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Two Cheers for Isolationism

(A slightly shorter version of this essay was published in The Nation, November 17, 2023.) American Progressives are at a foreign policy dead-end. Their historic concern for global human rights, democracy and peace has become an ideological cover for naked…

The Dogs of War Will Eat Your Future

 “This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”   Dwight Eisenhower. Two years ago, Joe Biden’s agenda signaled that the Democratic…

Destructive Myths

Nations, like the individuals who make them up, define themselves largely through their memories. And, as countless psycho- logical studies have shown, our memories are malleable, as often as not shaped to fit the identities we have already chosen. Elizabeth…

Dangers of Demonizing Putin

Adolph Hitler burned to a crisp in his besieged Berlin bunker in 1945. But his specter still haunts the corridors of American power, regularly dragged out to frighten us into supporting the various military misadventures of the US governing class. …

Immigration: Biden’s Biggest Foreign Policy Test

Joe Biden has pledged to pursue “a foreign policy for the middle class.”  The statement acknowledges that the globalization policies of his two Democratic predecessors — Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — had alienated a large part of the Democratic Party’s…

The Path to a Progressive Future

The agenda of the Democratic Party’s left wing has more political support than at any time since the era of the Great Society. Majorities of Americans favor Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, a wealth tax on the rich,…

Race, Class and Joe Biden’s Election

Joe Biden and the Democrats did not win the November election decisively enough   to drive Donald Trump’s neofascist threat back to the shadows.   Trump’s shadow victories  Trump – despite four years of corruption, incompetence and often clownish behavior – actually increased…

Biden and the American Left

  Joe Biden may not lead in moving toward a future that is more social democratic, but he cannot stop the Left’s momentum towards it. The plutocrat-friendly “centrism” that has dominated American politics and both parties for the last 40 years…