Whoa. September was a complete washout, a zilch, for my plan to return to being a writer and getting my own voice back out there after nearly a decade of supporting other people’s voices. I have been super-busy in other parts of the Just World (anti-imperialist) “Empire”. I planned and then have been managing challenges … Continue reading What I’m not writing about when I’m not writing…
Bill the spouse and I have been lucky enough to get away from Washington DC for a few days, to enjoy the relatively bucolic charms of our former stomping-grounds in Charlottesville, Va. Today, we walked over to the Memorial for Enslaved Laborers that the University of Virginia opened on its famed “Grounds” recently. It is … Continue reading UVA’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers
Last week, I was busy with a large number of things, including diving deep into studies of Britain’s historic role in the West Indies for a biggish think-piece I’m working on. But my friends at Boston Review asked if I’d be interested in writing something about Beirut; and for some reason I said ‘Yes’. Of … Continue reading My piece “The Beirut That Was”
Sometimes, you find a book. And sometimes, when you are ready for it, a book finds you. Such has been my experience this past week with Sven Lindqvist’s slim 1992/96 volume “Exterminate All the Brutes”: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide. In recent weeks, as alert readers … Continue reading To Zinder
I’ve been researching and thinking a lot about the forms of settler colonialism unleashed and maintained by “White” European nations– mainly, my own people-of-birth, the British– against people of color in many parts of the world. At times, doing this research– reading these accounts, seeing and trying to understand these pictures– makes me deeply, deeply … Continue reading The British genocides against Australian First Nations
Last week, I had the pleasure of conversing with Amb. Chas W. Freeman, Jr, on the “World After Covid” webinar series that Just World Educational has been running. Freeman, you may remember, was the man notably removed from consideration as Barack Obama’s first Director of National Intelligence because the pro-Israel lobby wanted to ensure that … Continue reading “White” European domination of the world screeches to an end
Today, an Air Algerie plane conveyed to the Houari Boumedienne International Airport in Algiers the mortal remains of Sheikh Ahmed Bouziane, commander of a native-Algerian force overpowered by the invading French in Zaatcha, Algeria, in November 1849, and 23 other members of the defeated Algerian defense force. According to this account by Madjid Zerrouky in … Continue reading The unbearable legacies of settler colonialism
Living in DC, one comes across opportunistic Astroturf organizations who come here to generate “images” of themselves as feisty, strongly supported “grassroots” orgs that presumably they then show to their financial backers to get more gobs of money. Often, they are laughably unsuccessful at presenting this picture. (The Saudi-supported, anti-Tehran MEK comes to mind…) Today, … Continue reading Opportunistic anti-Beijing Astroturfers perform near White House
The sustained outpouring of #BlackLivesMatter and related pro-justice activism right across the United States has been pushing important– and in most cases, long-overdue– change at many levels. One level is that of “high-end corporate media”, where just in the past week I have read three very moving essays by Black-American writers who have seemingly felt … Continue reading Powerful new testimonies from Black American veterans of the corporate media
A few weeks ago, my colleague on the board of Just World Educational Richard Falk and I launched a new initiative, an exploration of the ways the current “Covid era” has been upending the global balance balance. You can read more about our “World After Covid” project, here. It’s been intellectually engaging to get this … Continue reading Bill Fletcher, W.E.B. Dubois, and the World Today
