Author: nick
[ad_1] Karl Marx, photograph by John Mayall, circa 1870. The following has been edited for clarity and length. Norman Solomon: You’ve downplayed the importance of the individual in history. But the United States now has as president an individual who transformed power relations and the political landscape. Karl Marx: I can assure you that he did not do that by himself. Power relations are class relations. And by the way, I never said individuals are irrelevant to history. I exhorted individuals to get involved in changing history. NS: President Trump has rolled back gains from the last hundred years and…
[ad_1] One of America’s most talented antiwar artists and political satirists passed away last week. Tom Blanton did one of the best daily roundups of government oppression and outrages stories on the Internet. His Project for a New American Revolution was an inspiration for me and thousands of other folks over the years. Tom was also one of the best and funniest headline writers I knew. He was principled, courageous, and talented as the day is long.He was 68 years old and a lifetime resident of Richmond, Virginia. His Flickr page showcases his political art and other smackdowns of contemporary…
[ad_1] Photograph Source: Russian Presidential Executive Office – CC BY 4.0 As I travelled on the London Tube to meet CounterPunch writer and esteemed art historian Stephen Eisenham, I read journalist Owen Matthews suggesting Putin “lives in a parallel reality, a sealed bubble of disinformation where all the data he receives confirms the wisdom of his choices.” It got me wondering what else on leaders and protected bubbles was out there. Did it include Donald Trump? It’s called echo chambers, information cocooning, courtier syndrome. Some political scientists call it the ‘dictator’s dilemma’: rulers depending on information from below, while their…
[ad_1] With a flurry of cases decided last month, the Supreme Court has officially wrapped up its latest term. Much of the attention was absorbed by the Court’s ruling on birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara, a decision that provoked outrage and indignation from immigration hawks. But amidst this furor, another important decision flew under the radar. This was Watson v. Republican National Committee, in which the Court ruled 5–4 that federal law did not prevent mail-in ballots from being counted even if they were received after election day. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion drawing on precedent…
[ad_1] The new film Young Washington depicts our nation’s Founding Father not as a man made from marble, but as a human capable of both mistakes and greatness. [ad_2] Source link
[ad_1] I am far from your typical, mainstream economist. Rather than focus on the broad aggregates that the state publishes in an effort to convince us that things are “just fine,” I choose to observe economic conditions at the most micro of levels. While my colleagues pour over numbers with initials like GDP, CPI, and PPI I prefer instead to review localized indicators through the observation of human behavior. One way I do that is to walk grocery aisles and watch how people react to prices. The result can often be odd, maybe “off-putting,” or just plain weird. But it…
[ad_1] Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair This Fourth of July marked the 250th birthday of a new kind of nation state — based not on ancestral ties to a land or on the territorial reach of monarchs, but on shared principles about the rights of citizens and the purpose of the state. The Founding Fathers set forth those principles in the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal” and have “unalienable Rights [to] Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” To “secure these rights,” Jefferson wrote, the government must “derive just powers from the consent of the governed.” America has come…
[ad_1] America’s 250th birthday inspired one helluva party, from a national outpouring of flag-waving patriots to a glorious parade of tall ships in New York Harbor. [ad_2] Source link
[ad_1] The bizarre affinity of Trump for the great progressive president [ad_2] Source link
[ad_1] Operatives in D.C. and Maine are floating four names to take on Susan Collins as calls grow for the progressive oysterman to exit the race. [ad_2] Source link