US politics

By Rebecca Gordon | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Think of it as the Trojan Drone, the ultimate techno-weapon of American warfare in these years, a single remotely operated plane sent to take out a single key figure. It’s a shiny video game for grown ups — a Mortal Kombat or Call of Duty […]

Bill of Rights

Can Americans get back their Democracy from the Oligarchy?

contributors

By John Scales Avery | (Inter Press Service) | – – COPENHAGEN, (IPS) – As many observers around the world have pointed out, the United States is no longer a true democracy. It is an oligarchy. The US government ignores the safety, wishes and needs of the majority of its citizens, and instead makes decisions […]

Militarization

Has the US Military become a B Movie Alien for the rest of the World?

contributors

By William J. Astore | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – Perhaps you’ve heard the expression: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Cartoonist Walt Kelly’s famed possum, Pogo, first uttered that cry. In light of alien disaster movies like the recent sequel Independence Day: Resurgence and America’s disastrous wars of the twenty-first […]

African-Americans

After Yawning Racial Divide exposed in US, Peaceful Protests Continue

contributors

TeleSur | – – Tens of thousands of demonstrators poured defiantly into streets across the U.S. this weekend, shutting down highways, bridges and roads, chanting, praying, cheering and throwing rocks, Molotv cocktails and cinder blocks to protest the police killings of two black men last week in Louisiana and Minnesota, as the population of a […]

African-Americans

Kurdish Women Fighting ISIL Send Solidarity to BlackLivesMatter

contributors

TeleSur | – – “You are among the most radical voices in today’s racist, sexist, capitalist world,” the YPJ wrote to Black Lives Matter. Fighters from the Kurdish Women’s Defense Units or YPJ, have sent a message of solidarity to the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. “To our black sisters and brothers! […]

Republican Party

Does Donald Trump win even if he loses?

contributors

By Nomi Prins with Craig Wilson | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | – – “Establishment: A group in a society exercising power and influence over matters of policy, opinion, or taste, and seen as resisting change.” — Oxford Dictionary Early on in his presidential bid, Donald Trump began touting his anti-establishment credentials. When it worked, he […]

Democratic Party

Clintonites in Democratic Party Back Settler Colonialism (Not a 1905 Headline)

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Clinton loyalists debating the Democratic Party platform have defeated an amendment that would have called for an end to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and condemned Israeli squatter settlements illegal. The Democratic Party, in other words, backs the principle of colonialism no less than if […]

prison reform

White House Admits Prison spending has grown 3x as fast as Education for Decades

contributors

TeleSur | – – U.S. state and local spending on prisons and jails grew at three times the rate of spending on schools over the last 33 years as the number of people behind bars ballooned under a spate of harsh sentencing laws, a government report released Thursday said. U.S. Secretary of Education John King […]

African-Americans

8,124 Murders by Firearm in US vs. 29 (144 equiv.) in UK

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Revised The United States continues to be peculiar in handing out powerful magazine-fed firearms to almost anyone who wants one and not requiring background checks on private purchases even if these are made at gun shows. 80% of civilian-owned firearms world-wide are in the US, and […]