The difference between people who supported the British Empire and people who support the US Empire is that those who supported the British Empire knew they were supporting an empire. Someone who supported the British Empire’s acts of mass military slaughter around...
Dissident Voice
Offensive Realism Disrobed
Following the publication in 2001 of his book, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, John Mearsheimer’s notion of Offensive Realism (OR) has become widely regarded (in academe and in state policy circles) as a no-nonsense, pragmatic and now preeminent ‘theory’ of how...
Chaos: The Trump Doctrine for Latin America
The US, under Trump, is unapologetically an empire operating without pretense. International law is for losers. A newly minted War Department, deploying the most lethal killing machine in world history, need not hide behind the sham of promoting democracy. Recall that...
The Ritual Roots of Animism, Drama and Sports: The Work of Jane Harrison and the Cambridge Ritualists
My friends claim that I am irreverent to the Olympian gods. My interests I am told are unduly focused on ghosts, bogies and pillar cults. I prefer savage disorders, Dionysian origins, the tearing of wild bulls to the ordered and stately ceremonial of Panathenaic...
Out of Time
If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away. – Walter Benjamin “The Storyteller,” 1936 Today’s rustlers are stealing...
Inversion of Reality
George Orwell at the BBC The resignations of Tim Davie, BBC director general, and Deborah Turness, BBC head of news, after an intense, right-wing campaign led by the Daily Telegraph reveals much about the state of British ‘mainstream’ media. Before we discuss the...
ICE is Coming to Town: Easier Access to the Ocean, Far Far Away from Portland
Coming to a town nearby, or just right inside your city limits — Concentration Camps. Last night (11/13), citizens crowded Newport City Council chambers and the nearby Recreation Center to make comments about the possibility of a U.S. Customs and Immigration...
How Censorship and Smears Are Chipping Away at Democracy and Freedom
Do Journalists Protect or Harm Democracy? Almost half (45%) of teens in a recent survey by The News Literacy Project said journalists harm democracy. Only 56% believed reporters value fairness and accuracy. 80% concluded that news content is subjective, and nearly 70%...
The Quiet Plot to End Progressive Government in Honduras
Trump’s gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean grabs the headlines, while quieter moves to destabilize other progressive Latin American governments go unnoticed by corporate media. A key case is a plot that would create chaos enabling a neoliberal candidate to be declared...
Zohran Mamdani Will Follow the Path of AOC, Bernie, and Brandon Johnson
The disenfranchised, cast aside people of the US find hope when an AOC, Brandon Johnson, Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders campaigns and wins public office. These campaigns overcame corporate backed opponents, relying on people power not corporate financing,...
Inversion of Reality
George Orwell at the BBC The resignations of Tim Davie, BBC director general, and Deborah Turness, BBC head of news, after an intense, right-wing campaign led by the Daily Telegraph reveals much about the state of British ‘mainstream’ media. Before we discuss the...
ICE is Coming to Town: Easier Access to the Ocean, Far Far Away from Portland
Coming to a town nearby, or just right inside your city limits — Concentration Camps. Last night (11/13), citizens crowded Newport City Council chambers and the nearby Recreation Center to make comments about the possibility of a U.S. Customs and Immigration...