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I Will Not Fight For Queen and Country

Ben Griffin is an ex-SAS soldier who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. The speech was given at Oxford Union, England.

Class and Climate Change

A very good analysis. “ If the analysis of the skewed distribution of consumption, decision-making power, and financial capacity all lead us to the same place, it is not by accident. Where we have arrived is at the analysis of class identities, class relations and class power.” I don’t think one can separate the capitalist mode of production and how exploits and generates things and class. After all, upper classes existed before capitalism. It is what capital and capitalism endows that class today makes it a bigger consumer and destroyer of the environment. Climate, Carbon and Class Related “By far the most comprehensive catalogue ever assembled of how climate change is upending our world, the report reads like a 4,000-page indictment of humanity's stewardship of the planet. But the document, designed to influence critical policy decisions, is not scheduled for release until February 2022 - too late for crunch UN summits this year on climate, biodiversity and food systems, some sci

Israel, Zionism, Apartheid

How the Jewish state’s founding ideology shapes it to this day Related Even the liberal Ban Ki-moon is better than the ‘liberals’ in power: “The starting point of a new approach must be to recognise the fundamental asymmetry between the parties. This is not a conflict between equals that can be resolved through bilateral negotiations, confidence-building measures or mutual sequencing of steps — the traditional conflict-resolution tools.  The reality is very different: a powerful state is controlling another people through an open-ended occupation, settling its own people on the land in violation of international law and enforcing a legal regime of institutionalised discrimination. Calls for a return to unconditional bilateral talks every time there is a fresh flare-up in fighting will only serve to perpetuate the status quo if these root causes are not addressed.  What has become increasingly clear in recent years is Israel’s intent to maintain its structural domination and oppression

Illusions of Empire by Amartya Sen

“During my days as a student at a progressive school in West Bengal in the 1940s, these questions came into our discussion constantly. They remain important even today, not least because the British empire is often invoked in discussions about successful global governance. It has also been invoked to try to persuade the US to acknowledge its role as the pre-eminent imperial power in the world today...” Amartya Sen on what British rule really did in India Related Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor