Two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial—bylined by its editorial board—condemning the “woke” direction of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC)’s new recommendations for medical schools. “...
Today I am beyond outraged and I can’t breathe. Palestinians the world over are weeping and mourning the loss of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Her brutal murder by Israeli Defense Forces, with a bullet to the face while clearly wearing a PRESS vest, shook me to the core. Dedicating her life to reporting the truth and exposing the horrors of the ongoing Israeli occupation, Shireen represents the best Palestine and humanity has ever produced. But outrage and heartache do not come close to describing what I am feeling right now for what my brothers and sisters in Palestine have been through—and the daily systemic abuse and suffering they continue to endure—at the hands of the evil apartheid regime in Israel.
What happened this past week—...
It wasn’t my choice to leave Odesa. My father decided, my mother agreed, and so it happened. In 1976. We were lucky to get out, lucky to avoid the fates of refuseniks and political prisoners in the Gulag, lucky that my father—who lost his job immediately upon applying for an exit visa—did not get arrested for parasitism, lucky that I would be able to live my life in the relative freedom of America. But part of the bargain was leaving forever and letting others contend with the insatiable cannibalism of the Soviet machine.
How do you put into words what it’s like to know you can never go back?
Think of it this way. You know how it is when your friend has been trying to get a hold of you, and you say to yourself, Well, I’ll get back to them...
Like many of you, I’ve been glued to the news this past week following Putin’s senseless, illegal, and immoral war on neighboring Ukraine. Our eyes are filled with images showing the horrors of Russia’s invasion. We stand in solidarity with the people of the Ukraine and our hearts and thoughts are with all those affected by this tragic war.
As a Palestinian whose family was displaced and exiled, it is easy for me to identify with the suffering of the people of Ukraine and feel their anger towards the invading Russian army. The fear, the indiscriminate bombardment, the destruction, the scenes of women and children taking refuge in subways and underground shelters, and the ensuing massive refugee crisis are all too familiar to me.
War sets...
Editor's Note: First posted precisely one year ago, we can think of nothing more appropriate to revisit on this dark anniversary than Harry Harootunian's chilling and incisive diagnosis of our world today.
(Image: Ben Shahn, Walking Figures: circa 1960, silkscreen.)
Abstract
“A Fascism for Our Time” focuses on how the accidental convergence of global capital and the COVID pandemic, by traveling the same route, has inadvertently unveiled unraveling circumstances in our political, economic, and social life that easily point to the possible formation of a fascist political imaginary in the...
Front Cover by Fred Wilson
X (detail) from the Exit Art portfolio Tantra 2005
