In this issue: Dan Glazebrook explains why Trump’s alliance with Russia may increase the odds of a war on Iran. The End of Diplomacy? Former CIA analyst Mel Goodman provides a field guide to Trump’s cabinet. Fukushima, Still Melting: John LaForge on the 6-year long crisis at the ruined Fukushima nuclear site; Refugees vs. Climate Change: Ben Debney on real and manufactured crises. The New Latin American Feminism by Laura Carlsen. The ICEmen Cometh by Jeffrey St. Clair. Organizing on the Border by Kent Paterson. Inside Steve Bannon’s Brain by Chris Floyd. What Does the Left Want? by Yvette Carnell. Catalonia Rising by Daniel Raventos and Julie Wark. Who Profits From Rate-Tweaking? by Mike Whitney. From Sea to Dying Sea by Lee Ballinger. Breakdown at the Oscars by Ed Leer.
Exclusively in the New Print Issue of CounterPunch
On Economic Patriotism: Capitalist Nationalism and the Making of American Political Identity
It is frequently said that Americans are the most patriotic population in the world. From childhood we are taught that we are the highest-minded, richest, most free, most democratic country, and therefore most fit to be the global hegemon. School kids don’t get ‘hegemon’, so they are taught that their country is the world’s sole superpower, and, for the safety of the world, must remain so. Surely something to be proud of. Since the end of the Second World War, a swollen media and entertainment establishment has drummed this message into our heads ceaselessly. The effectiveness of this kind of indoctrination is evident in a uniquely American phenomenon, the display of the flag everywhere – at checkout counters, on cars, on lawns, from home windows. Only in America. Even as Americans disapprove of this or that war, the flag is never taken down. More
Oligarchy in America
In democracies, the demos, the people, rule; not social or economic elites. This was the understanding of philosophers in Athens twenty-five centuries ago, and it remained the consensus view well into the modern era.
The received wisdom was that, like anarchy, democracy is a theoretical possibility that can be instructive to reflect upon, but not an ideal that anyone of sound mind would actually endorse.
With the emergence of capitalist economic relations, however, and, along with it, the rise of the nation state, the traditionally marginalized demos became a factor in the politics of societies on the way to modernity.
In that context, democracy took on more positive connotations. The transformation was well underway by the time of the French and American Revolutions. More
Roaming Charges: A Pruitt Runs Through It
Steve Bannon, the Trump Whisperer, sees his mission as the destruction of the administrative state. At a metaphorical level, one might precisely describe this project as a kind of bureaucratic strip-mining, where the internal viscera of federal agencies are extracted and the remains are left to subside in a heap of off-gassing toxic debris to poison whatever other federal workers remain in close proximity.
Target number one on Bannon’s hit list is the Environmental Protection Agency, an agency midwifed into being in 1970 by the most progressive president of the last 45 years, Richard M. Nixon, largely as a way to camouflage his own villainous pursuits. Recall that Nixon seemed to launch a new liberal initiative after nearly every illicit bombing run over Cambodia. More
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DUSTIN BEILKE
President Obama to President Trump – Race In America
