Yes, Trump is egregiously awful, but so it this: US/Saudi airstrike kills 140 people at a funeral in Yemen. But I guess it’s OK, because it was done with weapons, targeting, miltiary intelligence and full diplomatic support supplied by the progressive Peace Prize President.

For many years, the iron-clad American embargo of Cuba was decried by liberals and progressives as counterproductive and inhumane. People who broke the embargo or tried to get around it — like Ry Cooder with the wonderful Buena Vista Social Club project — were hailed as heroes by liberals. But now it’s being treated by those same liberals (and the media) as some kind of sacred principle that should never have been breached in any way — because Donald Trump once spent some money there, indirectly exploring business opportunities at a time when there was much talk in Washington (among

My quick take on the debate (at 4 o’clock in the morning). 1. Trump was even more of a train wreck than I expected (no doubt in part due to the, uh, sniffle-producing stimulant he apparently took before the show). 2. Clinton performed more nimbly than I expected and will probably win the election. [I’m speaking of performance, not substance.] 3. But in any case, we are in for more war, and much more horror and chaos in the years to come, for there was general agreement between both of them to continue the militaristic insanity that in the last 15

Looking forward to ex-Pres Obama’s ‘controversial’ statements supporting Palestinian rights. I know they’ll be bold & powerful. * Looking forward to ex-Pres Obama’s scathing attacks on Wall Street, once he is no longer in power. Bet he’ll make Liz Warren look tame! * Looking forward to ex-Pres Obama taking a knee on the sideline beside Kaepernick, after he’s left office. What an impact that will have! *  Looking forward to ex-Pres Obama’s surprising denunciation of fracking as an “unconscionable assault” on the environment. MSNBC will cheer! * Looking forward to ex-Pres Obama’s NYT op-ed decrying New Cold War bellicosity, calling

In more news no one gives a damn about, the Saudi-American slaughter in Yemen continues apace: 19 more civilians killed by our bombs, dropped by our freedom-loving allies, the anti-Semitic, woman-hating extremist religious tyrants. That very  day, our bold, freedom-loving US Senators voted to approve the Peace Prize president’s undeclared war against Yemen by defeating a move to block further arms sales to the Saudis. Meanwhile, “nearly half of Yemen’s 22 provinces are on the verge of famine,” which is being deliberately fomented by a US-led blockade of the desert nation. But don’t worry; when the famine reaches genocidal proportions,

“They say we need the law to keep us entertained/While their talons rip our precious meat./So dire and so pious as they lay us out,/Good enough for God himself to eat….”  Pouring out in portions of accomplished peace glorious images of her face Her son sang the fragments of the broken songs From the depths of the Lascaux caves The first soul, the first soul, The first soul was a woman in the unformed seas The first soul, the first soul, Pouring out in portions of accomplished peace They say we need the law to keep us entertained While their

  Anxiety is power. It always has been. Fear and uncertainty cloud the operations of reason. Fear and uncertainty cripple the lineaments of sympathy. Fear and uncertainty induce shame, which in turn induces an inward hatred that spews outward in anger and hate. The brain is wired in its core to flood consciousness with chemical agitation in the presence of threat, real or imagined. The ability to harness and direct these drives is a royal road to power over others, who in their diminished state, cannot discern the damage being inflicted upon them with their own assistance, their unknowing connivance.

I spent so many years out there/Trying to figure out the truth/In party plans and platforms/And that old voting booth/I sought a grand solution/I don’t do that anymore/There’s just one plank in my platform: I’m for the poor…

(My latest column for the print version of CounterPunch.) O dark dark dark, they all go into the dark, the vacuous, vacuumous void of the imperial penumbra: the rock-ribbed dissidents, fiery oppositionists, staunch anti-imperialists, eminent afflicters of the unjustly comfortable; the lifelong exposers of ideological bullshittery, distinguished voices decrying repression and hate, chairmen of many activist committees, generous denouncers of profiteering, brave and battered souls who put their bodies upon the gears of the odious Machine again and again — all go into the dark. They bow their heads and say to the Machine, at last: protect us. This year

This is my column in the latest edition of CounterPunch print magazine: The title of one of Christopher Logue’s multi-volume reworkings of Homer’s Iliad stands as the perfect encapsulation of our age: All-Day Permanent Red. We live in a time when the collective amygdala has been stoked into overdrive, sending messages of blank, blind fear that overwhelm the centers of reason, empathy and openness in our brains, propelling us into a state of inchoate anxiety that seeks release in tropes of extremist certainty and spasms of violence – active, verbal or vicarious. This natural human propensity – which has waxed