On Rustaveli Avenue, just outside the dappled cream facade of the Georgian parliament, people in the crowds of protesters are kicking footballs around. They stand in circles, pinging the ball between them; pairing off, they pass it rapidly to one …
It’s crazy I have to point this out
This one got a lot of a certain kind of people all worked up and very emotional. Which says a lot about the state of the current culture and society we live […]
Source: BJØRN ANDREAS BULL-HANSEN Read the original …
A food apocalypse is coming
In the dystopian drama The Last of Us, a fungal virus has spread through foodstuffs turning infected humans into zombies. The survivors live in ghettos, among the ruins, armed to avoid a gruesome living death. They grow their own food …
Could Elon Musk make Farage king?
Morgan McSweeney, Dominic Cummings and Tony Blair. They represent wildly different political traditions and instincts, but to spend any time with them is to be immediately struck by how closely their analyses can overlap. And right now, their Venn diagram …
Syria is doomed to instability
The House of Assad endured for over half a century, but crumbled in 10 days. Ba’athism is dead and Abu Mohammed al-Jolani now finds himself the de facto leader of a government in Damascus, led by his rebel coalition Hay’at …
How China burned German industry
“Today’s Germany is the best Germany the world has seen.” So effused the Washington Post columnist George F. Will five long years ago. It’s hard to imagine anyone — even a German — writing those words today. The country is …
The Turkish Left’s love for Assad
Bashar al-Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron fist for 24 years before getting his comeuppance, received silent support from one of the unlikeliest places during his dictatorial rule. Numerous groups in Turkey’s splintered Left, from self-professed Maoists to Stalin …
Why I’m leaving the UK
The United Kingdom is a totalitarian hellscape. Freedom of speech has been all but abolished. Our police forces are now indistinguishable from the Gestapo. Criticism of the government will soon be illegal under imminent laws against thought crime. It will …
The politicians lying about Syria
Old grievances in Western politics have been reopened by the sudden fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. And they are as dispiriting in their dishonesty as they are myopic in their self-interest. On the one hand, we have the unrepentant interventionists …
Joe Biden’s pardons are a moral surrender
Compartmentalised people are difficult enough to deal with. A compartmentalised culture sleepwalks toward oblivion.
Consider New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, who wrote in December 2017, not even a year into Trump’s presidency: “As this hideous, discombobulating year comes to …
The sanctions-busters funding Iran
Donald Trump isn’t yet back in the White House — but his Iranian policy is clear. Like he did in his first term, he’ll pursue a vigorous policy against Tehran, hampering its nuclear programme and backing its rivals across the …
The truth about the Woke Right
The feminist writer Audre Lorde famously observed that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. She was wrong, though. Sometimes appropriating the master’s tools can come in very handy. Already accustomed to the sound of falling masonry, onlookers …
Is Bernie Sanders going MAGA?
Bernie Sanders has been anything but quiet in the weeks since the Democrats’ defeat on 5 November, issuing stinging criticisms of the party with which he is only functionally affiliated as an independent. But recent days have seen even more …
How von der Leyen sold out the farmers
This is a story which exemplifies the vicious, anti-democratic cycle that underpins the EU’s political dynamics. It is about decision-making processes which alienate voters and lead to weakened and discredited governments. It is about Ursula von der Leyen finally managing …
Will Syria re-open Lebanon’s wounds?
For most of Lebanon’s modern history, the Assads have been as immovable as its mountains. As far back as 1976, early in the Lebanese Civil War, Hafez al-Assad ordered Syrian troops over the border. And there they remained, for 29 …