Pathways for the Post-COVID New Old World

Part 5 of 5 of the COVID-19 Series. Some are openly proclaiming, “you don’t want to waste a crisis,” as they calculate how the crisis could become a series of opportunities to “change things”. We have to question whether strategic pre-positioning to shape the “post-COVID normal,” might end up even unconsciously shaping the authorities’ responses […]

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History Will Absolve Me: Sixty Years Later

Today marks the 60th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s famous “History Will Absolve Me” speech, given in his defense during his trial following the unsuccessful guerrilla attack on the Moncada barracks on July 26 of that year. The complete speech, which was transcribed after the fact entirely from memory, is available here in English and aquí […]

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Libya: What Revolution? Whose Revolution?

If David Cameron had been known for modeling his speeches on old Monty Python films, then he might be praised for his witty and clever genius in devising such a politically and morally fraudulent speech such as the one above. He opens with gushing sentiment about a “new beginning for Libya,” hailing freedom from violence even as his jets pound Libyan targets. As always before, the British love to set an example on how politics are to be done, and it was usually with a good whipping followed by tutorials on how to best mimic the master, with powdered wigs, robes, and a broken sense of self….

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Benjamin Franklin's Great Seal of the U.S.

The Exodus Story and Western Conceptions of Progress, Movement, Revolution

Exodus: Movement of the People Thinking still of Gastón Cordillo’s essays on resonance—“Resonance and the Egyptian Revolution” and “The Speed of Revolutionary Resonance,” and others writing about “The Phenomenology of the Resonance-Reverberation Doublet”—I remember writing to Gastón that the concept of resonance reminded me of “agitation,” which raised other associations of political terms that are […]

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Egypt and the Clinton Doctrine

“The United States will continue to be a friend and partner to Egypt. We stand ready to provide whatever assistance is necessary and asked for to pursue a credible transition to a democracy.” —Barack Obama, speech on Friday, 11 February 2011, on the resignation of Hosni Mubarak Finally, Mubarak is out. But the U.S. is […]

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The Song of the Nonaligned Nile

The United States, whose hallowed creation myth styles America as the quintessential child of revolution, has for decades navigated the insupportable irony of denying others their own political parturition through the ideological conflation of freedom with stability. From Nicaragua to Iran, this deployment has served as a discursive validation for a host of violent counterinsurgency […]

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Egypt: Real Change Comes from the Street

I commented some years ago on the troubles that Egypt and related tyrant-run countries faced in the coming years. Saudi Arabia will not be far behind and the word will be better off when the House of Saud is toppled. I lost sleep over the efforts of the people of Egypt becoming at once very emotional/moved […]

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The Heroic People of Egypt

The down fall of Hosni Mobarak, the “blessed amicable”, will have profound consequences for the corrupting American presence in the region. The expulsion of Hosni will mean one less major obstacle to peace and justice in the Middle East. Egypt under Mobarak and Saudi Arabia are the two most corrupt pro-fascist, pro-Israeli regimes in the […]

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