The Coming Christian Divide

By the Rev. Howard Bess
January 8, 2011

Five years ago, we became aware that something significant was happening among Christian churches. Young people were leaving churches in huge numbers, most with no intention to ever return.

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The Power of False Narrative

By Robert Parry
January 7, 2011

As the House of Representatives was engaged in its reading of an abridged version of the U.S. Constitution – leaving out parts like the sections on slavery that would make the Founders look bad – I was reminded again of the power of false narrative, especially at a time when the American Right dominates the U.S. media landscape.

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Preparing for More Reagan Mythology

By William Blum
January 7, 2011

Feb. 6 will mark the centenary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. The conservatives have wasted no time in starting the show.

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Republicans Give Aid to 'Terrorists'

By Lawrence Davidson
January 6, 2011

Here is an interesting piece of news from the Washington Post: "A group of prominent U.S. Republicans" went to Paris last month to attend a rally of the French Committee for a Democratic Iran. This organization just happens to be intimately connected with the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK).

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Hating the Government Until You Need It

By Michael Winship
January 6, 2011

We probably should have stayed in New Orleans.

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Justice Scalia's 'Originalist' Hypocrisy

By Robert Parry
January 5, 2011

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia unintentionally revealed the hypocrisy of the Right’s rhetoric about “originalist” interpretations of the U.S. Constitution with his comments about how the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection under the law” doesn’t mean equal rights for women.

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Republicans Aim Info-War at Obama

By Robert Parry
January 4, 2011

Finally, Congress appears ready to hold some high-profile hearings – except they won’t be about the most important scandals of the past decade, like how the United States was misled into the Iraq invasion, how the Afghan War was bungled, how torture became a U.S. practice, or how bank deregulation and Wall Street greed nearly destroyed the economy.

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Should US Extend Nuclear Umbrella?

By Ivan Eland
January 4, 2011

The hawks are at it again.

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Obama Should Read WikiLeaks Docs

By Ray McGovern
January 3, 2011

Perhaps President Barack Obama should give himself a waiver on the ban prohibiting U.S. government employees from downloading classified cables released by WikiLeaks, so he can better understand the futility of his Afghan War strategy.

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The Danger of Pro-Israel Extremism

By Lawrence Davidson
January 2, 2011

When we think of the great struggles of our day we almost always think in terms of movements and groups. There are Communists and Fascists, Capitalists and Socialists, Jews and Muslims, Zionists and Christian Fundamentalists, Democrats and Republicans, Western Civilization and its rivals, ad nauseum.

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A Zoo of Our Own Making

By Phil Rockstroh
December 31, 2010

In an age, when nature is besieged and the political landscape blighted, and one stands, stoop shouldered and wincing into the howling wasteland of epic-scale idiocy extant in the era, a solitary person can feel lost ... marooned inside an increasingly isolated sense of self.

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Birth of Pakistan's Islamic Extremism

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa
December 31, 2010

Hardly a day goes by without news about the penetration of the Pakistani state by Islamic fanaticism and the connection between that country’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate and radical groups in Afghanistan, including the Taliban.

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The Coming War over the Constitution

By Robert Parry
December 30, 2010

Despite a few victories in the lame-duck session of Congress, Democrats and progressives should be under no illusion about the new flood of know-nothingism that is about to inundate the United States in the guise of a return to “first principles” and a deep respect for the U.S. Constitution.

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The US Media Hit on Helen Thomas

By Danny Schechter
December 29, 2010

In 1960, I co-founded a student magazine at Cornell University called Dialogue. I was a wannabe journalist, fixated on emulating the courageous media personalities of the times from Edward R. Murrow to a distinctive figure I came to admire at Presidential press conferences, a wire service reporter named Helen Thomas.

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Argentina's Dapper State Terrorist

By Marta Gurvich
December 29, 2010 (Originally published August 19, 1998)

“What is your favorite book," a journalist asked Gen. Rafael Videla, after he ascended to power in Argentina in 1976.

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Hungary's Embrace of Propaganda

By Abby Martin
December 29, 2010

Naomi Wolf's book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, argues that there are ten steps common to every state that has made the transition into fascism.

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Obama's Fear of the Reagan Narrative

By Robert Parry
December 28, 2010

At a closed-door White House meeting this month, President Barack Obama justified his repeated concessions to the Right as necessitated by its success over three decades in selling Ronald Reagan’s anti-government message to broad sectors of the American public.

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Trying More Carrots with Iran

By Ivan Eland
December 28, 2010

Although the recently released WikiLeaks secrets document the well-known animosity of Iran’s neighbors to the radical Islamist regime — with their hopes for a U.S. attack on the nation over its nuclear enrichment program — talks to end the Iranian effort will continue.

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America's Slide toward Totalitarianism

By Abby Martin
December 27, 2010

In George Orwell’s 1984, Britain is depicted as a totalitarian police state that is ruled by the Party, or Big Brother – an enigmatic, ubiquitous elite that controls society through heavy surveillance, nationalist propaganda and historical revisionism.

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America's Dangerous Self-Deceptions

By Lawrence Davidson
December 27, 2010

Benjamin Disraeli once labeled Britain’s government "an organized hypocrisy." That was in circa 1845. Things have not changed much and by now hypocrisy might well be seen as a common sin of democratic government.

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