When a Republican operative tells Democrats to continue being good losers, don’t buy it. Dec 20, 2023 Common Dreams The Washington Post, conveyor of the conventional wisdom, has just printed a telling testament to how Beltway culture functions. It is an op-ed by Stuart Stevens, a former Republican political consultant who has purportedly seen the light and has now…
Right-wing fake history is making a big comeback — but it never went away
We’re a Christian nation! The Civil War wasn’t about slavery! Fighting Hitler was a mistake! The lies run deep. Published Nov. 4 2023 in Salon Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past— George Orwell, “1984” The historian is a prophet looking backwards.— Friedrich von Schlegel, “Philosophical Fragments” The…
The Republican Revolution Devours Its Children
Kevin McCarthy was the Kerensky of the Republican revolution; Gaetz is its Lenin. Oct 10, 2023 Common Dreams The conventional media narrative of House Republicans’ dumping Speaker Kevin McCarthy tells us that the act represented disarray and dysfunction within the House GOP, just as its ever-changing list of legislative demands prior to the threatened government shutdown was supposed to…
Russia, Ukraine and Versailles: Bogus lessons from history won’t solve this crisis
NATO’s critics summon up the 1919 Treaty of Versailles as a warning not to “punish” Russia. That’s fake historyYour Attractive Heading PUBLISHED AUGUST 19, 2023 Salon Across the political spectrum, a persistent minority of voices insists that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was provoked by the eastward expansion of NATO in the 1990s and 2000s. Others…
Why America is going backward: Being the richest nation in history isn’t enough
America is the greatest economic and military power in world history — and our quality of life is garbage. But why? PUBLISHED AUGUST 5, 2023 Salon The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that’s the way I likes it! — Grandpa Abe Simpson on the…
No, Aiding Ukraine Does Not Embolden China
It’s a recycled isolationist talking point from World War II, and it’s just as wrong now. July 14, 2023 Washington Monthly They are not, or at least not yet, a majority of GOP officeholders, but in a recent vote, 57 House Republicans and 11 GOP Senators opposed military aid to Ukraine in its struggle to defeat Russian aggression. Nearly half of…
There’s no such thing as a conservative intellectual — only apologists for right-wing power
From Burke to Buckley to Patrick Deneen, we’ve seen a 200-year history of defending the indefensible Published July 1st in Salon link to article In 1950, author and critic Lionel Trilling wrote: In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain…