US politics

Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com “But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never […]

US politics

Why Ted Cruz Should sit down and Shut Up: Countries with Social Safety Net Happiest

Juan Cole

In a performance that the rest of the world could not even comprehend, a wealthy, Ivy League-educated Texan talked until he was blue in the face to prevent poor children from seeing a doctor. Political scientist Benjamin Radcliff summarizes decades of survey research on human happiness, and the findings are not in doubt. People report […]

Uncategorized

I lived to See the Day when the Pope and the President of Iran are more doctrinally Flexible than the GOP

Juan Cole

The United States has all along been a society dominated by the wealthy, and more especially by the business classes. But businesspeople are not all cut from the same cloth. You had high-minded responsible businessmen like Benjamin Franklin and you had mean-spirited businessmen, including the plantation slave-owners. In recent months we have been bombarded by […]

Uncategorized

Top 5 Ways to Get a more Equal America (Reich @ Moyers)

Juan Cole

Bill Moyers interviews former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on the ways Americans could effect a more equal society: Reich wants to cap the size of the too-big-to-fail banks, reestablish the wall between commercial and financial banks, increase the size of the earned income tax subsidey, have a $15 minimum wage, and have more equitable […]

Syria

If Obama goes Back to Congress on Syria, they must save America by voting No (van Buren)

Juan Cole

Peter Van Buren writes at Tomdispatch.com Once again, we find ourselves at the day after 9/11, and this time America stands alone. Alone not only in our abandonment even by our closest ally, Great Britain, but in facing a crossroads no less significant than the one we woke up to on September 12, 2001. The past 12 […]

Uncategorized

Is the US Government the Managing Committee of the Pirate Banks?

Juan Cole

Greg Palast at Vice exposes the way that Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and others in the Treasury Department conspired with JP Morgan and other pirate investment banks not only to destroy Glass-Steagall in the US but throughout the world, removing the difference between commercial banks. and investment banks. Basically, they used US financial muscle to […]

Barack Obama

Syria: Will Killing of Hundreds with Sarin Gas force Obama’s Hand?

Juan Cole

Syrian sources on the ground and expatriate human rights organizations are alleging Wednesday morning that Syrian aircraft have killed hundreds of people in rebel-held East and West Ghouta and some other areas outside the capital with bombings and poison gas. The attack comes as international observers are in the country to investigate past alleged use […]

censorship

Greenwald Partner falsely detained as Terrorist: How to Create a Dictatorship

Juan Cole

How to turn a democracy into a STASI authoritarian state in 10 easy steps: 1. Misuse the concept of a Top Secret government document (say, the date of D-Day) and extend classification to trillions of mundane documents a year. 2. Classify all government crimes and violations of the Constitution as secret 3. Create a class […]

Egypt

It’s not about Democracy: Top Ten Reasons Washington is Reluctant to cut off Egypt Aid

Juan Cole

another 80 people died in violence in Egypt on Friday, as Muslim Brotherhood crowds protested the military crackdown on their sit-ins that cost hundreds of lives this week. Some of the violence resulted fro police heavy-handedness, some from an armed Brotherhood attack on a police station. The continued unrest upped the pressure on the Obama […]