There’s been a new public fracturing of the intellectual left, typified by an essay last week from Nathan J Robinson, editor of the small, independent, socialist magazine Current Affairs, accusing Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi of bolstering the right’s arguments. He is the more reasonable face of what seems to be a new industry arguing... Read More

Introduction Fay Stender earned fame as a radical attorney in the 1960s and 1970s, defending two of the most prominent Black Panthers in highly publicized court cases. During the course of her career in left-wing activism, she embraced numerous “causes� with a passion as flamboyant as it was unbalanced. She worked strictly within the stream... Read More

The life of a professional political satirist is many things, but it is certainly never boring. Last week, for example, was particularly not boring. OK, I wasn’t called before a Senate committee to testify against a rapey nominee to the highest court in the United States, or smeared by the right-wing media for doing so,... Read More

Neocon Max Boot now says it’s better for the Syrian people if Assad stays in power. But we still can’t get the American left to come to its senses about Syria. Louis Proyect says in Counterpunch that the suffering coming out of East Ghouta is “on a massive scale reminiscent of Leningrad in 1941.� According... Read More

Two blocks from my front door, there are two signs in a house window, “FASCIST SCUM YOUR TIME IS DONE,� “WHITE SUPREMACY IS TERRORISM.� Seeing them, my 71-year-old friend, Felix, snarled, “I feel like throwing a rock through that window! How dare he comes into this neighborhood and calls us Fascists!� Interesting, Felix’ immediate assumption... Read More

Liberals are supposed to be antiwar, right? I went to college in the 1960s, when students nationwide were rising up in opposition to the Vietnam War. I was a Young Republican back then and supported the war through sheer ignorance and dislike of the sanctimoniousness of the protesters, some of whom were surely making their... Read More

Trump did not cause the deep division in the country. It caused him. There are two very different Americas. I suspect that the half of the country that voted for Trump, that voted with wild enthusiasm, that roared at huge rallies, was not so much voting for Trump as against the other America. It was... Read More

How might a future historian view the massive protests of President Trump’s temporary travel ban? Given that I have yet to see a sign disputing the President’s legal authority, I can only assume that these demonstrations are entirely about President Trump’s refusal to make America more Islamic. At least in the minds of these demonstrators,... Read More

There was no abatement of Lefty hysteria in this, the second week of the first Trump administration. The principal eruptions were: mobs of demonstrators at airports protesting a change to Customs and Immigration procedures; Main Stream Media denunciations of Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court; Hollywood airheads going Hitlery-Hitlery-Hitler at some glitzy awards ceremony; an... Read More

Donald Trump is the gift that keeps giving. The week is still in its infancy, but the president has already made Chucky Schumer cry, fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates within hours of her acting up, and caused the Forgotten Man to go even harder for their president. This Trump accomplished by inadvertently exposing the... Read More

The election of Donald Trump has sent millions of people pouring out onto the streets to protest a man they think is a racist, misogynist, xenophobic bully who will destroy US democracy in his quest to establish himself as supreme fascist ruler of the country. Maybe they’re right. Maybe Trump is a fascist who will... Read More

Acquaintances of my generation are puzzled by the disappearance of the American left. They remember when there was far less war, far less monopoly capitalist theft, a less rich and powerful elite, less police violence against civilians, less militarization, less privatization and deregulation, fewer attacks on the social safety net, less propaganda from the media,... Read More