One of the most consequential collective delusions circulating in our society is the belief that our society is free. Our society is exactly free enough to create the illusion that we have freedom; from that line onwards it’s just totalitarianism veiled in propaganda. Continue reading
Conspiracy theories like QAnon are outlandish, dangerous, and often absurd. So why do people believe them? Continue reading
The vaccine “halo” that drug makers are currently wearing obscures their track record of selling addictive drugs, overpriced drugs and drugs with dangerous side effects hidden from the public. Continue reading
Israel’s biggest news outlet Ynet reported Friday that in the country voluntarily making itself Pfizer’s testing ground, “75.4% of those diagnosed yesterday were under 39. Only 5.5% were over 60. “The number of critical patients dropped to 858—the lowest since January 4. However, this number is more than double that in mid-December, just before Israel started its ‘pioneering’ experiment in mass vaccination. Ynet also reported that “In Israel 59.9% of critical patients are over 60 years old. 18.2% are aged 50 to 59. In addition, 10.8% are aged 40 to 49 and 7.5% are in their 30s. As of today, more than a third of critical patients are between 30 to 59 years old.” Continue reading
Back in April 2017, only a few months after Donald Trump’s inauguration, one of world’s most prestigious medical journals, the London-based Lancet, established a special commission to keep tabs on “Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era.” Continue reading
Texans who have been without power for days in the aftermath of Winter Storm Uri are now also facing food and water crises as frigid temperatures and ongoing blackouts disrupt supply chains and wreak havoc on the state’s infrastructure—compounding emergencies that have spurred intensifying backlash against GOP leaders. Continue reading
We can’t just settle for disinfecting the White House after four-years of Trump. A fundamental, structural rebuild is necessary, including on health care, immigration, the environment, civil rights, labor law, and infrastructure. Continue reading
This is the slippery slope that leads to the end of free speech as we once knew it. Continue reading
Motivated by their justifiable aversion to former US President Donald Trump, many analysts have rashly painted a rosy picture of how Democrats could quickly erase the bleak trajectory of the previous Republican administration. This naivety is particularly pronounced in the current spin on the Palestinian-Israeli discourse, which is promoting, again, the illusion that Democrats will succeed where their political rivals have failed. Continue reading
While watching Saturday’s events in the U.S. Senate and the gamut of public reaction to them, I thought about the disconnect that takes place between the reality of events and the way they’re perceived from the outside looking in, especially by the media. Continue reading
Democracy is hanging on by a thread—not due to marauding Trumpsters—but because of bipartisan support for neoliberal policies. Continue reading
Despite the long-awaited political change in Washington as Democratic President Joe Biden has officially become the 46th President of the United States, Europe is unlikely to resume its previously unhindered reliance on its trans-Atlantic partner. Continue reading
I keep hearing that Joe Biden has to govern from the “center.” He has no choice, they say, because he has razor-thin majorities in Congress and the Republican Party has moved to the right. Continue reading
Trump regime hardliners went all-out to destroy the landmark nuclear deal with Iran. Continue reading
As Congress still struggles to pass a COVID relief bill, the rest of the world is nervously reserving judgment on America’s new president and his foreign policy, after successive U.S. administrations have delivered unexpected and damaging shocks to the world and the international system. Continue reading
In the wake of the GOP’s acquittal of former President Donald Trump, the Sunrise Movement on Monday joined the progressive lawmakers and activists arguing that the failure of Democrats to secure bipartisan cooperation—even during an impeachment trial meant to hold Trump accountable for provoking a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol—exemplifies why the majority party must eliminate the legislative filibuster if it hopes to pursue a transformative agenda capable of improving social and environmental well-being. Continue reading
From 1920 to 1945, the formal name of the German Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, abbreviated NSDAP in German. Despite its name, there was nothing even remotely “socialist” or “workers” related about the Nazi Party. Its very foundation was to combat the influence of labor unions, particularly those closely-linked to the Socialists or Communists. Socialist ideology, whether it was of the social democratic or Marxist -Leninist version, was anathema to Nazi policy. Therefore, it was the height of hypocrisy that the Nazis, with their financial backing from Germany’s leading industrialists—Krupp, Thyssen, and Opel, to name a few—would appropriate the terms socialist and workers for their own designs. When “socialist” was added to the “National German Workers’ Party” in 1920, in a jaded attempt to appeal to lower middle class left-wing laborers, Adolf Hitler vehemently objected. The term “socialist” within the official name of the Nazi Party was more of a mockery of socialism than anything else. Continue reading
For most of recorded history, domination by brute force has been the norm for human civilization. Someone claws their way into a position of power over the other humans, and you obey and respect him or he’ll have his goons attack you. Continue reading
In a column last November, I dismissed worries that the incoming Biden/Harris administration would—or, rather, could—successfully implement a more aggressive victim disarmament (English for the euphemism “gun control”) agenda than previous administrations. Continue reading
Instead of explaining the dire state of things in the US, West and elsewhere—Main Street economies in collapse—establishment media pretend otherwise. Continue reading
Undeterred by the backlash and widespread delays that followed his disruptive operational changes at the U.S. Postal Service last year, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is reportedly planning to roll out another slate of policies that would significantly hike postage rates and further slow the delivery of certain kinds of mail. Continue reading
The United States of America was redefined on January 5 and 6, 2021. Never underestimate the pivotal power of these two dates in our nation’s history. And do not believe that a Senate failure to convict Donald Trump will change any of it. Continue reading
While most of official Washington has been consumed with the Senate impeachment trial, another part of Washington is preparing the most far-ranging changes in American social policy in a generation. Continue reading
We don’t know exactly why Uma Subramanian wanted to become an engineer. Did she believe her fascination with how things work could help make the world better place? We’ll never know for sure. What we do know: Subramanian, the aerospace engineer turned CEO of the luxury private-jet company Aero, now believes she has truly made humanity an awesome contribution. Continue reading
WASHINGTON—A bipartisan 57-43 margin, the biggest bipartisan majority ever, voted to convict the impeached former president, Donald Trump, of inciting insurrection. But conviction needed 67 votes, so the former president escaped conviction on that sole impeachment count. Continue reading
So Baby Don was “in a good mood” this week, according to reports. Of course he knew he would be acquitted, and he would be able to squawk again about being “totally absolved” in Trumpian manner, the “witch hunt” and blah blah blah. Continue reading
On February 9, the US Justice Department announced that US President Joe Biden, as in so many other areas, intends to serve Donald Trump’s second term when it comes to persecuting heroes guilty of exposing US war crimes and embarrassing American politicians. Continue reading
The Biden Justice Department on Friday formally appealed a British judge’s rejection of the U.S. request to extradite Julian Assange, confirming the new administration’s intention to run with its predecessor’s espionage charges against the WikiLeaks publisher despite warnings that the case endangers press freedoms around the world. Continue reading
Throughout his scorching indictment of President Trump, lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin wove in quotes from eminent historic minds, including this one from his late father, Institute for Policy Studies Co-founder Marcus Raskin: “Democracy needs a ground to stand on and that ground is the truth.” Continue reading
A short squeeze frenzy driven by a new generation of gamers captured financial headlines in recent weeks, centered on a struggling strip mall video game store called GameStop. The Internet and a year off in this shut down to study up have given a younger generation of investors the tools to compete in the market. Gerald Celente calls it the “Youth Revolution.” A group of New York Young Republicans who protested in the snow on January 31 called it “Re-occupy Wall Street.” Others have called it Occupy Wall Street 2.0. Continue reading
It might have come as a shock to the old Obama administration global interventionists who have landed top foreign policy positions in the Biden administration that the world has moved on from 2016. Whether it likes it or not, the Biden foreign policy team is dealing with a world that no longer reacts to every move made in Washington, DC. In fact, the U.S. capital city is now viewed as a place where a far-right insurrection nearly toppled constitutional rule and imposed a dictatorial regime rife with neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, private militias, and other societal nasties. So much for lectures from U.S. ambassadors about the need to maintain a civil society. Continue reading
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Texas deep freeze points out the absurdity of libertarianism
Posted on February 22, 2021 by Wayne Madsen
As Texas was plunged into a fourth day of Arctic temperatures, the cries went out from the uber-wealthy suburbs of Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. “Where’s my power?” “I have no water!” “I can’t buy gas and food!” As Texans looked to their Republican libertarian governor, Greg Abbott, they only received a lesson on the evils of green energy. Blaming the power failures caused by the deep freeze—another warning indicator about the increasingly dire effects of global climate change—Abbott, backed by Republican U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw from Houston, cited frozen wind generators as the main culprit. In reality, a place where libertarians have never existed and never will, the wind turbines failed because Texas’s toothless regulators refused to ensure that they were winterized. Similar temperatures do not affect wind turbines in northern climes or even Antarctica because they have been engineered to withstand sub-freezing temperatures. Texas resorted to using helicopters to “de-ice” wind turbines. Continue reading →