( Tomdispatch.com ) – Give him credit. As a start, for that first surprise victory in 2016. No, I didn’t fully get it at the time, but I kind of get it now (since, like the rest of us, I’ve lived through it all, including his close loss in 2020). Still, twice? Him? A convicted […]
Creating a Genuine Hell on Earth
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Honestly, what would George Orwell have written about this planet of ours, four decades after that ominous year 1984 passed from his fiction into history? And yes, in case you think that, as in his novel 1984, published in 1949, a year before his death and just as the Cold War […]
The Empire is Going Down
( Tomdispatch.com ) – He’s the man of the hour (and you can choose your hour), win, lose, or draw. I mean, who can deny it? Certainly not the crowd at his debate with Kamala Harris that, as he reminded us recently, absolutely “went crazy” over what he had to say. (And it couldn’t matter […]
Voting for the End of the World: How Trump would (Literally) sink the Planet
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Imagine yourself in space, looking down on our world and yet unable to return any time soon. Consider it our bad luck, in fact, that Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams were the two Americans sent to the International Space Station, 250 miles above this planet, for a few days in […]
Trumptopia and Beyond: Is Reality the Biggest Fiction of All Today?
( Tomdispatch.com ) Yes, long ago, I dreamt of being a novelist. Two ancient manuscripts packed away in a distant corner of my closet attest to that (ir)reality, as does one novel focused on the world of publishing (in which I’d been an editor) that made it into print, even if it was barely noticed. […]
Trump, the Candidate from Hell, wants to Make America a Hellhole
Donald Trump is all too literally the candidate from hell and, yes, he’s threatening to take the United States and the world to — no place else! — hell and back. He’s the greatest danger to this planet imaginable. And I’m not even thinking about what else he’d do, were he to win election 2024 […]
Defeat Culture: The Decline and Fall of Presidential America
( Tomdispatch.com ) – It’s not a happenstance or some sad mistake that, barring a surprise, Americans will go to the polls in November to vote for one of two distinctly ancient men, now 77 and 81, both of whom have clearly exhibited language and thought problems for a significant period of time. To put this […]
“Some Say the World will End in Fire:” Nukes and Carbon, Carbon and Nukes
( Tomdispatch.com ) – I’ve been writing about climate change for so many years now but, in truth, it was always something I read about and took in globally. It was happening out there, often in horrific ways, but not what I felt I was living through myself. (It’s true that, in past winters, Manhattan’s […]
The Enemy is Us: (And I’m not just thinking about Donald Trump)
( Tomdispatch.com) – Honestly, doesn’t it befuddle you? I mean, don’t you think we humans are kinda mad? And worse yet, at some deep level, we simply can’t seem to stop. All too often, we just can’t curb our urge to destroy. Looking back, the desire to make war and obliterate our “enemies” is a […]