Sitemap - 2024 - Bruce’s Contradicciones Newsletter

Jimmy Carter’s public career

Gaza and the Auschwitz liberation anniversary

Getting ready for the Trump-Putin negotiations over Ukraine

Western Europe and the Trump II strategic environment

Al Franken and George Packer on challenges to democracy

The Democratic Party and progressive politics in the post-Biden era

The TYT pile-on (which needed to happen)

The fate of Syria, still being fought out

Ukrainian drones aiding Syrian jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)?

The state of play in the post-Assad Middle East

Syria’s Sednaya prison, the “human slaughterhouse” that everyone seems to be condemning at the moment

Syria: Moving on from the Saddam’s-statue-is-falling moment

Assad’s fall: Good news? Bad news? Both?

US foreign policy ghoul happy with Trump’s new Israel team

Trump’s incoming Israel/Middle East team: they don’t look all that dovish

Posturing for peace talks in Ukraine

Big Picture on Ukraine while waiting for Trump 2.0

“Identity” politics

How far will Netanyahu’s war spread?

Israel’s longest war continues – and is flattening Lebanon

Economic benefits and “identity politics” – the never-ending controversy continues

“Camps” for those targeted for deportation

Trump DefSec pick Pete Hegseth (Hint: He's not a nice guy. Nor competent for that office)

Those Amsterdam Anti-Semitism Reports and the Serious Need for Professional and Accurate Journalism

Incoming President Trump and the Russia-Ukraine War

The “Generals’ Plan” for Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza

Adjusting to Trump II - Xenophobia edition

International networking for the AI economy

Do facts care about Trumpistas’ feelings?

US Presidential election aftershocks

The US Presidential election, two days later

“The result is a catastrophe for the world”

Sidney Blumenthal on Trump’s 2024 campaign

A sad appearance by Bill Clinton

A rule-of-law wish list for an incoming Harris Administration

The “f”-word (the Mussolini one, not the other one) in the last week of the US Presidential campaign

Did Netanyahu have an extremely rare moment of restraint this weekend?

Foreign policy during and after the US election

Is Ukraine winning their war?

Ana Kasparian and the left-to-right transition exercise

How far will Netanyahu’s war spread?

Conservative xenophobia – Dutch edition

A review of Israel’s wars since 1947 (Part 3 of 3)

Is hope a plan for the US in the Russia-Ukraine War?

A review of Israel’s wars since 1947 (Part 2 of 3)

Refuting the xenophobic political rhetoric in the EU

A review of Israel’s wars since 1947 (Part 1 of 3)

From The River To The Sea: 2024 Israeli Knesset version

The Soviet Union and the founding of Israel

Stephen Kotkin on nuclear blackmail in the Russia-Ukraine War

An informed conversation on how corruption works in elite British politics

A Primer from Richard Wolff on … Communism?

France and British politics and immigration

Conservative xenophobia – German edition

Stephen Walt on the current trend of US-Israel relationship

Election songs

Mexico’s new President Claudia Sheinbaum

Biden agrees to more war in the Middle East

Austrian National Election

The Israel-Lebanon War is nasty and getting nastier

Wolfgang Streeck on German politics and immigration

Update on the Christian nationalist right and its partners in political authoritarianism

John Mearsheimer debates Piers Morgan on the current Middle East war

Lebanon War – “Gaza” comes to Lebanon

Biden’s goodbye address to the UN coming on Tuesday

The lead-up to the new Israel-Lebanon war

Waiting for a new Israel-Lebanon War to begin

New escalatory move by Israel in Lebanon

Russia making trouble in … Argentina?

Climate change doesn’t care whether it’s good for people or not

Austrian parliamentary elections this month

Democracy and autocracy in the Harris-Trump debate

Jordanian Queen Rania’s Statement on Israel’s current war

Xenophobic sloganeering over Aurora, Colorado

Tucker Carlson’s Holocaust denier guest

Perception, information, disinformation – foreign policy runs on such things

Ben Hodges, superhawk on Ukraine vs. Russia - and “Senior Adviser” at a defense lobbying firm

Sunday’s election in the German states of Saxony and Thuringia

Commentary on Jade McGlynn’s book Putin’s War, Part 5 of 5

Commentary on Jade McGlynn’s book Putin’s War (2023), Part 4 of 5

Joschka Fischer on the current Middle East crisis and Gerhard Mangott on Ukraine’s current grim situation in the war with Russia

Commentary on Jade McGlynn’s book Putin’s War (2023), Part 3 of 5

Commentary on Jade McGlynn’s book Putin’s War (2023), Part 2 of 5

Commentary on Jade McGlynn’s book Putin’s War (2023), Part 1 of 5

The Democratic Convention and necessary foreign policy priorities for a Harris Administration

Bernie and Obama at the Democratic Convention

Israeli influence campaign on the US over the Gaza War

Price controls – Kamala Harris is proposing some

Another Democratic Convention in Chicago – with Protesters

Still waiting for the next shoe/drone/missile to drop in the Middle East

A strange monologue from a disturbed old criminal staged as a “press conference”

Is AI Mystical? A False God? The Latest Tech-Bro Hype?

End of an era? Start of a new one? Or just more of the messy present?

Venezuela’s disputed election

How much worse will Netanyahu’s ever-expanding war get?

Bracing for Netanyahu’s Next Disaster

What’s up with the World’s Most Moral Army in the Only Democracy In The Middle East?

“Domino theory” update: Is Russia intending to “move on to Poland and other places”?

Harris campaign's framing that Trump and Vance are “weird”

Kamala Harris and Israel policy

Three speeches: Biden, Netanyahu, convicted felon Trump

Thoughts from various sources about Netanyahu’s speech to Congress today

Netanyahu Is Not Welcome In Washington (at least not by everyone)

Harris is clearly the most likely Democratic Presidential candidate

How a rightwing demagogue counters the democracy-vs.-autocracy argument

Both sides do it? Obama 2010 edition

Political rhetoric and political violence in the Trump era

“Isolationism” in US foreign policy debates

“Political violence” in the US

On asking sensible questions about the Trump assassination attempt

AI and elections

The assassination attempt on Trump

Joe Biden on last September 29

Biden’s speech at the NATO summit

On the will-he-stay-or-will-he-go question

French President Macron criticizes Netanyahu's government for interfering in the French election

Keir Starmer does something very right in his first week in office

AI risks: real, exaggerated, and imaginary

Change of government in Britain – and the strengthening of Nigel Farage’s far right Reform Party

The license to do, well, anything he wants that the Project 2025 Supreme Court just gave the President. Including Biden.

Who’s driving the car in the US government?

French Parliamentary Election – Marine Le Pen’s far-right party gets most votes

Repercussions of the Biden-Trump Debate

Biden supporters very worried about his debate performance

Trump reality TV special with Joe Biden coming up later today

Mostly good news for liberal democracy in the EU from the pro-democracy parties

Argentina’s El Loco visits Germany, gets a lesson from the socialist Chancellor

A very good question about Netanyahu and the US

Far right populism in practice, Italian edition

AI in National Security Decision-Making

America-Firsterism, NATO, and the political waiting game in Europe

Reality-check on immigration/refugee issues in the EU from Judith Kohlenberger

Skeptics and doomers and hype-sters around AI, oh my!

Germany’s pro-Netanyahu “Staatsräson”

Sad days for the British center-right and center-left

EU Parliament Elections 2024: The day after

EU Parliament Elections 2024

This is the mess center-left parties wind up in when they try to “me-too” rightwing xenophobia

India's Narendra Modi and Indian democracy

Israel, Hezbollah and war in Lebanon

Biden’s strange diplomacy over Israel’s war in Gaza

Rightwing demagogue Nigel Farage wants to go back into the British Parliament

About the Kosovo War back when …

Hillary Clinton discovers something new

A rightwing shift in European politics in the making?

Biden’s new peace proposal for Gaza: a serious effort or a PR stunt?

Two stories that show the Presidential election dilemma with convicted felon Donald Trump as the Republican Presidential nominee

EU Parliament elections coming up

Trump, his political soulmates elsewhere, and the f-word

AI and Politics – as in practical campaigning, not as in producing Deep Fakes

The more things change… (Israel/Palestine edition)

Biden Administration floats new plan for postwar Gaza that is a real headscratcher

International Court of Justice issues new orders to Israel on the Gaza War

Democracy and “Polarization”

Richard Haass (again) on the Gaza war: “What then?”

Iran and the potential for serious escalation in the Middle East

Israel, Long Wars, and “Israel’s right to defend itself”

Attempted Assassination of Slovakia’s Prime Minister

Trump: “Are you listening, Israel?” Sound familiar?

The New York Times, antiwar protests, and antisemitism

How seriously can we take Biden’s recent step on arms supplies to Israel?

Liberal pundits and antiwar protests

Rafah: the new chapter of the continuing nightmare

Gaza protest at the university in Oxford, Mississippi

The latest morphing of rightwing anti-anti-Semitism

Artificial Intelligence (AI): reality and hype

The right to dissent in the US and “strategic voting” in the 2024 Presidential election

The war on Gaza in US politics and in international law

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 30: Can we find a “usable past”?

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 29: Adelbert Ames, Blanche Ames, LQC Lamar, and John Kennedy

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 28: Confederate icons were not popular nationally for decades after the Civil War

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 27: The “First Arkansas” Marching Song

The latest round in the politics of the Ukraine War in the US

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 26: An Irish look from 1862 at the causes of the American Civil War

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 25: Charles Sumner takes the lead in the Senate against the Fugitive Slave Act

Biden makes more cosmetic gestures for restraint while he ups support to Israel’s Gaza war

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 24: Frederick Douglass and the Compromise of 1850

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 23: More on how the Compromise of 1850 was terrible

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 22: The Compromise of 1850

Is Timothy Snyder stuck in Cold War fantasies?

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 21: Former Mississippi Democratic Gov. Ray Mabus on why celebrating Confederate “heritage” is disgusting

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 20: Yes, the Civil War was about slavery

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 19: Jacksonian democracy and the slavery issue

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 18: Black Abolitionists in the 1830s

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 17: Mississippi’s 2024 version, courtesy of Republican Gov. Tate Reeves

Israel-Iran war: The Biden Administration looks like it's giving a green light

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 16: The slavery issue in the 1820s

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 15: Jacksonian reform and the Abolitionists

Can the Biden Administration restrain Israel? On anything?

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 14: Treacherous slaveowners

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 13: The US Civil War and “Tragedy”

Trump's foreign policy - to the extent he has one

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 12: Slavery: a grow-or-die institution

Argentina, AMIA and ... the expanding Middle East war?

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 11: Can mathematical equations explain the Civil War? (2 of 2)

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 10: Can mathematical equations explain the Civil War? (1 of 2)

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 9: A 1941 Version of the Lost Cause pseudohistory defending slavery, segregation and white supremacy

Waiting for Iran's military response

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 8: The “Democrat Party”

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 7: A bridge to the “DEI” label

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 6: Nullification Controversy of 1832

A very dark instance of AI at work: Israel’s “Lavender” system

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 5: Nat Turner’s Rebellion and politics in 2024

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 4: Presidential Impunity from Jefferson Davis to Donald Trump

US Sen. Chris Murphy on US arms supplies to Israel

Biden, Bibi, and the escalating Middle East war

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 3: Jamaican slave rebellion and how we see history

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 2: Beware of rogue Supreme Courts who don’t care about the rights of voters

Confederate “Heritage” Month 2024, April 1: Nikki Haley and the Lost Cause

Prosperity for the majority and the future of liberal democracy

The Russia-Ukraine War and the future of European security

The US public and especially Democratic voters are not happy with Biden’s policy on Netanyahu’s war-and-starvation policy toward Palestinians in Gaza

US-Israel diplomacy and the starvation campaign against Gaza civilians

Democracy in the real world vs. democracy as people just shutting up and taking what they're given

Artificial Intelligence - what is it? (Besides investor hype, of course!)

US policy on Israel's ethnic-cleansing campaign in Gaza is stunningly bad

"Maoism: A Global History" by Julia Lovell (7/End)

Bracing for new escalation by Israel against Gaza civilians

"Maoism: A Global History" by Julia Lovell (6): In the neighborhood-Indonesia and India

Do aspiring rightwing dictators mean "bloodbath" when they say "bloodbath"?

AI experiment: Looking for 16th-century peasant leader Thomas Müntzer via Google Gemini AI chat

"Maoism: A Global History" by Julia Lovell (5): Former French Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) and Peru

Checking in with Über-Realist John Mearsheimer for his (downbeat) views of the Russia-Ukraine and Gaza Wars

An Austrian journalist offers (somewhat dubious) advice to the left-of-center

"Maoism: A Global History" by Julia Lovell (4): Maoism in the Global North (Europe and North America)

Russian elections: Vladimir Putin favored to win

"Maoism: A Global History" by Julia Lovell (3): How Mao projected his preferred image

Framing freedom-and-democracy against Trumpism/Orbanism

"Maoism: A Global History" by Julia Lovell (2): Maoism in China

"Maoism: A Global History" by Julia Lovell (1)

From NATO to stalemate in Ukraine: the "common European home" is still a long way from being realized

Biden, the SOTU and Israel

Candidate Uncommitted is putting real pressure on Biden's support for Netanyahu's war on the people of Gaza

Kamala Harris gets a chance to perk up the Democratic base over Israel's war on the people of Gaza

Ben Hodges, war lobbyist, thinks NATO "boots on the ground" in Ukraine would be awesome!

The spreading Middle East conflict and the dangers of great-power arrogance for the US

Overrating economic sanctions as a foreign policy tool

"Hegel" on the First World War

The Russia-Ukraine War and pseudo-pacifist rhetoric from Trumpista Republicans

Foreign policy, isolationism, and what a second Trump Administration might look like

A Roundup: Navalny, Munich Security Conference, Israel-Gaza, Voting Rights, and "gendering" in Austria

How likely is a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire agreement in 2024?

Netanyahu, Iran, the US, and a widening war

Making excuses for Netanyahu's war

Is Biden going to be willing to go "Dark Brandon" on Netanyahu?

Israel's Rafah offensive - backed by the Biden Administration

Accountability for Trump - and for other economic and political elites

The Democratic Party curses of repeating foreign policy mistakes and "triangulaton"

More on Lenin in the one-century anniversary year of his death

The Biden Administration has begun its promised escalation in the Middle East - in support of Israel's actions in Gaza

Two-state solution? A negotiated permanent peace? Or settler colonialism "from the river to the sea"?

Netanyahu, Biden, and the expanding war in the Middle East

Greg Abbott channels Ross Barnett and other dismal characters

Democracy and the rule of law as election framing

Kamala Harris: a pro at underwhelming voters?

How long will Israel's war morale hold out?

Interacting with Trumpista-Americans

Netanyahu publicly gives Biden the finger

The spreading war in the Middle East

Zionism and Christian Zionism "from the river to the sea"

The case against Israel before the International Court of Justice will affect how people understand the lessons of the Holocaust

Israel, Gaza, and South Africa's genocide complaint to the International Court of Justice

Biden's "antifa" kickoff to this 2024 Presidential campaign

Presidential election gossip (including wider war risks)

Ukraine, Gaza, starvation as warfare, and the “rules-based international order”

Any real hope left for a "two-state solution" for Israel-Palestine?

Vladimir Lenin: A 100-year milestone coming