It has long been and remains possible to find a good deal of candid, one might think dangerously revealing information and commentary in the United States’ richly conservative political system and corporate media. This might seem to be an anomaly or paradox for those radical critics who, like myself, have determined that that system and [...]
The recent announcement by former U.S. Marine Jim Lehrer that he is stepping down from his role as nightly anchor of the “Public” Broadcasting System’s “NewsHour” occasioned little sadness in my household. For years now, my wife and I have sat down with dinner weekday nights to behold with a mixture of amusement and contempt [...]
There are significant differences of history, culture, and politics (and more) across nations – differences that make it unadvisable for leftists to try to mechanistically and simplistically “plug in” lessons from one nation, place, and time to another nation, place, and time – from, say, Czarist Russia, Mao’s China, or the French Third Republic to [...]
Iowa City, May 3, 2011. In a great propaganda victory for the culture of nationalistic imperialism, millions of Americans have been trained to think of the “Vietnam War” in terms of what the Vietnamese “did to us.” It is true that 58,000 American soldiers died (tens of thousands more were crippled and sickened and an [...]
Chicago, IL, May 2, 2011. Harsh continuities live on beneath the rush of spectacular news stories and events like 9/11, the invasion of Iraq , the election of America ’s first black president, and (yesterday) the killing of Osama bin Laden. Here is an interesting short paragraph in a useful book published by the Financial [...]
The first third of 2011 brought a great global and popular stirring - a burgeoning springtime of peoples blooming in technical advance of spring. The most dramatic, regime-toppling revolts have taken place in Tunisia and Egypt, where millions poured into the streets to end the reign of long-term U.S.-backed dictators. A wave of popular resistance [...]
The principles of real, bona-fide working class trade unionism are rooted in the notion of working people joining and acting together in solidarity to improve wages, benefits, and working and living conditions for themselves and others. “An Injury to One,” the labor credo runs, “is an injury to all.” These principles and that ethos have [...]
Here is a disturbing pair of questions to place next to each other: (1) what is greatest current existential threat to the human race? (2) which programs were the biggest losers in the recent U.S. federal budget deal between centrist corporate Democrats and hard right corporate Republicans – the one that just slashed $40 billion [...]
I want to thank the Iowa City Federation of Labor for having this event and inviting me to speak tonight on the 43rd anniversary of the assassination or perhaps the execution of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who would have been 83 years old today. I still remember the day after King died. I stood [...]
A recent public opinion poll conducted by the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development and the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland finds that a preponderant majority of Americans think that “it would be positive for the United States if the Middle East were to become more democratic and a solid majority would favor [...]