GREG MAYBURY—Ably ‘accompliced’ by their hand-picked, vodka-marinated marionette president Boris Yeltsin, his ‘Bratva’ (mafia) network and assorted Soviet-era (communist) apparatchiks cum Russian (capitalist) oligarchs in the making, it represented nothing less than a concerted, deliberate, and cold blooded attempt by the political and economic forces of the West to firstly bilk ‘n bleed Russia, [then] bankrupt it, and finally to ‘Balkanise’ it.
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KEVIN DOLGIN—These three religions were no more contradictory in the minds of the Chinese over the millennia than three different philosophies might be and most people kind of mingle them (certainly the first two). Indeed, once again, they are more philosophies than religions in many respects. You don’t go to church, you don’t even really pray (although Taoism and Buddhism are big on meditation), there typically is no concept of a creator god, and none of them are really big on proselytising.
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AIDAN O’BRIEN—The Europeans are pushing against liberalism and its neoliberal progeny. Never mind the fact that the new or alternative political parties they vote for are failing to live up to their critical manifestos. The point is that probably 50% or more of the Europeans have had enough of liberal capitalism. And this means that they have had enough of the EU. How this plays out though is anyone’s guess.
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JOSEPH ESSERTIER—Americans as well as people in many other countries know little to nothing about what happens when a nuclear bomb is dropped on a city. Naturally, Japanese are much better informed about the effects of the atomic bombing of the major cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki than Americans. Many Americans who visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum speak of feeling great shock and emotional stress when they first go to the Museum and learn about the victims of the nuclear bombs that their government mercilessly dropped on civilians in August 1945. We were taught in school that these two bombings were humanitarian acts that ended the War quickly, saving the lives of both Japanese and Americans. But there is no question that the Nagasaki bombing was morally indefensible and unnecessary…
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LAURENT GUYENOT—The paradoxical nature of Jewishness (combining separatism and universalism), which is reflected in the ambiguous nature of Zionism (combining nationalism and internationalism), is ultimately linked to the Jewish conception of God. Is the biblical Yahweh the national god of Israel or the universal God of humankind?
