CounterPunch, July 2, 2015 Democracy is among other things the rule of majority public opinion. Plutocracy is the rule of the wealthy few over and against the popular majority. To understand the different meanings of these two terms, you can consult a dictionary. You can also look at the very different decision-making processes on display [...]

Counterpunch, June 26, 2015 In a recent column on Pope Francis’ latest encyclical, Laudato Si, the conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat says that “After this document, there’s no doubting where Francis stands in the great argument of our time….But,” Douthat elaborates, “I don’t mean the argument between liberalism and conservatism. I mean the [...]

ZNet, June 26, 2015 Public Opinion: So What? In a recent telephone survey of more than 1100 randomly selected U.S. adults, the New York Times recently reported, the paper and CBS found that the U.S. citizenry stands to the progressive and populist left on numerous key political-economic issues. Pollsters working for the two corporate media [...]

Z Magazine. July-August 2015 Originally published on Counterpunch One useful measure of a political culture’s moral level is the nature of what counts as a terrible outrage, disgrace, or scandal in that culture. The Vietnam War—really an imperial U.S. war on Vietnam and neighboring countries—has a bad reputation in the United States. That’s a good [...]

ZNet, June 19, 2015 A Jeffersonian New Dealer Who Hated Ronald Reagan My paternal grandfather, may he rest in peace, was, along with many millions of other Americans past and present, an idiot – an idiot of Empire. Don’t get me wrong.  William Paul Street (1907-2000) wasn’t stupid. Far from it.  He was the clever [...]

Counterpunch, June 19-21, 2015 Priceless Beneath progressive pretentions, Barack Obama the national political phenomenon has never been anything other than a tool of the United States’ corporate and financial ruling class. Obama rose to power in Washington with remarkable, record-setting financial backing from Wall Street and K Street election investors. Those elites are not in [...]

ZNet, June 20, 2015 One of the many rich and predictable (and predicted) ironies of the “post-racial” and neoliberal Barack Obama White House has been that the “first Black President” that many U.S. liberals and progressives proudly voted for in the name of racial progress has been remarkably reluctant to speak in honest and forthright [...]

Counterpunch, June 12-14, 2015 A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will “thingify” them – make them things… — Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967 King Cotton Black lives have always mattered to white America primarily as a source of economic exploitation. And white American authorities have never been particularly squeamish about [...]

teleSur English, June 12, 2015 The presidential election season is already upon the United States, fifteen months before the presidential contest in November 2016.  I have a front-row seat for the candidate-centered spectacle in Iowa, home to the “first-in-the-nation” major party presidential Caucus, to be held in early January of next year. The “election madness,” as [...]

Counterpunch Weekend Edition June 5-7, 2015 by PAUL STREET The election frenzy…seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls. — Howard Zinn, April 2008 [...]