Terror Firma
What today's philanthro-capitalists take away from giving.
Sociologist Linsey McGoey explores the ways in which a new breed of philanthropists - from Bill Gates to Mark Zuckerberg - are actually increasing global inequality and instability as they work to expand corporate influence into the laws and lives of the people they claim to aid, while turning charity into industry and extracting profit from the most vulnerable.
Linsey is author of No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy from Verso Books.
The fossil fuel industry's pipeline to political power runs through the White House.
Journalist Steve Horn digs into an Exxon-backed pipeline permit bill signed by President Obama while everyone was distracted by the empty / non-binding / cynical / symbolism of the Paris climate talks, and explains why the bill's industry-approved weakening of regulations and environmental reviews signal the real source of power in America's energy policy.
Steve posted the DeSmog Blog article During Paris Climate Summit, Obama Signed Exxon-, Koch-Backed Bill Expediting Pipeline Permits.
Navigating Middle East politics, between chaos and stability, between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The Radical Pessimist, Kevan Harris examines the domestic political context around Middle East following Saudi Arabia's execution of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr, where Saudi Arabia and Iran try to maintain stability amid protests, trashed embassies, non-proxy players exploiting sectarian conflicts for power plays, and unstable alliances between the remaining states that are still states.
Neoliberalism injects violence into our lives, and fear into our politics.
Cultural critic Henry Giroux examines the ways in which conflict has entered the fabric of American life - from the ways social and economic problems are met with state violence, to a media and political class the celebrates cruelty and spectacle - and explains why renewing social bonds and class solidarity are key to reclaiming control of public life from the forces that make strangers, and enemies, of us all.
Henry is author of the new book America’s Addiction to Terrorism from Monthly Review.
A survey of the conflicts and contradictions facing Nepal's left.
Live from Kathmandu, journalist Shubhanga Pandey explores the recent political history of Nepal - from liberalized economy to post-coup civil war - and explains how the country's recent constitutional crisis exposes both economic and ethnic divisions among the population, and Nepal's Maoists left - which finds itself unable to balance concerns of regional autonomy and ethnic nationalism.
Shubhanga wrote the Jacobin article The Next Nepali Revolution.
Something much dumber than white privilege is behind the Oregon militia standoff.
Jeff Dorchen visits the occupied Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters and finds the only policing going on to be the narrative kind, where comparisons to the treatment of Black Lives Matter protestors at the hands of law enforcement miss one vital measurement - relevance, and with it the chance of accomplishing anything real and lasting.
