Beyond the Ballot Box: Occupy and Bernie

Tim Barker, 8 September 2016

Commenting on​ Occupy Wall Street in late 2011, Barney Frank, then a Democratic congressman for Massachusetts, voiced a common complaint: ‘I don’t understand why people think that...

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By Any Means or None: Does Terrorism Work?

Thomas Nagel, 8 September 2016

Terrorists, it seems, are at least as attached to their means as to their professed ends, and to those for whom killing is an end in itself, there is not much to say by way of rational counterargument.

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Untouchable? The Tory State?

David Runciman, 8 September 2016

As we stumble​ towards the end of this summer of political discontent, talk of the country drifting towards being a one-party state is cheap. The new Conservative government appears...

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We Are Many: In the Corbyn Camp

Tom Crewe, 11 August 2016

It was impossible to disagree when someone pointed out that a year or so ago the idea of this many people sitting in a hall during a heatwave to discuss the Labour Party would have seemed fantastical.

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Diary: The Democratic Convention

Christian Lorentzen, 11 August 2016

My father voted for Bernie Sanders in the spring and says he’ll vote for Donald Trump in November. This places him in a magical category of voters who some believe will determine the election.

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Donald Trump vowed that the ‘convention in Cleveland will be amazing!’ It will probably be the only campaign promise he ever fulfils, but indeed, as watched on television, it was amazing.

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Will there be war? China at War

Howard W. French, 28 July 2016

On 1 October 1949​, Mao Zedong stood on top of the Gate of Heavenly Peace to proclaim the victory of his revolution, and told the world that the long-suffering Chinese people had finally...

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Brexit Blues

John Lanchester, 28 July 2016

Why aren’t people more angry? The Brexit vote showed that plenty of them are. But perhaps it expressed that other feeling, the one of bewilderment, just as much. ‘Take back control’ is a cynical...

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Through​ a failure of statecraft on a scale unmatched since Lord North lost the American colonies, David Cameron has managed to convert a problem of party management into a constitutional...

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15 March 2003. Seldom can so many have gone from such odious luxury so quickly into war against such a poor country with so little provocation. I unpack and repack the medical kits. There is some good...

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The inquiry has chosen to hold back on what caused the multitude of errors: was it negligence, or recklessness, or something else? In so doing it has created a space for Blair and the others who stood...

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Trouble at the FCO

Jonathan Steele, 28 July 2016

‘Despite​ explicit warnings,’ Chilcot said, introducing his report, ‘the consequences of the invasion were underestimated.’ A good deal of the blame for this has to be...

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They could have picked...

Eliot Weinberger, 28 July 2016

Last January, the unpronounceable Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, surveying his party’s throng of presidential aspirants, tweeted: ‘It’s clear we’ve got the most...

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Short Cuts: The Morning After

Jeremy Harding, 14 July 2016

I spent​ the morning of 24 June listening to the referendum results on the BBC, slept briefly, opened the laptop and began looking into the possibility of Irish citizenship in a strangely...

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The Smuggler

May Jeong, 14 July 2016

The Dari word​ qachaqbar means ‘the one with illicit goods’, but when I hear it in Kabul I don’t think of drugs or arms but people. Afghans have been leaving since the...

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‘It is a sign​ of true political power when a great people can determine, of its own will, the vocabulary, the terminology and the words, the very way of speaking, even the way of...

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Anatomy of the Syrian Regime

Nasser Rabbat, 14 July 2016

In the summer​ of 1992, I took a ‘luxury cab’ from Damascus to Amman. The cab’s class was important: luxury cabs provided extra services at the border crossing, helping to...

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LRB contributors

LRB Contributors, 14 July 2016

David Runciman, Neal Ascherson, James Butler, T.J. Clark, Jonathan Coe, Sionaidh Douglas-Scott, Daniel Finn, Dawn Foster, Jeremy Harding, Colin Kidd, Ross McKibbin, Philippe Marlière, James Meek, Pankaj...

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