It’s time to bring all our troops home. Continue reading
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Why the U.S. still suffers from COVID
The COVID-19 crisis cannot be separated from the failed state.
Donald Trump was the convenient scapegoat for the first year of the COVID-19 crisis. Austerity, low wage work, housing insecurity, and the profit driven health care system were problematic issues before anyone heard the word COVID-19 or indeed before Trump’s presidency. Every failing of the United States already in existence came into sharp relief when the pandemic struck. Continue reading
Workers are quitting their jobs—and that’s good
Workers are quitting jobs where they don’t feel respected. That’s a welcome sea change.
Corporate bosses across America have been sputtering in outrage at you working stiffs this summer, spewing expletives about the fact that while the U.S. economy has been coming back, you haven’t! Continue reading
The QAnon crowd has a familiar face: How right-wing cults have plagued our politics
The latest white guy going on a rage-bender before being “respectfully” taken into custody for “mental health evaluation” was at the Miami airport, an incident that broke the internet last week. Continue reading
Afghanistan still the graveyard of empires
Some “opposed ideas” about a twenty-year war.
Sunday, October 7, 2001: Less than a month after 9/11, President George W. Bush announces to the world, “On my orders the United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Continue reading
Let’s take the profit out of war
CEOs shouldn’t have a financial stake in the murderous mass violence of modern warfare.
In the 21st century, many of us are used to the murderous mass violence of modern warfare. Continue reading
A beacon rises from Capitol Hill
The idea didn’t come from a newly arrived Harvard or Yale congressional staffer. They mostly feel sufficiently anointed to the ways of Capitol Hill—getting along with style while going along for ambition. Continue reading
Republican Party: Spam like we’ve never seen it
The Republican Party has surpassed assorted phony Nigerian princes and erectile dysfunction pill pushers in flooding email in-boxes across the nation with appeals for cash. At the top of the list is the former guy (Donald Trump). His emails, sent from “Save America,” lead with “Joe Biden Must Resign.” And for a contribution to Trump, he can allegedly make that happen. Save your money, Joe Biden isn’t going anywhere. Continue reading
As our children head back to school, partisan politics threatens their learning and their safety
My granddaughter will go to school next week. So may your child or grandchild. For many, it will be their first time back in classrooms in a year and a half. Continue reading
Stadio Olimpico: Can sports heal the world?
Amid chaotic politics and anti-immigrant and refugee sentiments, Stadio Olimpico in Rome seemed like an oasis of social and cultural harmony. AS Roma and Raja Casablanca fans gathered in their thousands on a hot Saturday evening to cheer for their teams in a friendly match, the first in the Olimpico for nearly a year and a half. Continue reading
Propaganda is the source of all our problems: Notes from the Edge of the Narrative Matrix
We don’t talk nearly enough about the fact that wealthy and powerful people are constantly pouring vast fortunes into manipulating the way we perceive our world and that this is the ultimate source of all our major problems. Continue reading
The fix is in on fixing things
Big corporations want to make it illegal for you to repair the devices you bought from them.
America’s economic and political inequality has led workaday Americans to exclaim: “The system is broken. Let’s fix it!” Continue reading
The Afghan crisis, Turkey, and Washington’s global war on terrorism
As America’s presence in Afghanistan draws to a close and the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, it’s worthwhile to consider the countries that sponsor global terrorism and Washington’s response to them. Continue reading
Afghanistan: The ‘big’ media’s question today is wrong & dangerous
The big question in the media today is, “Will Afghanistan again become a ‘breeding ground’ for terrorists who may again attack America?” It’s the wrong question. Continue reading
Goodbyes
Wouldn’t you appreciate an essay unrelated to the horror of climate catastrophe, Afghanistan and ending a never-ending war that never should have been waged, the Afghans who are casualties of US empire, a global pandemic, a governor who says Biden should follow his Covid protocol (no masks but Regeneron clinics for those with severe Covid—DeSantis must have huge investments in Roche), a president who doesn’t take questions after stumbling through a teleprompter-guided update, a former president who claims presidential powers despite his defeat, etc.? Continue reading
A reader takes issue with what I wrote in “The subliminal death wishes of the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers”
For whatever reason, rather than making his criticism public by putting it in the response section under the article, he sent it to me in a private email. I will do him the courtesy of referring to him only as W. Gelles, rather than using his full name. Continue reading
The subliminal death wishes of the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers
Those who think wearing a face mask somehow negates their freedom and by getting a COVID-19 vaccine they will die have it all backwards. Continue reading
The US endgame in Afghanistan was mineral extraction, not democracy
The American departure from Afghanistan was inevitable. We shouldn't ask what went wrong? We need to ask: what could possibly have gone right?
Since the U.S. withdrawal in Afghanistan, there has been no shortage of solidarity statements to mourn the demise of democracy and support the rule of law in Afghanistan. I appreciate the sentiment, but I am also concerned about the loss of lives and the violations of international law that occurred during the decades of U.S. military occupation in Afghanistan and the failure of the international community to protect the sovereignty of countries. Continue reading
Gentrification and the end of Black communities
Census data show that gentrification is accelerating Black displacement.
Brooklyn, New York is the epicenter of gentrification, the displacement of Black people from cities in this country. Recently released census data shows that neighborhoods like Bedford-Stuyvesant, which was nearly all Black for decades, no longer has a Black majority. Bedford-Stuyvesant’s white population rose by 30,000 from 2010 to 2020 while its Black population decreased by 22,000. Continue reading
‘Blood for blood’: On Jenin and Israel’s fear of an armed Palestinian rebellion
The killing of four young Palestinians by Israeli occupation soldiers in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, on August 16, is a consequential event, the repercussions of which are sure to be felt in the coming weeks and months. Continue reading
How animal rights moved from soggy leaflets and skateboards to a movement
In the 1980s, the animal rights movement was a sorry sight. In Chicago, it consisted of three to five activists handing out soggy leaflets in the rain outside a fur store on a Saturday, one also holding his skateboard. No one remembered to bring the signs and no one could agree whether to protest carriage horses or captive whales at the Shedd Aquarium on the next Saturday. Continue reading
Afghanistan is being used as a distraction
I’m as sensitive as anyone to the sufferings of Afghanis now, but I’ve had it with the sanctimony of journalists and pundits who haven’t thought about Afghanistan for 20 years—many of whom urged we get out—but who are now filling the August news hole with overwrought stories about Biden’s botched exit and Taliban atrocities. Continue reading
Legacy of failure in Afghanistan started in 1979, not 2001
Illusions and delusions that fueled the Cold War have ramifications to this day
A decade ago, John Lamberton Harper, a professor of US foreign policy and European studies at Johns Hopkins University, published an indispensable history of the first Cold War (The Cold War, Oxford University Press, 2011) in which he described the origins of what became known as “the Carter Doctrine.” Continue reading
LGBTQ+ immigrants must be released from detention
The violence of the detention system falls hardest on people already facing persecution and bias because of their sexuality or gender identity.
Imagine: You are an entrepreneur with a passion for cooking who dreams of one day opening your own food truck. You have lived in the United States for 20 years. One day, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents knock on your door. They say you will be deported to a country you haven’t seen in two decades. You know that if you are sent there, you may be threatened, arrested, jailed, beaten, or killed—with the assent of the country’s police and courts—just because of your sexual identity. Continue reading
Medicare for All will stop political bosses from playing games with deadly diseases
It has to be a scurrilous lie. Seriously, nobody is that evil. Continue reading
Lesser evil politics assure greater evil economics
A new American president is presenting a program for renewal of human values in the marketplace unheard of since the 1930s but still projecting American military domination and environmental destruction far beyond the awareness of most Americans. Continued insistence that Russia and China are major global threats to everyone and not just American monopoly capitalists resonate not only in the cosmic void between the ears of our mentally disabled foreign policy experts but echo in the minds of innocent Americans since that’s all they get from major, and all too often minor media. Continue reading
Stop the insane nuke bailout
Buried deep in Joe Biden’s various infrastructure deals is a bailout every bit as insane as the original decision to stay in Afghanistan—up to $50 billion in handouts to keep old nuke reactors operating … at least until they blow up. Continue reading
The media bias no one is talking about
The mainstream media have historically tried to balance left and right in their political coverage, and present what it views as a reasonable center. Continue reading
The GOP’s election lies are stale, but the stakes are high
Right now our nation still has two competing narratives about the 2020 election. Continue reading
The fall of the House of Cuomo—lessons unlearned
The resignation of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo invites comparisons, historical context, and proposals for the future. Continue reading
Messing with Americans’ minds
From manifest destiny to American exceptionalism and an indispensable nation, Americans have been sold a steaming pile of excrement, aka shit. Continue reading
On propaganda and failed narratives: New understanding of Afghanistan is a must
Posted on September 3, 2021 by Ramzy Baroud
For twenty years, two dominant narratives have shaped our view of the illegal US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and neither one of these narratives would readily accept the use of such terms as ‘illegal’, ‘invasion’ and ‘occupation.’ Continue reading →