By John Grant
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying
Standing up to empire: South Korea Slips Off the US Leash
By Dave Lindorff
The mainstream US media, when it comes to the idea of talks between the governments of North and South Korea, are focused on the idea that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is trying to drive a wedge between the Republic of Korea and the United States. No doubt that is true, but this focus misses a major part of the story.
One Congresswoman who tells it like it is: Rep. Gabbard Speaks Truth to Power about the Real Reason Korea has Nukes
By Dave Lindorff
We already knew that Tulsi Gabbard was courageous, when the Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii resigned from her position as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee in disgust during the primary season in 2016, declaring publicly what we now know to have been true — that the DNC was manipulating the primaries to favor Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders — was courageous. Now as basically the only member of Congress with the guts to call out the US as the cause
Gender poliics and overarching political justice: Identity Politics Gets into Our Pants
By John Grant
Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.
– Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
[T]he trick of being a man is to give the appearance of keeping your head when, deep inside, the truest part of you is crying out, Oh shit!
– Michael Chabon, Manhood For Amateurs
A shaming can be like a distorting mirror at a funfair, taking human nature and making it look monstrous.
– Jon Ronson, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
God
The shit’s everywhere: Yesterday’s ‘Shithole Countries’ Can Become Classy Places Donald, and Vice Versa
When Donald Trump referred to countries like Nigeria and really, all of Africa, and the long-suffering island of Haiti in the Caribbean as “shitholes” to a bunch of stunned members of Congress yesterday, he was not just showing his deeply-rooted ugly racist self, but also his profound ignorance about the world — and his own country.
The truth is that yesterday’s
Wanna place bets?: With @TheRichKidsOfIran Instagrams, Somebody is Stirring Up a Hornet’s Nest
By Dave Lindorff
Scroll through the Instagram account ‘@RichKidsofTehran’ or RKOT and ask yourself: Knowing how aggressively the Iranian regime has gone after those — particularly women — who flaunt their sexuality and expose themselves with hair uncovered and with parts of their body exposed that are supposed to be kept covered except at home, who would be putting these clearly inflammatory images of both semi-nudity and ostentatious financial excess online?
If anything
No more worshiping of the military Time to Call out US Militarism for What It Is: The Key Threat to America’s Security
By Dave Lindorff
I was in the grocery store a while back when, after my items were tabulated, the checkout clerk asked, “Would you like to contribute to the Wounded Warriors fund?”
I glanced at the line of people to my left — a little cross-section of America — and feeling a little skeptical about how they’d respond, I said, “No I don’t think so. I’d
Offing unarmed adults is bad enough: Cops Killing Kids Has Got to Stop!
By Dave Lindorff
Kameron Prescott is dead — the latest in a horrific string of children killed by America’s fearful and quick-to-shoot law enforcement professionals.
Six-year-old Kameron, who was shot in Bexar County outside San Antonio, Texas, wasn’t killed like Tamir Rice in Cleveland, who was mowed down by a police officer within seconds of his arrival on the
Absent union pressure, the bosses will never raise wages: The Big Lie that is Behind the Trump/GOP Tax Bill
By Dave Lindorff
There is a Big Lie underlying the $1.5-trillion Trump/Republican Congressional tax bill. That lie — the kind that is so brazen its purveyors hope it will simply be accepted as truth — is that when corporations get their big tax break, they will pass much of it on to workers in the form of higher wages, and perhaps to consumers in the form of lower prices.
How do I know it’s a Big Lie? Basic economics and history.
Let’s take care of the consumer economics argument
Trump’s destructive embassy decision: The Shadow of Smuts on Trump’s Jerusalem Declaration
By Linn Washington, Jr.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Jan Smuts, a former prime minister of South Africa are politicians from two different eras who share two things in common.
Actions by Trump and Smuts, while separated by several decades, prompt many people in America and South Africa respectively to use the same word to describe each leader: racist.
And, Trump, like Smuts, has acted decisively on behalf of Israel.
Trump has created a “racially hostile