Does America need a third political party? The backlash against Obama on the left and the tepid support for Romney would seem to make this a fine time for an independent party to emerge. But it’s also the year of $1 billion campaigns and Citizens United-style funding schemes.
Ever wonder what makes the fabulous Mr. Fish tick? What’s his mission in conjuring up those wildly creative cartoons? Wonder no more, as the man behind the moniker, our own Dwayne Booth, appeared on last Friday’s “Last Call With Carson Daly” to talk about his provocative oeuvre and what ... (more)
A rich banker who appears to have learned none of the lessons of 20th-century economic history. A newscaster who snickers at an impassioned argument. And a reporter dismissed as a young girl who will one day learn better. This exchange between a former Goldman Sachs executive, a BBC correspondent and British journalist Laurie Penny ... (more)
Basically, I love movies about moviemaking. And basically, Hollywood loves making these movies. They have been a well-established genre since Chaplin was a pup. And a pretty good genre it is—there’s nothing like self-regard to bring out the feverish in people.
David M. Kennedy’s “Don’t Shoot: One Man, a Street Fellowship, and the End of Violence in Inner-City America” is part memoir, part police thriller, taking us through the genesis and evolution of one of the most promising responses to urban violence and drug markets in the last two decades.
To set the stage for the latest media-made kerfuffle of Campaign 2012, what happened was that GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann paid a visit Tuesday to “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” for which she was no doubt prepped to come off all hip and stuff, but her performance was undermined ... (more)
Every social movement needs to guard against the inevitable attempts of mainstream media sources to warp its message, defend its targets and recast its members as lazy, crazy or fringy malcontents. Luckily for the Occupy movement, British journalist Laurie Penny is more than capable of taking on, and taking down ... (more)
Morality in the land of the free is a curious mix of Tinkertoys and torture racks. We have just witnessed a full week of brutal coordinated police assaults upon peaceful protesters. The Occupy movement must therefore rise to a new level of coordinated and class-conscious actions against the corporate state.
Tasteless and questionable as it was for CNN to “co-sponsor” a Republican presidential debate with a pair of right-wing Washington think-tanks, at least the branding was accurate.
Any time the Obama administration touches issues related to the Roman Catholic Church, it seems to get itself caught in a rhetorical and moral crossfire that leaves all involved wounded and angry.
In the surreal dawn of Tahrir Square the sun is purple-gray through the mist of tear gas, a building a block away is burning, the black carcass of an overturned truck smolders as a few people hover.
Occupy protesters decided to march on local branches of the too-big-to-fail banks, so participants could close their accounts, and others could hold “teach-ins” to discuss the problems created by these unaccountable institutions.
One might think that a bitter Central Asian war in Afghanistan and an ambiguous commitment to Iraq would be enough for President Barack Obama to cope with.
It’s not like Los Angeles’ slickster Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa would have missed out on that multicity conference call that Oakland’s Jean Quan squeaked about to the press. So it’s not surprising that on Friday, as he visited the Occupy L.A. encampment to pay tribute to the spirit of the movement ... (more)
Traditionally, the holiday season brings good tidings for the stock market, too. There’s even something called “the Santa rally,” we learned from this Wall Street Journal article. Neat! But this year, with trouble on the European front and the ongoing recession (yes, that reads “recession”) at home, there may be less to look forward to, or so market forecasters fear.
Following the good example set by recent police activity in our great nation, a particularly determined shopper whipped out the pepper spray Thursday night in a bid to fend off competition for an Xbox at a Los Angeles Walmart. That set the tone for a Black Friday alive with holiday spirit.
Though they expressed their condolences for lives lost during the latest round of protests in Cairo, members of Egypt’s ruling military council refused to change their plans for either Monday’s parliamentary elections or the eventual presidential vote slated for next year.
As if our current surveillance society wasn’t creepy enough, the wave of the spying future may come on the backs of creepy-crawlies. No joke—in tiny beetle “backpacks” or perhaps hitched around their wing muscles. Read it and get skeeved out.
This information, we should note, comes from Iran’s state-sponsored news agency, but officials in Tehran said Wednesday they had arrested as many as 12 CIA agents who had been working undercover to gather intelligence about the Iranian nuclear program and what the government planned to do with it.
Truthdig contributor and former “60 Minutes” producer Barry Lando argues that China has cleverly exploited poor relations between Tehran and Washington, to the point that the Middle Kingdom now imports more oil and gas from Iran than the U.S. does from Saudi Arabia.
‘Left, Right & Center’: Third-Party Politics
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