The Digger

October 04, 2019 Does the US Constitution allow President Donald Trump to order the assassination of innocent Americans in total secrecy? Such a question seems absurd; unfortunately, a US District judge has just answered in the affirmative. Bilal Kareem is a US citizen of Syrian origin, who was living in Brooklyn and working as a stand-up comedian. Frustrated by the news coverage of the conflict in Syria and especially the failure of journalists to interview and try to understand the experience of the people actually involved in the conflict, Kareem moved to Aleppo and established the YouTube channel On the Ground News TV, which provided content to news outlets around the world. Suddenly, drones started firing missiles at him. In the summer of 2016, he was nearly killed by Hellfire missiles fired by Predator drones five times. Nobody but the US had weaponized drones in the region at the time. Based on publicly available information about how the US uses ce...

In class society, everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class. — Mao, On Practice, 1937 That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. — Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood, March 6, 2007 I think that most of the confusion in this respect has been the product of a failure to develop a class analysis of these changes. From a class perspective, it is clear that what we are seeing is the growth of various movements in the fascist genre (whether prefascism, protofascism, classical fascism, postfascism, neofascism, neoliberal fascism, ur-fascism, peripheral fascism, white supremacism, or national populism—you can take your pick). Fascist-type movements share certain definite class-based characteristics or tendencies. Although it is common in liberal discourse to approach such movements a...

Deadly army crackdown on anti-corruption protests risks turmoil in Iraq ‘We are not against you, you are our brothers,’ one activist tells a soldier Patrick Cockburn Baghdad @indyworld 1 day ago An Iraqi protester flashes the V-sign during a demonstration in Baghdad’s Baladiyat district on Wednesday ( AFP/Getty ) A man is lying dead or injured on the pavement beside a road leading into Tahrir Square in the centre of Baghdad . Soldiers and police are running towards him, while Iraqi soldiers on the other side of the square are penning into a corner a group of a hundred or so protesters, some holding Iraqi flags, and chanting “Peaceful” and “For Iraq ”. The protesters are more numerous than first appears beca...