IN EARLY MARCH 2024, two photos, each of a disturbing leaflet produced and circulated in Times Square in New York ostensibly in support of Palestinians, began circulating widely on X/Twitter. On each leaflet, superimposed over the Palestinian flag, was a slogan: “Rape is resistance” on one, and “Babies are occupiers too” on the other. “Free Palestine,” the subscript read, “by any means necessary.” Despite calls for other images of the leaflets to establish their origins and authenticity, only these two have appeared.
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WHEN THINKING ABOUT the works of Leo Tolstoy, one would be forgiven if the first books that come to mind are Anna Karenina (1887)and War and Peace (1869); they are his most famous titles after all. However, many might be surprised by what some would call his political magnum opus, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894). Titled after a verse in Luke 17, this book outlines Tolstoy’s major deviation from standard Christian dogma and doctrine of the Russian Orthodox, and, indeed, the majority of major Church doctrines around the world.
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ON APRIL 17, 2024, the students of Columbia University’s “Apartheid Divest” coalition, led by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, erected an encampment, a “liberated zone” with posters copied straight from the Columbia occupation of 1968. As this encampment began, Columbia’s President Shafik was sitting before congress to testify about the rise of antisemitism on college campuses. When she returned to campus, President Shafik ordered the destruction of the encampments and the arrest of over 100 student protesters.
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ECOSOCIALISM IS NOW well entrenched in the “Left,” and is endorsed by many long-established sects. Proponents believe the deteriorating natural environment has created an urgent need to cast off capitalism and adopt this new green and crunchy variety of socialism.
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AT THE PLATYPUS European Conference, I suggested that there is a modern theory of crisis that is no longer fit for purpose. It belongs to modern political theory in general. It is not exclusively Marxist. You’ll find it in Lenin and Adorno, but also in Jürgen Habermas and Reinhart Koselleck. Indeed, you’ll even find it in Robert Dahl, if you know where to look.
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