A Book Review of Alfred W. McCoy, In The Shadows of the American Century

New York Journal of Books, November 2017 In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power (Chicago: Haymarket, 2017). This is a remarkable and dazzlingly original account of the rise and potential near-term fall of the American Empire. A veteran and distinguished American foreign policy historian, Alfred McCoy opens [...]

By |2017-11-29T16:37:52-06:00November 29th, 2017|Articles|

An Insubordinate President

Truthdig, November 14, 2017 “Insubordinate elites,” as the distinguished American foreign policy historian Alfred W. McCoy calls them, have long been a problem for the United States empire. They privilege their own personal interests and/or concept of serving their own nations above fealty to the United States, its allies and the Western-based multinational corporate and [...]

By |2017-11-17T19:02:02-06:00November 17th, 2017|Articles|

Giving the Game Away

Counterpunch, November 10, 2017 It doesn’t take much, just a sentence or a turn-of-phrase, sometimes even just a word or two, to give the game away. “Homeland Defense” Take these words that became ubiquitous among U.S. media and political elites referring to the United States of America in the wake of 9/11: “the homeland,” “defense [...]

By |2017-11-17T15:01:41-06:00November 17th, 2017|Articles|

Presidentially Obsessed: Trump on the Brain

Counterpunch, November 3, 2017 I’m almost tempted to feel sorry for the campus-town Democrats I know, some of whom still have Obama bumper stickers on the back of their Volvo and Priuses.  Every day brings a new horrible outrage from the noxious orange-tinted beast who drags his knuckles though the White House, sending liberals into [...]

By |2017-11-17T14:44:44-06:00November 17th, 2017|Articles|

What Would the Black Panthers Think of Black Lives Matter?

Truthdig, October 29, 2017 The black revolution is much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes. It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws—racism, poverty, militarism, and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and [...]

By |2017-11-17T14:32:41-06:00November 17th, 2017|Articles|

The Not-Radical “Socialist” From Vermont

Counterpunch, 10-20-2017 Time as a Democracy and Socialist Movement Issue Working-class and pro-working-class socialists and left anarchists have long fought for shorter working hours (with no reductions in pay) for some very good radically democratic reasons.  It isn’t just that workers’ everyday lives and collective marketplace and workplace bargaining power are enhanced when they are [...]

By |2017-10-23T15:44:19-05:00October 23rd, 2017|Articles|

Orange Thing: Should It Stay or Should It Go

Counterpunch, 10-13-2017 The malignantly narcissistic Orange Thing in the White House is what it is.  Despite its eternal infantilism, Orange Thing is an old dog that’s not going to learn new tricks. At age 71, it brags that it hasn’t changed since it was in the second grade. It’s going to keep running with the [...]

By |2017-10-23T15:30:40-05:00October 23rd, 2017|Articles|

Behind the Matador’s Cape

Counterpunch, 10-06-2017 I’m no fan of bullfighting or rodeo, but those two “sports” provide some useful metaphors for how the United States ruling class rules. Think of the U.S. citizenry as a penned bull, the U.S. capitalist “elite” as a matador or a rodeo bull-rider, and the U.S. president as a red cape or, alternately [...]

By |2017-10-23T15:33:19-05:00October 23rd, 2017|Articles|

A Revolutionary Reform Called Single-Payer

Truthdig, 10-4-2017 Being a socialist (which I’ve been since age 19) committed to the democratic transformation of society doesn’t mean rejecting all reforms that fall short of thorough societal reorganization. Serious and substantively progressive reforms are critical to left movement-building and to the meeting of human needs in the here and now. This is particularly [...]

By |2017-10-23T15:04:22-05:00October 23rd, 2017|Articles|
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