Down In Flames
Nobody wants to be Chelsea Manning: Crime, punishment and the security state.
Journalist Kevin Gosztola counters the sadistic reactions of the political and media establishment to the commutation of Chelsea Manning's prison sentence, and discusses the Manning case in the context of Obama-era state secrecy - from the double standards of leaked intelligence to the future of leakers under the Trump administration.
Kevin wrote the recent articles On Chelsea Manning's Freedom and Enraged Political Establishment Would Have Been Okay With Chelsea Manning Dying In Prison at Shadowproof.
A view on Trump and Mexico, from the other side of a future wall.
Live from DC, Laura Carlsen reports from the inauguration of Donald Trump and explains what his "America First" rhetoric means for US-Mexico relations - from a dangerous misunderstanding of trade between the two nations, to the risk of drug war and immigration policies boosting cartel violence along and across the border.
Laura just posted the article Bringing Mexico to Its Knees Will Not “Make America Great Again” at Counterpunch.
On militant hope and radical action in a time of democratic collapse.
Cultural critic Henry surveys the ascent of the neofascist style in American politics - from Trump's position amidst the ruin of democratic institutions and social order, to the elevation of White supremacy and unchecked corporatism - and calls for the left to resist authoritarianism and reclaim solidarity and democracy's radical potential.
Henry is author of the essay Militant Hope in the Age of the Politics of the Disconnect for Counterpunch and War Culture, Militarism and Racist Violence Under Trump for Truthout.
On Trump, China and the reordered global politics of authoritarian capitalism.
Writer Rebecca Liao surveys the shifting dynamics between President Trump, China and capitalism's global elite - from Trump's early, incoherent positions on global trade, to the Davos set's attraction to the stability of authoritarian capitalism - and sees the rise of a new medievalism in response to the collapse of the liberal consensus.
Rebecca wrote the article Trumpism and the Davos Man for n+1.
Replace the system, not the parts: Change beyond statues and hashtags.
Black Agenda Report's Bruce Dixon explains why the crisis of illegitimacy spreads way beyond Trump's presidency, and across the American political class - including modern Democratic Party leaders from John Lewis and Corey Booker to Bernie Sanders - and explains why resistance is forged person-to-person, on the streets, not at DNC headquarters.
Bruce wrote the recent articles Mocking, Marching, Stopping the Hate and Dumping Trump Are Not Enough and Is It Time To Revoke John Lewis’s Lifetime Civil Rights Hero Pass? for Black Agenda Report.
A basket of disposables: Surplus, value and the people in between.
In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen considers the 40% of humanity left unconsidered by the demands of the corporate caste, the background players just slightly out of focus in the last act of capitalism's romance, the exhaustives, the history rememberers, the grape admirerers, the surplus valued, the yous probably, if not now then soon.
