Since the end of the Cold War, we’re had a lot of very instructive experience in the Middle East. Back in 2010, I compiled the real-time analyses I had made of our policies and their results in a book titled America’s Misadventures in the Middle East. The book holds up well as an explanation for the origins and evolution of most of our difficulties in the region. Unfortunately, both the situation in the Middle East and our position there have continued to deteriorate.
Authored by Noam Chomsky, originally posted at TomDispatch.com,
[This piece, the first of two parts, is excerpted from Noam Chomsky’s new book, Who Rules the World? (Metropolitan Books).]
When we ask “Who rules the world?” we commonly adopt the standard convention that the actors in world affairs are states, primarily the great powers, and we consider their decisions and the relations among them. That is not wrong. But we would do well to keep in mind that this level of abstraction can also be highly misleading.
This was a real lecture at MIT on May 9th. If we had known about it, we would have attended to document the moment we reached Peak Absurdity.
Submitted by IceCap Asset Management: April 2016 Letter to Investors
Revenge of the Risotto
If the US presidential election has devolved into a comical soundbite free-for-fall, then the UK has its hands full with Brexit, and how the two opposing camps are approaching the UK's vote to exit the Eurozone on June 23.