Global

“Imperialism leaves behind germs of rot which we must clinically detect and remove from our land but from our minds as well,” Frantz Fanon wrote in ‘The Wretched of the Earth’.

 What the iconic anti-colonial philosopher and psychiatrist was essentially arguing is that the mind must be decolonized first, in order for the undoing of colonialism to succeed in all aspects of our liberation.  

 Many in the Global South, but especially intellectuals and analysts concerned with Middle Eastern affairs, are still struggling with their relationship with the United States.

As Christian nationalism, the political right and Trump-mania seem to tighten their grip on the country, maybe now is the time for me to take a deep dig into the complex preciousness of . . . life itself.

Hey, guess what? I’m “pro-life” — by which I mean, you know, pro-life in a deep, soul-gripping, planet-loving, war-hating way. By which I mean: Let us reclaim Roe v. Wade from the smug, bureaucratic moral certainty — “your body, my choice” — of the anti-choicers, who apparently could care less about the impact Roe’s overturning has had on medical care and the safety, both physical and spiritual, of women.

But I want to put my words into the paradoxical context of life itself. As a man, I am writing, of course, from the perimeter of the process. I am a dad. I’m also a journal-keeper. The other day I happened to dig back nearly 40 years into an old notebook and reread, for the first time in decades, the journal entry I wrote the day after my daughter was born. Mom and newborn were still in the hospital. That evening, when I came home, I had to let my words flow.

A major problem in American thinking in the Middle East is the utter rejection of the notion that Palestinian rights are fundamental, if at all relevant, to the coveted peace and stability.

 Long before Donald Trump's first 'Deal of the Century’ was officially revealed on January 28, 2020, successive US administrations attempted to 'stabilize' the Middle East at the expense of Palestinians. 

In a landmark front page feature, the Los Angeles Times has made a powerful argument for shutting California’s last two atomic reactors.

The forty-year-old Diablo Canyon nukes are being subsidized by statewide ratepayers to the tune of nearly $12 billion in over-market charges slated to enrich Pacific Gas & Electric through 2030.  PG&E’s CEO, Patti Poppe, was paid more than $40 million in 2022.  The company has been convicted of more than 90 federal manslaughter charges stemming from fatal fires in San Bruno in 2010, and in northern California in 2017  

Taking up a quarter of the Times’s November 25 cover, the feature by Melody Peterson reports that a “glut” of solar-generated electricity is regularly shipped out of state at enormous losses to California rate payers.  Green energy capable of powering more than a half-million homes is regularly “curtailed.”