Former president Trump’s arraignment yesterday at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington, DC on conspiracy charges for his failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election was a day of bitter irony and a sad day in American history. All day outside the courthouse on the crowded sidewalks, media from around the world were reporting and[Read More…]

Donald Trump is currently being charged with 34 felonies The State of New York, under the leadership of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg Jr., has arrested the former president, finger-printed him, and charged him with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, in violation of Penal Law §175. Trump’s major crimes The crimes for which he[Read More…]

No sooner had Trump been indicted by a grand jury in New York than activist Nadine Seiler was outside the White House with her large homemade banner announcing it to the world. This morning she stationed herself in front of the building expressing her joy with many other enthusiastic visitors and tourists enjoying the moment. Seiler may be remembered for[Read More…]

Whatever your feelings about former President Trump, there are reasons to be skeptical when government officials say it was necessary to raid his Florida home to recover classified documents that threatened national security. Like the former president, I was once accused by the government of mishandling classified information connected to my representation of a detainee at Guantanamo Bay. There was[Read More…]

Some on the far right have been calling for civil war since an FBI raid on Trump’s Florida home. Some experts say the warning signs for civil war have been emerging in the US in recent years. They say that such a conflict would look very different from the Civil War of the 1860s. A Business Insider report (The far[Read More…]

The Trump-shelter-search incident is a new political occurrence in the US. Then, the interview came. Donald Trump, former US president, during an almost day-long interview with the New York attorney general, answered only a single question, and that was about his name. The interview was from about 9:30 a.m. to about 3 p.m., with a few breaks. That was an[Read More…]

Donald Trump still struts on the American political scene. It seems probable that he will stand again for president in 2024. Here I consider one important aspect of his popular appeal – his ‘blue-collar’ image.   In 2018 a book appeared entitled Trump, The Blue-Collar President. The author, financier Anthony Scaramucci, who served as the White House Director of Communications[Read More…]

In the U.S. the strident arguments put forward that “voter fraud” has taken place in the recent election continues to resonate with a segment of the population. What do the deniers really want? Is it a return to a status which kept Blacks and Indigenous in a secondary role? Is it that those who have, up to the present, been[Read More…]

I too am a working stiff like you all. Unlike you I had no aspirations in regard to Donald Trump. I must say that I ditto that towards Joe Biden, yet I voted for him… biting my tongue. I would never have voted for Biden if not for who he was running against, a megalomaniac preaching this Proto Fascist agenda.[Read More…]

After the US Capitol was attacked by his supporters, Donald Trump has become the first president of America to be impeached twice. Regardless of how he leaves the White House – the Senate won’t act on the impeachment before Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021 – the neo-fascist seeds he has sown won’t stop germinating. Even after the brazen attempt to overturn[Read More…]

It is a fitting end to four years of Donald Trump in the White House. On one side, Trump’s endless stoking of political grievances – and claims that November’s presidential election was “stolen” from him – spilled over last week into a mob storming the US Capitol. They did so in the forlorn hope of disrupting the certification process of[Read More…]

2021 has indeed begun and god knows what it has in store for us.  But unless, somehow, we’re surprised beyond imagining, The Donald is indeed going to leave the White House soon and, much as I hate to admit it, in some strange fashion we’re going to miss him.  Of course, it will be beyond a great relief to see[Read More…]

Go get Rick Perlstein’s great book Reaganland: America’s Right Turn, 1976-1980 and see how we got here from ‘ There’ , the turn to the right wing in the dawning of Reagan’s presidency. Even the slogan that Trump ‘ borrowed ‘ from the Reagan campaigns: Let’s Make America Great Again’  was bundled with all the other techniques that Ronnie’s handlers[Read More…]

  “With hindsight, it is clear that the United States failed the difficult test set by history. In the three decades that followed their triumph [over the Soviet Union] and their coronation, they proved unable to establish a new world order, to build a role as a parental power or indeed sustain their moral credibility, which is probably lower today[Read More…]

Dante Alighieri Has Words for Donald J. Trump From the Other Side of Death For some time now, I’ve wanted to send Donald Trump to Hell. I mean this literally, not as a figure of speech. I want him to inhabit the palpable, sensory Hell that religions have long conjured up with scenes of sulfur, damnation, and screams of perpetual[Read More…]

News is “faked”; elections are “rigged”; a “deep state” plots a “coup”; Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died suspiciously in bed with a pillow over his face; aides of ex-president Barack Obama conspire to undermine foreign policy from a “war room”; Obama himself was a Muslim mole; the National Park Service lied about the size of the crowd at the president’s inauguration;[Read More…]

Yes, when he was running for president, he did indeed say: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.” Then he won — and this November 3rd (or thereafter), whether he wins or loses, we’re likely to find out that, when it comes to his base, he was[Read More…]

How funny was the Seinfeld show’s episode on the Bizarro world? People who physically resembled the real Jerry and  his three friends in a cartoonish way, with their character traits being the opposite, was fantastic. If you recall, the Bizarro folks were into sharing and not self absorbed at all. They not only cared about each other more than even[Read More…]

What pops into your head when you hear the number 1,000 in a political-military context? Having studied German military history, I immediately think of Adolf Hitler’s confident boast that his Third Reich would last a thousand years. In reality, of course, a devastating world war brought that Reich down in a mere 12 years. Only recently, however, such boasts popped[Read More…]

The year was 1991 and the United States was suddenly the globe’s lone superpower, its ultimate hyperpower, the last and greatest of its kind, the soon-to-be-indispensable nation. The only one left — alone, utterly alone and triumphant atop the world. Who could have asked for more? Or better? It had been a Cold War fantasy of the first order —[Read More…]

Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, has released a foreword to his new book in which he calls the president “a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man,” and accuses him of cheating in the 2016 presidential election. Cohen also makes reference to “golden showers in a sex club in Vegas,” without specifically stating[Read More…]

His niece Mary L. Trump has written in Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man “His egregious and arguably intentional mishandling of the current catastrophe has led to a level of pushback and scrutiny that he’s never experienced before, increasing his belligerence and need for petty revenge as he withholds vital funding, personal[Read More…]

The “gate” suffix has been wearing thin since the break-in scandal that gave it its birth.  Since Watergate, virtually anything dubious and suggestive, and much more besides, is suffixed.  Which brings us to the issue of President Donald Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.  Finding himself in hot water (did he ever leave it?) Trump has been sowing the seeds of “Obamagate”,[Read More…]

Ok, let me be perfectly clear here. I know, from years of studying the real Amerikan history from writers like Parenti, Chomsky, Zinn, Chossuduvsky, even Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznik, that the fix has always been in. Meaning, that this Two Party/One Party political system has always done the bidding for the Uber Rich… Period! As a socialist I have[Read More…]

It turns out that walls can’t always be seen. Donald Trump may never build his “great, great wall,” but that doesn’t mean he isn’t working to wall Americans in. It’s a story that needs to be told. This past month, for instance, claims of ISIS’s near total defeat in Syria have continued to mount. As a result, numerous foreigners who had traveled[Read More…]

Not only are we in a sense defined by our DNA, but new research shows our behavior may also be affected by that of our ancestors.  So observe the authors of a paper published in Science Advances recently.  Thomas Talhelm from the University of Chicago has an interest in the cultural differences between northern and southern China.  Northerners are considered[Read More…]

George Washington’s Farewell Address — one of the most important documents of America’s Founders — warned against any and all permanent alliances; he said, on 19 September 1796: The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of[Read More…]

Does Trump (and some of his advisors) Deserve Being Labeled Sociopathic, Narcissistic, Paranoiac, Egomaniacal, Megalomaniacal, Xenophobic, Demagogic and/or Neo-Fascistic? A sociopath is a person whose behavior is antisocial, often criminally greedy, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility, empathy or social conscience. Sociopaths never sincerely apologize nor are they capable of exhibiting remorse for wrongs that they have committed.[Read More…]

  “If a president was dumb enough to pardon himself that would be such an arrogant statement of power that the House would probably impeach him in a week and the Senate would convict him.” Newt Gingrich, Jun 5, 2018 It is a view that Charles I would have been proud of: The means by which one can forgive and[Read More…]

Millions of Americans celebrated, or were surprised or outraged, and some even went into hysterics, and many powerful people felt great anxiety, when Donald J. Trump, ‘unexpectedly’ (to most media, ‘experts’ and pollsters), was elected president of the United States. This perplexing political ‘happening’ and its aftermath – some call it The Trump Phenomenon – comes after a generations long[Read More…]

Why does a President Trump lay himself open to mockery?  Simply because his behavior is not only unlike a dignified president but his policy tweets are quite outrageous.  From ‘my nuclear button is bigger than yours’ addressed to Kim Jong-un to arming teachers to defend schools against mass shooters — he is quite off the wall. Two weeks after the[Read More…]

It seemed so much busier, much more manic and crowded than the one year that had passed.  Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump continues to excite the same headlines and explosions that began even before he made it to the White House. By the time he got there, there were protests galore at agendas yet to be implemented, decrees yet[Read More…]

  Schoolyard name calling by an American president might be unusual, it might be undiplomatic, it might even be childish, yet it had the world riveted — if only for a short moment — on the antics of ‘rocket man’ and the Donald.  The ‘nuclear button is on my desk says one’; ‘my button is bigger than yours and works[Read More…]

The attempt to tease, weave and develop a narrative against President Donald J. Trump over a Russian connection began almost immediately after his victory in November last year. This was meant to be institutional oversight and probing, but in another sense, it was also intended to be an establishment’s cry of hope to haul the untenable and inconceivable before some[Read More…]

  Not much has been written about Donald Trump’s leadership-style, but his style of leadership is essential to understand, in order to be able to understand his values, his  Presidency, the roots of his Presidency, and where his Presidency is taking America. His style of leadership has historically been exhibited by a certain type of national leader. Trump is no[Read More…]

US President Donald Trump retweeted three videos Wednesday morning that were posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of Britain First, a fascist outfit that has specialized in such activities as “mosque invasions” and “Christian patrols” in urban areas with large Muslim populations. Trump’s latest tweeting is an escalation of a political strategy aimed at inciting and encouraging far-right forces.[Read More…]

It is a year since Donald J. Trump’s election as president on November 8, 2016, and a couple of months less since his inauguration.  In that time the bombast has not stopped, the achievements remain meager. The threats against North Korea continue — now on Trump’s Asian tour.  President Moon of South Korea is from the rapprochement party, bemused at[Read More…]

  For the past nine months, we have seen widespread attacks on the common good. The latest assault is the Republicans’ proposed tax reform, a huge transfer of wealth to the richest one-tenth of one percent. This legislation would also greatly increase the national debt, supposedly a major red line for Republicans. In addition, President Trump continues to: 1) slow[Read More…]

  The nature of the rhetoric in Donald Trump’s first speech at the United Nations General Assembly was largely predictable. Even his bizarre threat to “totally destroy North Korea” was consistent with his overall style and previous warnings. But how different was his speech, if compared with the first and last UN speeches of President Barack Obama? A 19th Century English author, John Ruskin, once wrote,[Read More…]

Donald Trump’s appearance before the General Assembly of the United Nations could have been a rare highlight of his chaotic young presidency. If Trump had just repeated his inauguration address, the audience would have burst out in gales of laughter. Instead, they countered his bluster not only against North Korea and Iran but also against the UN body as a[Read More…]

It seems to have reached a point of near exhaustion. What will the President of the United States do next?  The money was on some diplomatic mayhem, a series of insults, and a trashing of various aspects of the organisation some Americans regard as a world government. But Donald Trump surprised those at the United Nations with a modest tone,[Read More…]

  For those living in the northern climes of our great country, the season is just beginning to change. Summer has lost its worst heat. The air smells and tastes different … like Spring except that unlike Spring, instead of freshness … there is an undertone of decay. At the end of the American century, her voice has become as[Read More…]

  Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. is known for its regular polls. It asked voters what words came to mind when they thought of President Donald J. Trump. Different adjectives ascribed to him were subsequently ranked: “Smart” came in at number 28, but “idiot” was number one. In Mr. Trump’s home town, New York City, the public library reports fully[Read More…]

Barack Obama was the only U.S. President who at the United Nations defended nazism — racist fascism — and Holocaust-denial. It received almost no reporting by the press at the time (or subsequently). But his successor President Donald Trump could end up being removed from office because he said that racist fascists are just the same as are people who[Read More…]

  Since January when this administration entered office, has anything significant been accomplished?  Not really.  The only  major bill slapping more sanctions on Russia was entirely the work of Congress.  Whether it is a positive or a foreign policy disaster is debatable, but one thing is certain:  we continue to antagonize, irritate, humble, press  militarily, encircle and threaten the only[Read More…]

Political corruption often leads to a constitutional crisis. The Watergate scandal that took down Richard Nixon shook up American politics. Over four decades later, we are now seeing another scandal associated with campaign officials. Dubbed “Russiagate”, a liberal media frenzy began over the claim of possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia before and during the 2016 election. Now, new intelligence[Read More…]

It’s all well and good to huff at the current President of the United States, who has managed to get under more irritated skin than an army of dedicated leaches.  The immersion of the White House into the reality television show of Trumpland has set people on edge, lighting volatile fires and driving some commentators, quite literally, around the bend.[Read More…]

At this critical moment in human history it is important to recognize that Trump is in charge of very little. Every President struggles to overcome the basic inertia of large systems, entrenched bureaucracies, and a media and media owners with their own ideas on policy. Even when a President is intelligent and engaged with the information there are severe limits[Read More…]

We need to begin this discussion with the unfinished Presidency of Barack Obama. Some said it was because of his race. Others said it was his deliberative slowness as he explored every possibility and probability to its end before making a decision. Some said it was because he just could not “get along” with Congress. Others said it was because[Read More…]

  In the wake of President Donald Trump’s visit to West Asia, is there even a faint glimmer of hope for peace in the most conflict-ridden region of the world? Or, has his visit to Saudi Arabia and Israel from the 20th to the 23rd of May 2017 only strained the region’s undercurrentsof friction and tension?  Some reflections on areas[Read More…]

From his big white bird did the President descend upon his dreading European hosts, looking much like natives waiting to be slaughtered or ravished.  As Donald Trump pushed his way through NATO members (the Montenegrin prime minister, for one, felt his forceful shove), representatives shot glances of discomfort and bemusement. In a refreshing blast of brutishness, the Ugly American, made[Read More…]

  The thirst for war is ancient. As old as disputatious neighbors or rival tribes, it is enticing — a siren call for the strong, presenting as it does a quick, easy and final solution. That it is often not, has hastened the end of royal dynasties (Hohenzollerns, Hapsburgs and Romanovs after WWI) and empires, including the British. There are[Read More…]

It was time to do the Zionist boogie within a mere period of 27 hours, and anyone wishing to see two muggers of history enjoying each other’s company found themselves peering at Donald Trump of the United States, and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, nearly arm in arm on the recent tilt in US policy.  “We understand each other,” effused the Israeli[Read More…]

Riddled with hypocrisy, clichés and absurdities, President Donald Trump’s speech Sunday before an assembly of monarchs and despots in Saudi Arabia spelled out an agenda of escalating US militarism throughout the Middle East and a buildup in particular toward war with Iran. Hailed by a fawning American media as “presidential”–supposedly eclipsing for the moment the crises and factional struggles engulfing[Read More…]

It has the air of a hunting party, and the quarry, on this occasion, was a lumbering US President with a loose tongue. The individual aiming the rifle in this case was The Washington Post, assisted by the murmurings and breathless whispers of various concerned officials as to what Donald Trump did in his meeting with Russian foreign minister, Sergey[Read More…]

The human capacity, notably in cultures where measurements are valued, places much stock in numbering deeds.  In the case of the US presidency, power is supposedly meant to translate into something within the first hundred days, a ring fight between the president and other arms of government, a race to the policy making podium. The US political system, in its[Read More…]

The Abrahamic concept of “evil” has to some extent left the Western vocabulary. The time has come for Americans to bring it back. They can do so by answering these questions: Is their country now under its control? Could Donald Trump and his followers bring down not just the country but human civilization? My essay provides answers. XXXXXXX As Donald[Read More…]

  How many books have been authored by Donald Trump?  The answer:  a steady stream totaling a whopping 17 — more than enough to keep a full-time writer fully occupied without all of Mr. Trump’s other activities.  The word ‘writer’ of course is key, for Mr. Trump has not actually written any of them.  He hires a ghost writer and[Read More…]

“You could send Congress to space.” Senator Ted Cruz, Mar 21, 2017 The NASA authorisation bill was another Trump huff and puff show, brimming with the usual air of minted if misplaced confidence.  “My fellow Americans, this week in the company of astronauts I was honoured to sign the NASA Transition Authorization Act right into law.” The bill was meant[Read More…]

                               President Trump, in announcing his immigration and travel ban stated “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on,” He added, “… it is[Read More…]

Speaking before a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump reaffirmed the core pillars of his presidency: vastly expanding military spending, slashing taxes on corporations, scapegoating immigrants for the crisis of American capitalism, and promoting economic nationalist trade policies. In contrast to his inaugural speech, Trump couched his extreme right-wing policies in the traditional conventions of American[Read More…]

  On February 27th, Reuters headlined “Trump seeks ‘historic’ increase of 9 percent in U.S. military’s budget” and reported that “Trump will ask Congress to boost Pentagon spending in the next fiscal year by $54 billion in his first budget proposal and slash the same amount from non-defense spending.” The U.S. Department of Defense is one of the 15 U.S. Cabinet departments, the others[Read More…]

It is already clearly apparent, as many predicted, that Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States would signal the start of what might be the final monumental assault on much of what is good in our world. Whatever our collective gains to date to create a world in which peace, social justice and environmental sustainability ultimately prevail for[Read More…]

The English Language gave birth to William Shakespeare, John Keats, and James Joyce, to name but a few of the many bright stars.  It also spawned the likes of Donald J. Trump, a kind of genetically-modified product grown in a hothouse; a man who not only stumbles over every word he utters but coins new and bizarre phraseology to convey[Read More…]

The first few weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency has seen an amazing explosion of mobilizing to oppose him and his administration on oh-so-many levels.  And that has been heartening. But it is not enough. The fact is, as things now stand, Trump and his minions can outlast us.  And even if we get Trump out of there—which I think is[Read More…]

In his book, “The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government”, Mike Lofgren called attention to the fact that much of the real power in Washington is not controlled by the President and members of Congress, but is in the hands of multi-billion-dollar organizations that are not only huge, but also unelected and[Read More…]

History may not be as useless as art, but it certainly performs a function that is almost without utility. George Santayana may well have crowed about the warnings of repeating historical mistakes if not learnt – the errant pupil ill-read would simply re-invent the same wheel of folly – but the point was not entirely accurate. What tends to happen[Read More…]

The first month of Trump in office unleashed chaos and turmoil with a series of executive orders threatening women’s reproductive rights, immigrants and sacred water guarded by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Trump presidency was a transition from a regime of secrecy to that of naked power. The legacy of Obama’s covert oppression is now being carried out by an[Read More…]

On Aug. 8, 2016, 50 former top-level Republican officials who served under Republican presidents going back to Richard Nixon issued a warning letter. Many had held senior national security posts. They called out the threat to national security posed by President Trump’s lack of self-control and impetuously “erratic behavior” and concluded that he “would be the most reckless president in[Read More…]

I fear that many of us are hating Donald Trump for the wrong reasons. Multitudes are being swayed by mainstream media-inspired demonization of the new US president, based on selective assumptions and half-truths. US mainstream media, which rarely deviates from supporting the American government’s conduct, however reckless, is now presenting Trump as if an aberration of otherwise egalitarian, sensible, and[Read More…]

When the French psychologist and philosopher Michel Foucault wrote Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason in 1973, he did not have in mind President Donald J. Trump because his study sought to answer the question of insanity from 1500 to 1800 only.  Still, the book, a milestone both by reason and skill, sheds some[Read More…]

John Pilger may certainly be correct in arguing that “Trump is not the Issue” but the way the latter’s propaganda works certainly is. Trump undoubtedly values the propagandistic role in domination and oppression and the fact that it helps obscuring the narratives that explaindomination and oppression.[i] Trump is a master of domination and oppression and his recently acquired power demands[Read More…]

Open any newspaper or peruse any website and you’ll find at least one celebrity, one politician, or one pundit demanding that the rest of us “embrace” President Trump and his gang. Some suggest that we “give him a chance” and others say basically that “you guys lost so stuff it and deal with the new guy.” Others, true to the[Read More…]

Trump seems like Don Quixote, who invents enemies and fight them and believe to be victorious. It is true that Trump has succeeded in the real estate business. But the administration’s policy is much bigger than estate companies and alcohol factories. However, this does not mean that the world had reached the stage morality has become embedded in politics, but[Read More…]

London: Trump Traumatic Disorder has been making its away across the Atlantic, numbing British officials, activists and commentators on one vital point: Should President Donald J. Trump be able to see the Queen on an official state visit? A good of deal of this was sparked by Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven Muslim majority states.  On a daily basis,[Read More…]

Such a flurry of activity in the first week as executive orders poured out of the Oval Office at a fast and furious pace.  To what end … Yes, a wall is going to be built … except it might be a fence and might not cover the whole stretch.  The chief of the border patrol has resigned/fired over disagreement. [Read More…]

Presidents and Prime Ministers assuming office in mature democratic countries after an election start with a period of honeymoon with the public and the rest of the world. President Kennedy had a long honeymoon and President Hollande a briefer one. Trump has willfully chosen not to have any honeymoon by his pronouncements before the inaugural and the speech he made[Read More…]

During a visit to the Pentagon on Friday, President Donald Trump issued an executive action calling for stepped up violence in Syria and a vast expansion of the US military, including its nuclear arsenal, to prepare for war with “near-peer competitors”—a reference to nuclear-armed China and Russia—and “regional challengers,” such as Iran. “I’m signing an executive action to begin a[Read More…]

On Friday, Jan. 20, Donald Trump took the presidential oath of office before a crowd best described as puny compared to the estimated 1.8 million people who attended Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration. The following day, the world erupted as millions of people joined demonstrations in major cities across the United States and the world to express their commitment to opposing[Read More…]

Two hundred and thirty-five people were arrested by police last Friday morning during protests in Washington D.C. at the inauguration of Donald Trump. The protests were described by participants as both “anti-capitalist” and “anti- fascist.” Those arrested, composed largely of politically unaffiliated individuals, were first surrounded and indiscriminately detained at the intersection of 11th and K Street. There riot police[Read More…]

In the first days of his presidency, Donald Trump has issued a series of executive orders and memoranda that outline his administration’s far-right agenda: economic nationalism and war abroad; attacks on living standards and democratic rights at home. On Friday, immediately following his inauguration, Trump issued an executive order weakening the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The order,[Read More…]

This is a transcript of a talk Chris Hedges gave at the Inaugurate the Resistance rally in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. The ruling elites, terrified by the mobilization of the left in the 1960s, or by what [political scientist] Samuel P. Huntington called America’s “excess of democracy,” built counter-institutions to delegitimize and marginalize critics of corporate capitalism and imperialism. They[Read More…]

A strange and disturbing sequence took place behind President Donald Trump as he delivered his inaugural address Friday, which has gone virtually without comment in the news media. Early in his address, ten military officers walked up and stood behind the president so they would prominently appear with Trump in the camera shots beamed across the US and the world.[Read More…]

US President Donald  Trump’s Inaugural Address was a mish-mash of populist rhetoric, unachievable promises, lying by commission and egregious lying by omission, most notably over the 1.7 million Americans who die preventably each year in the neoliberal US Corporatocracy.  Crucially, espousal of “America First” by an anti-Christ Donald Trump contradicts the “Love thy neighbour” imperative of that wonderful Palestinian humanitarian[Read More…]

Donald Trump’s inaugural speech, like the candidate himself, was a chain of falsehoods, saber-rattling and scary Neofascist uber-nationalism. But it could be difficult to follow because so much of it seemed stolen from the mass politics of the 1930s in central and southern Europe. So here is a plain English translation of some key passages. Today’s ceremony, however, has very[Read More…]

San Francisco: With the country ridden by woe and revulsion; with the discontent so profound and vicious, the Trump presidency began.  It did so by way of comparison – of the chalk-cheese variety.  In 2008, when the shining armour of Knight Obama took centre stage, there were sighs, ecstatic releases, heavy exhalations of hope.  The theme, then, to start this presidency:[Read More…]

When a local organizer for a new adult education project in Austin, Texas, asked me to teach a course on politics in January, it was tempting to focus on the potentially disastrous short-term consequences of the election. Instead, I decided to frame the course around the disastrous long-term forces that shape the contemporary United States, no matter who is in[Read More…]

  On Saturday afternoon, January 7, 2017, I attended an indoor rally entitled United Against Trump at the Women’s Building in San Francisco.  The room was packed to the rafters.  The spirit of resistance was high.  There were inspiring speeches on defending immigrants, on fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline, on fighting for health care, on taxing the rich.  There were[Read More…]

The US corporate press was abuzz with front page, top stories today about the disagreement between incoming president Trump and some figures from the CIA and other intelligence agencies regarding the leaking of facts about Hillary Clinton, which some in the US speculate caused her to lose the election. Some US establishment figures claim the information was stolen and released[Read More…]

The heroic work of the Standing Rock water protectors represents a defining moment in the long struggle against the institutions of empire and colonial rule. It is fitting that the leaders are indigenous peoples who have come together in an ever-widening circle. As the Standing Rock circle has expanded, it has included nonindigenous participants who reflect the diverse racial, religious,[Read More…]

A month has passed since Donald Trump was declared president-elect soon to be the 45th president of the United States.    Since his win, pundits, analysts, and experts continue to debate the victory – a surprise to most.   While the reason/s for this victory depend on one’s perspective, most agree on one thing: Trump is unpredictable. But is he really? There[Read More…]

Today human civilization and the biosphere face two existential threats: catastrophic climate change, and thermonuclear war. Each of these disasters could cause mass extinctions, and each could make large portions of the earth permanently uninhabitable. The hubris of oligarchic leaders in the United States is leading the world directly towards both these threats; and this is particularly true after the[Read More…]

Even for a failed gambling czar, Donald Trump has been surprisingly quick to show his hand as he sets the course of his forthcoming presidency. With a reactionary fervor, he is bursting backwards into the future. He has accomplished this feat through the first wave of nominations to his Cabinet and White House staff. Only if there is a superlative[Read More…]

Prince Ea, rapper and spoken-word artist and social justice advocate, has a soliloquy on YouTube with a surprising title: WHY IM HAPPY TRUMP WON. How could he think that, as he has passionately called for recognizing the dignity in all people? He’s happy, he says, because he sees this election result as a wake-up call. It forces us to recognize[Read More…]

The dust has settled on the Presidential election. Peoples and governments everywhere have accepted the reality that a controversial personality has been elected to the highest political office in the world.There is muted hope, indeed rejoicing, among those American citizens who have hitherto felt woefully disenfranchised, that their concerns will soon be addressed. Millions, however, are fearful their country will[Read More…]

Politics can be a deliciously self-defeating field.  For the US-Australian alliance, one born out of desperate insecurity on the part of Canberra, a dramatic change in the White House was always going to cause a shudder.  A Clinton presidency was presumed to be inevitable and, on taking place, a no-fuss affair, one which was to continue President Barack Obama’s “pivot”[Read More…]

Normal is coming unhinged. For the past eight years it has been possible for most people (at least in the relatively privileged classes) to believe that society is sound, that the system, though creaky, basically works, and that the progressive deterioration of everything from ecology to economy is a temporary deviation from the evolutionary imperative of progress. A Clinton presidency[Read More…]

  Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble. — Macbeth Mass protest demonstrations have been taking place across the United States after dangerous right wing billionaire Donald J. Trump unexpectedly defeated Hillary R. Clinton in the U.S. election Nov. 8. She was the first woman candidate of a major party to run for the presidency in the[Read More…]

My first book was an alternative history of World War II called Saving Private Power: The Hidden History of the “Good War.” The jam-packed release party took place in July 2000 at the old Brecht Forum. I gave a kick-ass (if I say so myself) one-hour presentation — without notes. Afterwards, during the Q&A, I was asked what I would’ve[Read More…]

Since Donald Trump’s victory in the most bizarre US presidential election in memory, pundits, Rightists, “democrats” and even Barack Obama himself have called upon people to support ideas and results that go against their own feelings, ethics, and desires.  This, apparently, is what “Democracy” is all about.   Ironically, it is the Right now that is lecturing us the need to[Read More…]

This has been the first presidential election in living memory where it was difficult to cast a vote. As the voting numbers show, many stayed away. Better the devil you know … goes the adage. The choice between ‘crooked’ Hillary and, well, the Donald … He who thumbed his nose at the establishment, was labeled a neo-Nazi, was shunned by[Read More…]

In late 2012, Peter Turchin, a professor at the University of Connecticut made a startling claim. Based on an analysis of revolutionary upheavals across history, he found that there were 3 social conditions in place shortly before all major outbreaks of social violence: an increase in the elite population; a decrease in the living standards of the masses; and huge[Read More…]

The 2016 election and the rise of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump can be explained by growing inequality and the nature of populist movements. Understanding this creates potential for serious radical change. The architects of our economy — both Republicans and Democrats — shouldn’t be surprised that there is backlash after decades of shifting most of our economy’s income[Read More…]

Billionaire US president-elect Donald Trump belongs to the richest 0.1% of Americans but has been elected by an anti-science,  neoliberal electoral continuum from  the desperate White  poor to the homicidally greedy rich. Trump is an explicit climate change denier and promises a neoliberal agenda of $1 trillion annually  in tax-cuts disproportionately  favouring the rich in an environmentally  disastrous Business As[Read More…]

It’s the morning after Trump’s election. I watched the election until about 2 am, Eastern time, so I knew he was going to win. Already early this morning, my friend, Karen, has called to talk—she’s an African American with a 22-year old son, and she’s scared: and this is not someone who scares easily. My daughter messaged me from The[Read More…]

On the eve of the U.S. Presidential election this writer’s article, DAPL Uprising Against Dakota Access Pipeline Ignored By Clinton and Trump was posted online by the Countercurrents.org The gist of that article was a message to the American electorate that the choice in the election wasn’t just between the evil of two political lessers but that other highly-principled candidates[Read More…]

Right wing political groups throughout the world are celebrating Trump’s victory but rather prematurely. The traditional conservatives and liberals are sufficiently delusional to believe that they are somehow far removed from Trump-style authoritarian politics when in fact they laid the groundwork for Trump to succeed. Meanwhile, some traditional conservative political leaders around the world are wondering if right wing populism[Read More…]

That’s my first entry here in my list of a baker’s dozen. The other “sides” to my personal joy are listed below (in no special order). Keep in mind, if you will, that I’m one of the most radical souls on earth, with many decades of having my head bashed in at the barricades (in the name of leftist causes) under my belt. I belt out what’s below now because of the highly unproductive commentary coming out of alternative media outlets and from mainstream sources freaking out about Trump’s downsides. I’m fully aware of his horrid downsides.

Whew! Finally, the charade is over. Donald Trump is now the President of the United States of America. What does that mean? It means that Simpsons prediction came true: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2146815/the-simpsons-correctly-predicted-a-donald-trump-presidency-16-years-ago-in-episode-set-in-the-near-future/ So now you know who to refer to for accurate predictions about the future. Goodbye Tarot cards, et al. In 1995 I recall reading a survey which concluded that America[Read More…]

Donald Trump formally accepted the nomination as the Republican Party candidate in the 2016 presidential elections Thursday night with a fascistic rant delivered before cheering delegates at the convention hall in Cleveland, Ohio. In contrast to most of his speeches, Trump’s remarks on Thursday closely followed a prepared script, eschewing his characteristic stream-of-consciousness rambling. However, this change in form did[Read More…]