Author: Syndicated

“We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstractions police and threaten us.” – Robert Hayden When I was a junior in high school, I was kicked out of class for asking the teacher when we were going to learn about Black history. It was Black History Month. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the first week of February. Monday passed, no Black history. Tuesday, still no Black history. On Wednesday, I finally spoke up. I asked the teacher,...

Authors of history textbooks writing about the failed insurrection of January 6, 2021 must not ignore the event’s white supremacist underpinnings. The influence of white supremacy on American history has largely been disregarded by past and present writers, especially in accounts of the Civil War. Too many of these books still waffle about the reasons Confederates sought sedition, suggesting that “economic reasons” or “states’ rights” were an important part of the equation — not acknowledging that the driving force of the Confederate rebellion was to preserve slavery and the undemocratic system of White Supremacy that defined the South. The...

In my lifetime of nearly 60 years, America has waged five major wars, winning one decisively, then throwing that victory away, while losing the other four disastrously. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Global War on Terror were all losses. The Cold War, being the solitary win, must now be counted as a loss because its promise was so quickly discarded. America’s war in Vietnam was waged during the Cold War in the context of what was then known as the domino theory and the idea of “containing” communism. Iraq and Afghanistan were part of the Global War on Terror,...

“Even with sanity restored to the White House, America’s reputation remains at a nadir. More than half the world’s population is under the age of forty. From Colombia to Morocco to Afghanistan, they’ve grown up watching America flail militarily and disgrace itself politically. From 9/11 to the war on terror, the financial crisis and rising inequality, all have diminished America in the eyes of the younger generation.” – Parag Khanna The future belongs to Canada, said author and global strategy consultant Parag Khanna, thanks to the country’s “heroic” approach to welcoming newcomers and its geographic advantage in a time...

One year after Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington DC, the hard right, anti-democracy faction of the Republican base that led the attack threatens to overtake the party for the long term. This hard-right faction, loyal to former President Trump, minimizes, or supports, the violent storming of the Capitol on January 6. They have worked to systemically undermine America’s democracy in the months following the attack by installing into positions of power loyal proponents of Trump’s Big Lie and by passing a flurry of voter suppression bills. The few Republicans who oppose Trump or acknowledge the wrong...