'…a major destabilizing influence'
The US is hurtling into uncharted waters as a polity, with the two likely candidates for president this November both clearly suffering from significant cognitive impairment and evidence of continuing mental decline. Back in 1980, the American voters elected a man, Ronald Reagan, who unbeknownst to them already had the beginnings of Alzheimer’s dementia. …
Continue reading “Two Mentally Challenged Candidates to Choose Between for US President?”
By Ron Ridenour Entering into the debate on the pages of TCHB, namely pieces by Laurie Dobson (April 9) and Dave Lindorff, let me start by defining what social democracy is and is not. Social democracy is not socialism. It is various reforms for improving workers lives so that they will not overthrow …
Continue reading “Sanders is No Socialist; He’s not even a Democratic Socialist”
Two hugely important people were taken down by COVID-19 this past week. Both have left a legacy, the importance of which cannot be ignored. John Prine The first struck down last week is one of the greatest modern songwriters of my lifetime, John Prine. One of my favorite musicians, Prine was a humble, funny …
Continue reading “Honoring Two Men Just Brought Down by the Coronavirus Pandemic”
By Ron Ridenour Copenhagen — “A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of” COVID-19. For Marx and Engels writing the Communist Manifesto, in 1848, that spectre was communism, their political system of choice. This flaring ghost they described frightened the capitalist class, which endeavored to exorcise its breath. The contemporary specter (thesis-see note) is a new …
4/3 Update: By the time the sacked captain left his ship on orders from a miffed Pentagon brass because of his leaked letter pleading with the Navy to allow his threatened 5000 crewmembers leave the ship for quarters in hotels in Guam where they could be quarantined and separated to prevent further spread of the …
Continue reading “We Have Met the Enemy and It’s a Tiny Virus”
Note: This article is being co-published with Tarbell.org, an investigative news site founded by Wendell Potter that focuses on healthcare, military spending and climate change issues. The new corporate media and conservative Democratic argument against front-runner Bernie Sanders’ eminently logical proposal for creating a single-payer government health insurance program that he calls “Medicare …
President Trump’s actions in the Middle East are becoming increasingly unhinged. A week ago, he nearly triggered a catastrophic war between Iran and the US when, acting seemingly on a whim or in response to the advice of two of his nuttier advisors, fundamentalist Christian “Rapture” believers Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo, he ordered …
For as long as I’ve been alive, my country has been a rogue state. Actually, the US became a rogue state four years before my birth in 1949 when, in 1945, Washington decided to bomb two militarily insignificant cities in Japan with its new super weapon, the atomic bomb, instantly incinerating several hundred thousand …
Continue reading “Our Country, the United States, is a Rogue Nation and Our Leaders are Criminals”
This is not an article intended to praise Qassem Suleimani, the Commander of Iran’s military who was whacked by President Trump with several Hellfire Missiles fired from a US drone at his vehicle outside the Baghdad Airport. What I do decry, however, is the almost universal characterization of Suleimani as “the baddest of the …
Continue reading “It’s Our Own Leader, Donald Trump, Who Is ‘Blood-Thirsty’ and ‘Blood-Soaked’”
As far back as at least the American Revolution, there was an unwritten rule among combatants that you don’t kill the commander in the field of battle. That’s why generals could be seen directing their troops while sitting astride a horse behind the front lines —easy targets for anyone equipped with a rifled barrel …