One enduring lesson of the Reagan administration is that it makes no sense to negotiate with hostage-takers; they only take more hostages. That is a lesson that President Barack Obama and the Democrats must learn in dealing with the today’s…
Category: Politics
Spain’s Battle Against ‘Austerity’
Western governments are stepping up their demands for public “austerity” hitting the middle and lower classes, even as extravagance remains the watchword for Wall Street and the rich. In Spain, a determined movement of “indignados” has emerged to challenge this…
‘Dog Days’ for US Economy
The debt-ceiling crisis has revealed that Republicans have found a valuable hostage and Democrats have shown they will pay the ransom. So, the prospects that the federal government will address other problems, like joblessness and a staggering middle class, are…
Beyond the Debt Limit Fiasco
The dispiriting battle over the debt ceiling has set many to wondering how America’s profoundly dysfunctional political/media system can and must be overhauled to serve the interests of the broad population, not just the privileged elites and their deluded defenders.…
Obama on the Backs of the Poor
Exclusive: The painful resolution of the debt-ceiling crisis shows that Republicans and the Right know how to play hardball and that the Democrats and President Barack Obama know how to get rolled. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern is thinking about…
The GOP War on the Environment
An article of faith on the American Right is that the “free market” can solve pretty much all problems and the government should simply get out of the way. After the debt-limit crisis, the Republicans turn to the environment, writes…
Norway’s ‘Christian’ Killer
Christian nationalists, like confessed Norway mass-murderer Anders Breivik, insist that a violent defense of Christendom is needed to shield Western Christianity and its culture from encroachments by Muslims. But Gary G. Kohls writes that such ugly intolerance is an affront to Jesus’s teachings of peace…
Wrestling Over the Debt Ceiling
As Republicans threaten to throw the U.S. economy into a new crisis by not raising the debt ceiling, Democrats have given ground time and again, erasing one line in the sand after another. But is this self-inflicted crisis real or…
God, Palin and Politics
Pentecostalism, a non-rational form of Christianity whose adherents believe they speak directly to God and favor apocalyptic prophecies, is adding to the polarization of American politics behind the movement’s champion, Sarah Palin. Rev. Howard Bess explains the emergence of this…
Putting Israel’s Interests First
Former New York Mayor Ed Koch and other neocons are backing the Republican candidate in a special New York congressional race in September to punish President Obama for suggesting that Israel’s 1967 borders be a starting point for peace talks.…