>We live in the society of the spectacle. In the era of blogs, 24-hour news channels, and the instant celebrity of reality television, this probably goes without saying.

But what does it really mean? Contrary to the list just enumerated, the society of the spectacle is not of recent invention, nor is it limited to pop culture.

Instead "the spectacle" serves as a shorthand description for structural transformations in advanced capitalist societies during the post-1945 era.

We might think of this as a broad shift from the factory-based industrial system of the early part of the twentieth century (Fordism) to the immaterial economy of today.

Manufacturing has been replaced by service work and the trades have given way to symbolic labour (journalists, bureaucrats, academics) as the prevailing face of the middle-class.

The key to this realignment is the increasing mediatization of society. Not only are media technologies the engine of economic production, they are also seen as the face of consumer capitalism.   more »

>Five years after the 11 September 2001 attacks, al-Qaeda is as strong as ever, whatever else it is. Osama Bin Laden is doing well enough, thank you, somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan. The Taliban are reinvigorated.

The "war on terror" is not going anywhere fast, except deeper into a bottomless quagmire. In this dark hour, there is only one man truly up to the job. Time for a bat signal! Come in, Batman! We've never needed you more.

Fortunately, the Caped Crusader is ready to kick Bin Laden's butt. Frank Miller, author of Sin City and the Dark Knight versions of Batman, has announced that his next comic will be Holy Terror, Batman!, in which our vigilante with the fetish for rubber will fight al-Qaeda.   more »

In a badly judged speech before a home crowd of Bavarian academics, Benedict XVI may well have set the parameters of his own period as Pope, pitching himself into a debate over Islam that has prompted outrage throughout the Muslim world.

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

These were not the Pope's words, but those of an obscure Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologos, back in the 14th century.

And yes, the Pope did make it clear he was offering a quotation. Even so, these words fell from the lips of the spiritual leader of a billion Christians without anything like enough qualification.

There was no phrase distancing himself from the claim that Muhammad was responsible for evil. It's little surprise, therefore, that the remarks have roused anger and demands for a personal apology.   more »

By the late 1930s some Revisionists had formed the Irgun, an armed militia committed to driving out the British and dealing with the Palestinian Arabs - by whatever means seemed necessary.

"In blood and fire did Judea fall, In blood and fire will Judea rise again," ran one Revisionist song, and the Irgun were as good as those words.

On July 22 1946 they blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which housed the British headquarters of the military command, killing 91 people, among whom 28 were British, 41 Arab and 17 Jewish.

In a ceremony this July, old Irgun hands unveiled a plaque to mark the 60th anniversary. The following year, in reprisal for the execution of Zionists, the Irgun hanged two captured British sergeants, and they habitually attacked Arab civilians, culminating in the bloodshed that accompanied the birth of the state.   more »

Why have American liberals acquiesced in President Bush’s catastrophic foreign policy? Why have they so little to say about Iraq, about Lebanon, or about reports of a planned attack on Iran?

Why has the administration’s sustained attack on civil liberties and international law aroused so little opposition or anger from those who used to care most about these things?

Why, in short, has the liberal intelligentsia of the United States in recent years kept its head safely below the parapet?

It wasn’t always so. On 26 October 1988, the New York Times carried a full-page advertisement for liberalism. Headed ‘A Reaffirmation of Principle’, it openly rebuked Ronald Reagan for deriding ‘the dreaded L-word’ and treating ‘liberals’ and ‘liberalism’ as terms of opprobrium.   more »