Tag Archives: American history

Decades ago, I read a column by Andrew Young, the former Atlanta Mayor and UN representative, in which he wrote that you should never trust anyone who says they aren’t racist. You should say I’m working on my racism.Recently, the former South Carolina governor and current GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley omitted to mention that slavery was a cause of the Civil War (it was *the* cause–see the Cornerstone Document, as just one exhibit). Now,...

This is an excellent backgrounder. But where did the American deep state come from? Has it always been there?In fact, the evolution of the deep state (and this choice of term, “evolution” as opposed to “creation”, will be explained later) is — some might say ironically — found in a nearly 140-year old anti-corruption “reform” measure; one that was explicitly focused upon depoliticizing the civilian component of the United States government.... The architects of the reform also failed to...

American populists are largely reactive and somewhat confused. They don’t know what hit them. And they don’t know their own, often forgotten, history. Nineteenth-century American populists were not socialists, but small-scale capitalists. They were farmers, artisans, and professionals. Private enterprise was central to their values, and they wanted to preserve it for ordinary citizens like themselves. The ideal was to own your own business, not to work for a corporation. Populists fought to...

Puncturing the balloon of "American exceptionalism" and "the noble American." Or, let's get some perspective here. Life is not black and white, but gray — or "grey" if you live in one of the English-speaking countries other than America.Consortium NewsHard Truths and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ Ken Orphan Consortium NewsJust How Corrupt is the American Soul?Lawrence Davidson

Brad DeLong pulls up couple of letters from the files that are relevant now.Grasping RealityNikita Sergeyevitch Khrushchev to John Fitzgerald KennedyBrad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

Unusual to find praise for a radical "Ivy League" leftist in The American Conservative, but here it is. In Defense of Howard Zinn The American Conservative David Masciotra

Abigail Adams quote. From Wikipedia: Abigail Adams (née Smith; November 22, [O.S. November 11] 1744 – October 28, 1818) was the closest advisor and wife of John Adams, as well as the mother of John Quincy Adams. She is sometimes considered to have been a Founder of the United States,[1] and is now designated as the first Second Lady and second First Lady of the United States, although these titles were not used at the time. Adams's life is one of the most documented of the First Ladies:...

American history. The Establishment and its propagandists regularly insist that a structural aristocracy is a “democracy” because the latter is defined by the guarantee of certain fundamental rights (legal definition) and the holding of regular elections (procedural definition). This is, of course, a purely formal, abstract and largely negative understanding of democracy, which says nothing whatsoever about people having real, sustained power over the governing of their lives.…...

Nostalgia. For the weekend.If you don't recognize the names Paul Krassner, Jerry Rubin, and Abbie Hoffman, you can pass on it.CounterpunchHippies, Yippies, Radicals and PrankstersPaul Krassner | editor of The Realist