Thomas McGuire: Garden Plots
I’ve come to half believe what Ho Chi Minh
said about his need for more poets
who could lead a charge, sharpen bayonets.
Alfred Corn: Instagram posts of Dr. Ali Tahrawi
Tired as if we were dead and lived again and suffered all kinds of pains and died again and again every day, in this hell of life, as if this is it, forever, as if this genocide would never end, and as if death is the only way out!
Yahya Frederickson: Duqq
I believe only the desert
can know the aridity
of cardamom, coffee, and ginger.
Naomi Shihab Nye, Michael Simms & Friends: Poets for the People of Gaza
Naomi Shihab Nye, the current Young People’s Poet Laureate, and poet Michael Simms gather international poets to share works that navigate themes of identity, displacement, and home in Gaza.
Alessia Carneval: The history of protest songs in Tunisia and their link to popular culture
In Tunisia, the protest song is called al-ughniya al-multazima in Arabic, or chanson engagée in French. Both literally mean “committed song” and put an emphasis on the political and social aim of this genre.
Belén Fernández: Friedman at 50 Friedman Units
Thanks to Thomas Friedman’s relentless service as a mouthpiece for US empire and capital, he’s permitted to continue churning out his pseudo-thoughts week after week.
Danny Sjursen: The Unaccountable Nation
Imperial hyper-powers, particularly in their late-stages, often employ foot soldiers across vast swathes of the planet, and eventually either lose control of their actions or aren’t concerned with their resultant atrocities in the first place.
LaDonna Brave Bull Allard: We Stand in Solidarity with Rojava, an Example to the World
Since 2012, around 5 million people – Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, Turkmen, Yazidis and others – have built the autonomous region of Rojava, demonstrating how a multi-ethnic society can respectfully coexist beyond the constraints of nation state, patriarchy and capitalism.
Choman Hardi: Homeland, what shall I do with you?
What shall I do with you, homeland?
What shall I do with all this blood?
Where shall I put you
to prevent you from filling my days
with damage and grief?
Stephen Zunes: ‘More AIPAC Than J Street’ — Kamala Harris Runs to the Right on Foreign Policy
Harris is being embraced by many progressive Democrats, and she’s branding herself as a progressive. Yet in the course of her little more than two years in the U.S. Senate, she’s taken some foreign policy positions that should give pause to supporters of human rights and international law.
Michael T. Klare: America’s Carbon-Pusher in Chief
Trump’s Fossil-Fueled Foreign Policy Who says President Trump doesn’t have a coherent foreign policy? Pundits and critics across the political spectrum have chided him for failing to articulate and implement … Continue reading
Andrew J. Bacevich: What Obsessing About You-Know-Who Causes Us To Miss
24 Key Issues That Neither the Washington Elite Nor the Media Consider Worth Their Bother Donald Trump’s election has elicited impassioned affirmations of a renewed commitment to unvarnished truth-telling from … Continue reading
Video: Rana Choir — I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier
. The Jewish Arab women’s choir Rana, based in Jaffa, implores us: “Here and everywhere else in the world, there’d be no war today if mothers all would say: I … Continue reading
David Vine: The Bases of War in the Middle East
From Carter to the Islamic State, 35 Years of Building Bases and Sowing Disaster With the launch of a new U.S.-led war in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State … Continue reading
