Dilip Simeon's blog

Throughout the long, documented  history  of the United States illegally overthrowing governments of foreign lands to build a global empire there has emerged three ways Washington broadly carries out “regime change.”  From Above . If the targeted leader has been democratically elected and enjoys popular support, the C.I.A. has worked with elite groups, such as the military, to overthrow him (sometimes through assassination). Among several examples is the first C.I.A-backed  coup d’état , on March 30, 1949, just 18 months after the agency’s founding, when Syrian Army Colonel  Husni al-Za’im  overthrew the elected president,  Shukri al-Quwatli.    Chilean presidential palace during U.S.-backed coup, Sept 11, 1973.  Library of the Chilean National Congress/Wikipedia) The C.I.A. in 1954 toppled the elected President  Jacobo Árbenz   of Guatemala, who was replaced with a military dictator. In 1961, just three days before the ...

Prison was a central pillar of communism and an experience shared by generations of eastern Europeans. The USA today can also be described as a carceral society, its prison system the expression of a ‘new Jim Crow’. What does the comparison mean for the definition of the ‘political prisoner’? A conversation. I’m American, but I’m a historian of eastern Europe. Since Donald Trump, however, one of the things I’ve come to appreciate is the centrality of mass incarceration in the context both of American racism in particular and of our political system more broadly. Many of the people I’ve known in eastern Europe, especially among the generation born just after the war, have also had the experience of being in prison – in their cases, as political prisoners. For a still earlier generation – the avant-garde poets, for example, who got themselves involved in communism – there was an assumption that sooner or later you would sit in prison. In an interview with Antonín Liehm in the late 19...

There is nothing that cannot be corrupted, nothing good that cannot be transformed into something bad. And there is no clearer example than the great climate land grab. We now know that it’s not enough to leave fossil fuels in the ground and decarbonise our economies. We’ve left it too late. To prevent no more than 1.5C of heating, we also need to draw down some of the carbon  already in the atmosphere . By far the most effective means are  “nature-based solutions” : using the restoration of living systems such as forests, salt marshes, peat bogs and the seafloor to extract carbon dioxide from the air and lock it up, mostly in trees or waterlogged soil and mud. Three years ago, a small group of us launched the  Natural Climate Solutions campaign  to draw attention to the vast potential for stalling climate breakdown and a sixth mass extinction through the mass revival of ecosystems. While it is hard to see either climate or ecological catastrophe being prevented ...

NB:   The criterion which makes the difference between a great man and a popular one consists in the great man's searching for what is nobly human in the masses, to raise them by its means, whereas a merely popular man looks for what is low and brutal so as to raise himself ; Rabbi J.S. Bloch; My Reminiscences,  1923. DS Disaffection among subjects :  -  Kautilya: The Arthashastra  (1992) Impoverishment, greed and disaffection are engendered among the subjects when the king: (i) ignores the good [people] and favours the wicked; (ii) causes harm by new unrighteous practices; (iii) neglects the observation of the proper and righteous practices; (iv) suppresses dharma and propagates adharma; (v) does what ought not to be done and fails to do what ought to be done; (vi) fails to give what ought to be given and exacts what he cannot rightly take; (vii) does not punish those who ought to be punished but punishes those who do not deserve to be; (viii) arrests those wh...

The regent honeyeater is an endangered native Australian songbird, with only a few hundred left in the wild. A few years ago scientists noticed something odd – they were mimicking other birds, and unable to sing their own song. Environment reporter Graham Readfearn and Dr Joy Tripovich explain how this species lost its song, and whether teaching it how to sing again could help save it from extinction Photograph: Lachlan L Hall/AP https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/audio/2022/jan/13/revisited-could-bringing-back-its-love-song-save-one-of-australias-rarest-songbirds

Rajendra Prasad, the first president of India, gave this speech on August 14, 1947, just before India achieved independence. Because his thoughts on non-violence, truth and tolerance continue to have an enduring relevance today.     At this crucial juncture in our history, when after years and years of struggle, we are finally going to hold the reins of our country’s governance in our own hands, we should remember God, the Supreme Being, who shapes the destiny of individuals and countries. Let us pay homage to the many men and women, known and unknown, who laid down their lives, voluntarily or involuntarily, to attain the freedom of this day, those who happily climbed the gallows, and boldly embraced the bullets. Those who gave up their lives languishing in jails and on the island of Kala Pani, who without hesitation left behind their parents, their wives and children, their familial ties, and even the country and offered their life and wealth in sacrifice. This day to ...

Publishers and other institutions are turning cowardly and brittle when faced with social media frenzies   Clanchy appears to have been cast beyond the pale, where there is no room for nuance. But it is evident from the testimony of those who know her that she has done a huge amount of good, championing young people whom society too often ignores. Her students have gone on to  address the UN , been commissioned to  write poetry for the BBC  and had their  poetry set to music  by acclaimed composers. How to make sense of her ostracism? Some people are desperate to see the world cast in black and white. Clanchy’s worst crime is not to fit this mould. Of course she doesn’t: none of us can rise above the imperfectly human. Look at her in the round and it’s obvious she’s done more good than most. This is why the strand of anti-racist thinking that is obsessed with the blame and shame all white people should bear for structural discrimination is so corrosi...