Harry's Place

From Pearls Before Swine:

Once readers have got over the shock of seeing a post from me, they may be mildly interested to learn that I’m not entirely persuaded that the title of the post “Mehdi Hasan Exposed…” was entirely justified.
It is perfectly fair to say that those defending Hasan cannot ignore the offending passages just because the rest [...]

Here is a must read piece by Ethan Bronner in the New York Times:
Seven months after Israel started a fierce three-week military campaign here to stop rockets from being fired on its southern communities, Hamas has suspended its use of rockets and shifted focus to winning support at home and abroad through cultural initiatives and [...]

Read Nick Cohen in today’s Observer on the Tories’ alliances in the European Parliament:

Cameron has pulled out of the European Parliament’s moderate centre-right grouping, a fact that should be more notorious. It includes the followers of Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel. If he had just said that their support for a more centralised Europe made [...]

This is a guest post by Dave Osler, which also appears at Dave’s Part.
Leszek Kolakowski – the noted Polish-born political philosopher, who has died aged 81 – probably deserves the designation of the embittered former leftist’s embittered former leftist of choice.
His principle work, ‘Main Currents of Marxism’, was widely touted in my undergraduate years as [...]

This is a guest post by Seismic Shock
A couple of months ago, I took a look at the BNP’s connections with Italian Far Right party Forza Nuova, whose thugs have intimidated Italian Protestants. Forza Nuova’s priest Giulio Tam openly embraces fascism, and conducts memorial services for Spanish Falangists in 2007, and the Italian Far Right.
Now [...]

This is a guest post by Karl Pfeifer, a veteran anti-fascist and journalist based in Vienna. It also appears at Z Word
In Hungary, both Holocaust denial and incitement against Jews, Roma, the gay community and the left are permissible. But Tibor Bakács, a journalist, has been fined by a Hungarian court for describing a gang [...]

If you doubt the importance of the global solidarity demonstrations to people in Iran , consider this report from Tehran Saturday:
Iranian police and pro-government militia attacked and scattered hundreds of protesters in a rare demonstration in Iran’s capital Saturday, witnesses said.
The protests were in response to the demonstrations being held around the world calling for [...]

His name was Harry Patch

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years [...]

This is a guest post by Michael Ezra
I was very sad to learn of the recent death at age 81 of the Polish political scientist and philosopher, Leszek Kolakowski. Whilst he was originally a Marxist and became the chair of Warsaw University’s philosophy department, he ultimately became a critic of the system that he [...]