Beware the Anti-China Sentiment Pushing Us Towards Another Cold War (tags)
If the United States can’t learn to cooperate with China, our future will be one of constant escalation of wars and threats of wars and all that comes with them—including massive refugee flows, environmental destruction, and rising poverty.
The Divided Nation. White Nationalism in History and Society (tags)
Americans have always valued their liberal heritage and their political system which tends toward the vital center. Two souls dwell in the American breast to speak with Goethe. White privilege is a defining factor.
Avoiding the Trump Trap (tags)
As US President Donald Trump's popularity continues to drop ahead of November's election, he has sought new ways to stoke the public fear and panic that led him to victory in 2016. The best strategy may be to make Trump's demagoguery a theme of his campaign.
Bertolt Brecht Testifies Before the House Un-American Activities Committee (1947) 2 min (tags)
725 free movies, 700 free ebooks and 450 free audio books (including "1984") are ours on www.openculture.com. Enjoy the feast! How can anyone be hard-nosed with 725 freed movies?
police state
A Pretty Good Election, but the Right Still Rules (tags)
The November 6, 2012 election turned out fairly well for progressives — from Barack Obama retaining the presidency to a true Left-wing Democrat like Bob Filner winning for Mayor of San Diego — but the Right is still strong. The issue agendas and terms of discussion continue to be dictated by an increasingly militant Right wing and America's pathetic, ill-organized remnant of a Left no longer has the power to put pressure on the political system for progressive reforms the way it did in the 1890's, 1930's and 1960's.
EPPC CONDEMNS ANTI-MUSLIM WITCH-HUNT IN THE US CONGRESS (tags)
The Echo Park Community Coalition (EPCC) stands with our fellow US Muslims who say they are being unfairly singled out in the US Congressional hearings. The EPCC condemns the fact that the hearing conducted by the GOP in the House has become like a witch-hunt,. The EPCC asks: " Why is there no hearing on racist and white supremacist rightist groups? Why are they so quick to brand Muslim terrorist and soft on terrorism and quiet on the White guy who shot Rep. Giiffords and the conservatives quick to call him just "crazy"?
Labor's Last Stand in 2011? (tags)
The stage is set, and the main actors in Congress and in the corporate establishment are ready to perform, having rehearsed behind closed doors for the coming assault on organized labor's most powerful sector, public workers. The final preparations were smoothed out in Obama's tax "compromise" with the Republicans, which gave details of the drama's first act. The tax plan purposely did not include a critical element for state funding, called the Build America Bonds program (BAB), which allows recession-sunk states to easily borrow money from the federal government. In the face of enormous deficits, the states would be left to drown. Reuters blogger James Pethokoukis explains:
THE FICTION OF FREEDOM IN AMERICA (tags)
The servants of these investors and money "managers," like corporate executives and our elected - excuse the expression -representatives, look from the side, taking a payoff, as we get economically raped. This is designed to prevent wage "inflation" (that's a raise in the minimum, or any other, wage) by keeping unemployment high,
Holocaust Museum For Persecuted Heretics? (tags)
Verily, if the origin of the word ‘holocaust’ meant ‘whole’ + ‘burning’ then surely the history of the persecution and killing of pagans and various heretical sects would qualify to this nomenclature? After all, how many supposed witches, were tortured and/or burned over the centuries? How many believers in the ‘wrong’ religions or denominations, according to those fanatics who thought themselves within ‘thee’ singularly right religion, were persecuted and murdered? We don’t know any kind of exact number but it is a frightening reality to behold nevertheless.
Holocaust Museum For Persecuted Heretics? (tags)
Still it is time for crisis-plagued modernity to look beyond last century’s WWII and Hitler’s propaganda and deeds, and even to the persecution of Jews in general over the centuries, to a ‘larger’ picture of religious persecution, and to especially contemplate an underlying psychology behind it all—that mankind might gain a more balanced interpretation of religion’s politics—because religions have been ‘especially’ political—as they still are today in our own time—and as they were from time immemorial—as we will ‘only’ begin to explore.
Sep 2nd, 2009 9:09 PM Despite the sweeping Democratic victories in the elections of 2006 and 2008, the Republican party in general and the radical Right in particular have reasserted themselves with a vengeance, especially regarding the health insurance reform proposals of the Obama administration and Congress. They’ve been able to tap into the same reflexive anti-government sentiment that has powered American politics at least since Ronald Reagan’s election (and arguably earlier) to block the reform proposals and set the stage for a Republican return to power that will render Obama as irrelevant historically as Carter and Clinton -- and without a mass progressive movement to push Obama and the Democrats back to the Left, the Right will succeed and triumph.
A BREATH OF FRESH AIR SWEEPS INTO HELL (tags)
BUT THERE'S NO WAY OUT...
A Chickenhawk ThanksgivingIn Baghdad (tags)
But important, if unasked, questions linger about a president who foregoes both taste and honesty in his advancement of his agenda ö questions of integrity, character and ethics. They might be aptly summed up in a riposte posed to another Republican nearly five decades ago, Senator Joseph McCarthy, during his final days on Capitol Hill: "Finally, sir, have you no shame?"
Ann Coulter: The Conservative's Muse (tags)
Ann Coulter is on a roll, however. She has clearly orchestrated her career as the outspoken, muse of the far right; the babe of the neo-cons, the conservative's Tokyo Rose. Some might suggest she saw the writing on the wall and knew she had a good thing. Perhaps so. Perhaps not. Perhaps she believes the bilge she tosses out as truth. That possibility is even more startling.
June 19, 1953: The murder of the Rosenbergs (tags)
Think back to the political climate of the early 1950s: Senator Joseph McCarthy on the prowl. Alger Hiss convicted of “losing China.” Eleven leaders of the Communist Party convicted of “conspiracy to teach and advocate the violent overthrow of the United States.” A U.S. attack on North Korea.
ACTION ALERT: Academy Awards Peace Action (tags)
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has enacted an unofficial blacklist of Hollywood stars, who will not be allowed to speak and "use the Awards as a platform to air anti-war views." Please come out and show your support for those in our entertainment community who have demonstrated the strength and courage to risk their careers and speak out for peace.
Screen Actors Guild warns of new McCarthyism (tags)
Hollywood Actors Raise McCarthyism Specter on Iraq Tue Mar 4, 2003 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood actors, facing a vitriolic backlash for their opposition to a war against Iraq, have raised the specter of Cold War McCarthyism in an appeal to avoid returning to one of the movie industry's darkest hours.