One of the best quote of Oliver Bullough.

"The media squabble over Shchepotin’s final day at the Cancer Institute, and the doubts it raised over the motivation of all concerned, were appropriate, because the most corrosive aspect of corruption is the way that it undermines trust. When corruption is widespread, it becomes impossible to know whom to believe, since the money infects every aspect of state and society. Every newspaper article can be criticized as paid for, every politician can be called corrupt, every court decision can be called into question. Charities are set up by oligarchs to lobby for their interests, and those then provoke doubts about every other non-governmental organization. If even doctors are on the take, can you trust their diagnoses? Are they claiming a patient needs treatment only because that would be to their profit? If policemen are crooked, and courts are paid for, are criminals really criminals? Or are they honest people who interfered in criminals’ business? Not knowing whom to believe, you retreat into trusting only those closest to you—your oldest friends, and your relatives—and that reinforces the divisions in society that corruption thrives on. It is impossible to build a thriving economy, or a healthy democracy, without a society whose members fundamentally trust each other. If you take that away, you are left with something far darker and more mercenary."

Oliver Bullough, Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World

Comments

When the President Sounds the Alarm, But the Government Looks Away.

A President's Moral Warning Israeli presidents traditionally avoid political confrontation. Their role is largely ceremonial and symbolic, intended to unify rather than divide. Yet Herzog chose to speak openly about something many observers have documented for years: the erosion of moral restraints. His language was unusually severe. Warning of what he called " a terrible process of brutalization " within Israeli society, Herzog lamented that " there are segments among us that are barely shocked by violence anymore " while " certain other segments treat it lightly." Perhaps most alarming was his warning that extremist conduct is no longer confined to society's fringes. Such behavior, he said, is " threatening to enter the mainstream ." The significance of the speech lies not merely in what was said, but in who said it. When a country's ceremonial head of state feels compelled to warn that brutality is becoming normalized, the ...

From Karachi to the Palestine Book Awards: The Journey of The Livestreamed Genocide.

Honored to share that my latest work, The Livestreamed Genocide: A Civilization That Watched and Scrorrlled, has officially been submitted for consideration for the 2026 . 🇵🇸📚 Today, the physical manuscripts of the five-volume series were formally dispatched from Karachi to the distinguished judging panel in London and the United States as part of the awards review process. This project was written as both a historical chronicle and a moral inquiry into the age of digital witnessing — an era in which atrocities are no longer hidden from the world, yet are consumed in real time through screens, timelines, and livestreams. Grounded in documented evidence, authenticated sources, and extensive independent research, the series examines the relationship between modern media, public consciousness, political silence, and the normalization of suffering in the digital age. This work was researched, written, compiled, edited, and prepared independently over countless long days and nights....

When Violence Becomes the Language of the State Israel’s Internal Crisis and the Brutality Long Normalized in the West Bank

The image of prosecutor Salah Khalil Na’ameh’s battered face shocked many Israelis because it shattered a dangerous illusion: that state violence lmk can remain confined to Palestinians indefinitely without eventually consuming Israeli society itself. For Palestinians, especially in the occupied West Bank, such scenes are tragically familiar. A man beaten bloody by armed forces. Masked officers storming homes. Security forces accused of fabricating narratives later contradicted by video evidence. Citizens pleading for protection while police either stand aside or participate. What shocked many Israelis was not merely the brutality itself — but the identity of the victim. Na’ameh was not a villager from Hebron or a shepherd from Masafer Yatta. He was an Arab citizen of Israel. A state prosecutor. A man who worked within the Israeli legal system itself. And even he allegedly found himself helpless before a police force critics increasingly describe as politicized, radicaliz...

At 78, a Nation at War With Itself

There is a haunting irony in watching a state built on the promise of refuge become trapped in fear of its own reflection. For decades, **** was one of the men entrusted with Israel’s sword — soldier, commander, prime minister, architect of its security doctrine. Not a radical voice. Not an outsider. Not a dissident shouting from the margins. An insider. And when insiders begin speaking the language of alarm, history listens differently . His warning is not that Israel may be destroyed by rockets, tunnels, militias, or regional enemies. His warning is more unsettling: that Israel may survive every external war — and lose itself from within. That is a far more tragic form of defeat. A nation can repel missiles and still watch its institutions hollow out . A nation can dominate battlefields and still become morally exhausted. A nation can claim victory abroad while quietly burying democracy at home . This is the paradox now confronting Israel at 78: militarily formidable, technologic...

The Art of the Deal, the Strait of Fire, and the Empire of Manufactured Crisis

There is something almost breathtakingly absurd — and tragically familiar — in watching modern empire set the house ablaze, then stand in front of the flames demanding applause for holding a bucket. That is where America now stands in the Strait of Hormuz. Not as a stabilizer. Not as a peacemaker. Not as the adult in the room. But as an arsonist, pacing nervously outside the inferno, complaining that the smoke is ruining the neighborhood. According to reporting, Iran offered a pathway to reopen one of the world’s most vital energy arteries — a proposal that could ease global economic panic, calm oil markets, and halt further escalation. But there was a problem: It did not produce the one thing modern American politics worships above peace, above diplomacy, above global stability: a theatrical victory photo-op. A U.S. official reportedly worried accepting the deal might “deny Mr. Trump a victory.” Pause there and absorb the moral architecture of our age. Not: Will fe...

Ainnbeen

Search This Blog