CounterPunch, 1.27.2023 “It seems to be easier for us today to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the earth and then of nature than the breakdown of late capitalism” – Fredric Jameson, The Seeds of Time, 1994 What kind of culture is it which pushes distraction, in its ordinary selection even of news, to the point where [...]
CounterPunch, 1.20.2023 Beware of elite academics who tell you that things are better for democracy and the common good than they really are. Commenting last week on connections between (a) the US-American fascists Steve Bannon and Donald Trump, (b) the January 6the Capitol Riot, (c) the Brazilian fascist Bolsonaro family, and (d) the fascist attack [...]
The Paul Street Report, 1.19.2023 Have you heard? Joe Biden's Antifa armed militia units have just entered Washington DC. Subcommadante Kamala Harris has ordered new elections for the US House of Representatives. The far-right Supreme Court Justices Clarence “I Married a Nazi” Thomas, Sam “Medieval Justice” Alito, Neal “Roe is Precedent” Gorsuch, Brett “Roe is Settled Law” Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney-“Handmaid”-Barrett [...]
The Paul Street Report, 1.16. 2023 This Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is a good time to contemplate not just the physical assassination (or execution) of Dr. King on April 4, 1968, but also and above all King’s subsequent and ongoing moral, intellectual, and ideological assassination. I am referring to the conventional, neo-McCarthyite, and whitewashed narrative [...]
The Paul Street Report, 1.12/2023/CounterPunch, 1.19.2023 Behold last January 8th’s mob assault on Brazil’s top government offices by “protesters” claiming that their nation’s most recent presidential election was “stolen” from its last chief executive Jair Bolsonaro. The rioters hoped to provoke the Brazilian military into intervening to carry out a coup that would put Bolsonaro, [...]
CounterPunch, 1.6.2023 Never underestimate the often subtle, smooth, and sophisticated complicity of liberal journalists in normalizing and appeasing the fascisation and the related lethal farceification (I apologize for making up words) of US American politics. Take New York Times’ “Pulitzer Prize-winning political reporter” Nicholas Confessore’s recent 8100 word-plus Times report on the “MAGA transformation” of Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the number three [...]
The Paul Street Report, 12.30.2022 The end of the year fundraising letter I got from Planned Parenthood’s “Action Fund” a couple of weeks ago reminds me of an old saying: “Don’t Piss Down My Back and Then Tell me it’s Raining.” I might add this: “and then tell me to send you some money to [...]
CounterPunch, 12.30.2022 What to make of the Final Report of the US House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol (hereafter “the report”)? Let’s start with the good news – the discovery, telling, and re-telling of some basic truths. The report shows beyond serious doubt that the wannabe fascist strongman Donald Trump [...]
12. 24. 2025 I am still on holiday break but did want to send out the following warm message to all my readers and friends on a bitterly cold US-Midwestern Christmas Eve: Your right-wing Tucker-watching Trump-approving feminism-hating white supremacist socialism-hating uncle/father/grandfather/brother/brother in law/friend of the family/neighbor/football coach thinks this extreme cold disproves the "radical left" [...]
CounterPunch, 12.19.2022 All I’ve got left, writing-wise, for 2022 is six reflections on one of the smartest things I’ve heard this year: Noam Chomsky’s recent comment to the effect that humanity today is up against four apocalyptic “horsemen”: ecocide, pandemicide, potentially nuclear war, and fascism: 1. Please note the gender of horsemen. Patriarchy runs richly through each [...]