-African cooperation, and gave voice to a moral and political alternative to Cold War bipolarity.

Seventy years later, as the BRICS bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) expands its membership and seeks to offer a counterweight to Western hegemony, many are asking whether BRICS represents a continuation—or a betrayal—of Bandung’s spirit. Is BRICS the heir to the anticolonial, egalitarian project of the Global South? Or has it become a pragmatic alliance of economic interests, untethered from the radical imagination of its predecessors?

BRICS, for all its symbolic importance and economic weight, has so far failed to articulate a coherent strategic alternative to Western-led globalization. It lacks not only institutional depth but also the ideological clarity and political will that Bandung embodied. Unlike Bandung, which was rooted in shared anti-imperial struggles and a commitment to moral leadership, BRICS has been hampered by internal contradictions, geopolitical caution, and elite-driven agendas.

The promise of Bandung was not simply unity among postcolonial states—it was a vision of global justice grounded in resistance to empire. Leaders like Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno, and Nkrumah saw themselves as part of a world-historical movement. They were not merely defending sovereignty; they were articulating a new internationalism from below. In contrast, BRICS has often failed to speak with one voice on matters of war, peace, or development. During critical moments—such as NATO’s intervention in Libya, the Gaza wars, or coups in Africa—its silence has been deafening.

China and Russia, to be sure, have increasingly challenged US unipolarity, especially in the wake of the Ukraine war and rising tensions in the South China Sea. But their confrontations with the West are largely framed in realist terms: a clash of great powers, not a struggle for the oppressed. Brazil and India, meanwhile, oscillate between Global South rhetoric and integration into Western-dominated financial and security institutions. South Africa, despite its post-apartheid legacy, has not consistently mobilized the language of liberation in its foreign policy.

The expansion of BRICS in 2024 to include countries like Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Argentina was seen by some as a revival of its southern identity. But enlargement alone cannot resolve the bloc’s identity crisis. Without a shared political vision, BRICS risks becoming a loose consortium of discontent rather than a transformative force. The challenge is not simply to oppose the West—it is to construct an alternative rooted in the struggles and aspirations of the majority world.

There are signs of hope. The push for de-dollarization, efforts to build new development banks, and calls for UN reform reflect a growing impatience with Western dominance. Civil society actors, social movements, and intellectuals across the South continue to invoke Bandung as a source of inspiration. But the gap between elite summitry and grassroots solidarity remains wide.

To recover the spirit of Bandung, BRICS must do more than convene. It must commit to principles: anti-imperialism, economic justice, climate equity, and popular sovereignty. It must listen to the voices from below—from African farmers to Asian workers to Latin American feminists. Only then can it move beyond symbolism and offer a credible path toward a more just and multipolar world. Otherwise, BRICS risks becoming what Bandung opposed: a club of powerful states reproducing global inequality in a new key.

Africa’s role in BRICS remains complex and under-explored. While South Africa is a founding member, its ability to shape the bloc’s agenda has been limited. Countries like Zambia, burdened by debt and austerity, have looked to BRICS as a possible alternative to Western financial institutions—but with few concrete results. The New Development Bank’s track record in Africa remains modest, and many governments remain cautious about aligning too closely with Beijing or Moscow. Similarly, in West Asia, BRICS has offered no unified stance on the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza or the continued marginalization of Palestine. The bloc’s silence on these issues further distances it from the legacy of Bandung, which was rooted in anti-imperial solidarity and moral clarity.

Perhaps it is time to ask a more provocative question: Should we wait for states to revive the Bandung legacy, or has the mantle already shifted to grassroots movements, academic networks, and local struggles? From climate justice campaigns in Nairobi to feminist mobilizations in Buenos Aires, the postcolonial internationalism of the 21st century may no longer rely on elite summits. If BRICS is serious about honoring its southern identity, it must choose: replicate the hierarchies it once sought to dismantle—or rediscover the radical hope of Bandung through action, not symbolism.

Africa is a Country for more

by BEN WOOLLARD

A fateful visit to a market in Moscow entirely upended Tolstoy’s view on life and society—and changed the trajectory of his work and purpose.

On a visit to Moscow in 1881, Count Leo Tolstoy was horrified at the destitution he encountered. He’d seen poverty before, had witnessed beggars and country dwellers barely eking out a living from the land, burdened by taxes and rents. But he wasn’t prepared for the magnitude and raggedness of the city’s poor, nor for the extent of their persecution by the police. He was horrified to realize that the beggars in the streets had to ask for alms with caution lest they be arrested. On the advice of a friend, he went to the Khitrov Market, a center of poverty and homelessness. What he saw there permanently changed his outlook on life and society. Following the crowds of tattered men and women, he entered the free night-lodging house and spoke to those seeking shelter. Afterwards, he returned to his servants and opulent town house and sat down to a five-course meal.

The disjunction between these two worlds, that of the rich and that of the poor, disgusted him. He grew irritated at the thought of well-kept horses, decadent table spreads, and the lavish entertainment of theaters.

“I could not help seeing, in contrast to all this,” he wrote in What Is to Be Done? (1886), “those hungry, shivering, and degraded inhabitants of the night-lodging-house. I could never free myself from the thought that these conditions were inseparable—that the one proceeded from the other.”

At first, Tolstoy attempted to alleviate the suffering of the poor through charity. He took up collections and joined the census in order to find the needy on whom to bestow the alms of the rich. Yet he found money to be insufficient. Not only were many not in direct, desperate need of it, simply handing out bills only exasperated the system of exploitation and warped values that generated poverty.

“It is not enough to feed a man, dress him, and teach him Greek,” he wrote. A whole shift in values was necessary, one in which all learned “how to take less from others and give them more in return.”

Thus, Tolstoy began to question the very foundations of Russian society, a path of inquiry that led him ultimately to criticize the very basis of civilization as commonly understood. Combining such reflections with a radical, though idiosyncratic, Christianity, he articulated a new politics with prophetic fervor, a belief system best described as Christian anarchism.

The nineteenth century saw a flowering of anarchist thought with figures such as Proudhon, Fourier, Kropotkin, Rousseau, and others. Tolstoy was thus not unique in his espousal of the doctrine, though he gave it his own particular flavor. While there are no perfectly identical principles common amongst these thinkers, the political scientist R. B. Fowler observes that nineteenth-century anarchists can be broadly characterized by a “rejection of the familiar norms and structures, especially the political ones, of their age” and a belief that humanity ought to live free of government structures and in accord with nature—meaning both the environment and human nature more specifically. While nature was variously defined by different anarchists, most agreed that human nature ought to guide civilization and that human beings are basically good, intrinsically capable of harmony. Nature, therefore, and not individual will or desire, ought to be the guide. As Fowler outlines, in contrast to much contemporaneous Liberal thought, anarchists believed that personal liberty was best pursued socially, in a community free of government and living peacefully with the wider environment.

While for many nineteenth-century anarchists, human nature was understood in scientific terms, Tolstoy understood it religiously. His guiding principles were derived from his interpretation of Christianity, though he rejected much of orthodox doctrine, including Jesus’s divinity, the existence of angels, and the validity of the church. Instead, Tolstoy saw the meaning of Christianity primarily in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. As the economist Robert Higgs writes, the sermon can be summarized by the commandments “to love others as one’s self and to abstain from the use of force or violence.” These teachings, Tolstoy believed, formed the true essence of Christianity, which had been distorted by the church in order to protect its own interests. He thus rejected much Christian tradition, stating in The Kingdom of God Is Within You that “the churches are placed in a dilemma: the Sermon on the Mount or the Nicene Creed—the one excludes the other.”

This isn’t to say, however, that Tolstoy denied the existence of God or the necessity of the divine in human life. Rather, his whole conception of human nature and Christian life was based on the presence of God within each individual person, particularly in reason and conscience. As Fowler writes, Tolstoy believed “in the authority of the divine vested in man’s conscience.” It’s not so much human nature understood in isolation that serves as the basis for Tolstoy’s anarchism, then, as it is the presence of God within that nature, guiding reason and conscience toward a conception of life based on the love of all. True human freedom, for Tolstoy, consisted not in autonomy or power over one’s circumstances, “but in the capacity for recognizing and acknowledging the truth…and becoming the free and joyful participator in the eternal and infinite work of God, the life of the world.”

With this basis, and in keeping with the larger anarchist tradition, Tolstoy rejected many of the social structures of his time. In What Is to Be Done?, he described how his experiences with the Moscow poor led him to abhor the class divides that kept so many in poverty. He came to believe that the injustice he witnessed was caused by the refusal of the rich to labor. Having taken by force the goods of the peasants in taxes and rent, the rich congregated in cities. The peasants followed out of a need to earn a living, but they were frequently corrupted by the ideals of luxury and idleness exemplified by the rich, further driving them into poverty.

JSTOR Daily for more

by KIT KLARENBERG

As the dust settles on the “12 Day War”, it is ever-clearer that the conflict was a crushing defeat for Israel and the US. In retrospect, the Zionist entity’s sole success was a wave of assassinations in the conflict’s first hours. A fawning June 19th Financial Times report hinted cutting-edge technology drawing together diverse data and intelligence sources was responsible. This raises the obvious question of whether Tel Aviv was assisted in its murderous spree by notorious private spying giant Palantir.

An avowedly pro-Israel tech giant founded by Donald Trump confidante and ardent Zionist Peter Thiel, which reportedly provides artificial intelligence tech supporting Tel Aviv’s genocide in Gaza, Palantir’s tendrils extend typically unseen into almost every conceivable sphere of public and private life across the West. Moreover, the firm – launched with seed funding from CIA venture capital wing In-Q-Tel – has long-played a pivotal but barely acknowledged role in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s monitoring of Tehran’s nuclear research.

The interpretation Palantir was one way or another involved in Israel’s illegal “preemptive” war of aggression against Tehran is amply reinforced by the release of sensitive Israeli documents by Iran’s intelligence ministry. These files indicate the IAEA previously provided Israeli intelligence with the names of several Iranian nuclear scientists, who were subsequently assassinated. Additionally, current Association chief Rafael Grossi enjoys a close, long-running, clandestine relationship with Israeli officials. Subsequent disclosures could expose the IAEA’s dark alliance with Palantir.

‘Fishing Expedition’

In July 2015, the Obama administration inked the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Tehran. Under its auspices, in return for sanctions relief, the IAEA was granted unimpeded access to Iran’s nuclear facilities, to ensure the Islamic Republic was not developing nuclear weapons. Vast amounts of information on and within the sites, including surveillance camera photos, measurement data, and documents were collected along the way. The Association consistently found Iran was stringently adhering to the JCPOA’s terms.

Z Network for more

by ANILKUMAR PAYYAPPILLY VIJAYAN

They did not build the house of the Republic, but they now offer guided tours – all while chiselling away at its foundation with a smile and a flag.

There’s a classic paradox from vaudeville. Someone says to Emanuel Ravelli, “I used to know an Emanuel Ravelli who looked exactly like you.” Ravelli replies, “I am Emanuel Ravelli!” The other nods: “No wonder you look like him” (Animal Crackers (1930) Movie Script).

Circular logic dressed as insight – not unlike the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s approach to the Indian Constitution. The RSS says, “We don’t like this Constitution.” The marginalised reply, “But it guarantees equality and religious neutrality.” The RSS responds, “Exactly – that’s why we don’t like it.” Their posturing has all the guile of a child hiding behind its fingers, convinced no one can see it. Current Time 0:05/Duration 2:04 Advertisement

I like their innocence. It is so transparent, so childish. It lacks even the cunning of a Gandhi or the sinister depth of a Heidegger.

They seem to believe – in all seriousness – that Ambedkar fought to become an untouchable again, to proudly become what he was born into. That the child made to pull the bullock cart himself – then left bleeding by the roadside when it overturned – was not resisting caste, they say, but merely asking to be abandoned more politely. For a gentler fall.

A more dignified humiliation. That the man who was denied water, dignity, and humanity wanted a cleaner corner on the school floor, not the annihilation of the system that put him there. That the Constitution he drafted was not a weapon against graded inequality, but a kind of accommodation letter – a folded note of apology to Hindu society.

“One should become what one was!” – that seems to be the RSS’s dream for Dalits, Adivasis, and minorities. A return, not to dignity, but to assigned place. I’m not sure what the philosophical term is. Hegel’s teleological becoming? Or Heidegger’s authenticity? Or just ritualised regression dressed up as destiny?

Ambedkar stuffed and displayed

This is not misreading. This is a ritual purification of revolt, recasting fire as submission and rage as obedience. This is ideological taxidermy – hollowing out Ambedkar and stuffing him with docility. They preserve the external form (his image, his name, maybe a quote or two), but remove the substance – his radical anti-caste, anti-Hindu, pro-Constitution stance – and replace it with something completely tame and unthreatening. A lifeless, decorative version of a revolutionary.

The Wire for more