Category: Uncategorized

Edward Palmer Thompson (1924-93): Historian, Neutralist, Marxist MY FAVORITE MARXIST People may or may not have a favorite Martian – although several are running for President this time around – but some of us do have a favorite Marxist. This takes a little explaining. After all, Marxism ought to be lying in ruins, its theoretical … Continue reading “Edward Palmer Thompson (1924-93): Historian, Neutralist, Marxist”

What makes ‘The Donald’ run? Donald Trump, hotshot real estate developer and the biggest vulgarian in the Western Hemisphere, suddenly discover a heretofore-unsuspected ambition for political office – and not just any political office, but nothing less than the White House? What’s up with that?MEANING AND MOTIVE I’ll tell you what’s up. Or, better yet, … Continue reading “Who’s Playing the Trump Card?”

“Bad boyz, Bay boyz, What-cha gonna do? What-cha gonna do when they come for you?” Ah yes, the theme song of my favorite TV program – next to The McLaughlin Group, of course: it could serve as the theme song of the new millennium. Cops – they’re everywhere. Rounding up wild-eyed Algerian “terrorists” as they … Continue reading “Cyber-Cops, Watchdogs and the Thought Police”

With the announcement this week by President Clinton that he will propose a two-year $1.3 billion emergency anti-narcotics aid package to Colombia, the drug war and the counter-insurgency war waged as part of a 40-year civil war in Colombia have been ratcheted to a new level of violence and risk. If the most likely outcome … Continue reading “COLOMBIAN DRUG WAR HEATING UP”

The triumph of America Online, in its much-ballyhooed mega-merger with the Time Warner media group, represents a major threat to the Internet as a medium free of government regulation and cultural freedom. Yes, I know, I know – all the nerdiest yuppies are chortling over how it was AOL that swallowed up Time Warner, and … Continue reading “The Emerging Media Trust”

America, we are told endlessly, is a “shining city on a hill,” to use the Reaganite phrase. We are a “beacon of democracy,” whose shining light is supposed to inspire the peoples of the world to throw off their shackles and usher in a global golden age. There are even those who say that we … Continue reading “A Mockery of ‘Democracy’”

GLOOM AND DOOM From time to time, writers fret about the decline of the west. Some of them worried about it so prematurely that today they stand dismissed as dreary fellows, who just weren’t up to enjoying the radiant future upon which we have entered. Oswald Spengler, after all, was ponderously Teutonic and pro-Prussian and … Continue reading “Declines, Untergänge, and Other Unpleasant Matters”

GONE ABOUT AS FAR AS THEY CAN GO I begin with the WSJ of January 1, 2000. Mr. Thomas Petzinger tells us that everything’s up-to-date in Cyber City. Well, not exactly, and yet his article is not lacking in truth. It is true that communication costs and transaction costs are being reduced. It is true … Continue reading “Futurism, Fukuyama, and Folksong Hermeneutics”

My blood ran cold when I heard the news, right before the new year, that the tiny republic of Montenegro will hold a referendum on the question of independence from Yugoslavia. The NATO-crats are not through with the Balkans, not by a long shot. Mad Madeleine Albright and her claque of militant “humanitarians” will not … Continue reading “The Next Balkan War”

The talks between Israel and Syria in the isolated rural college town of Shepherdstown, WV, watched over by U.S. mother-hen facilitators, might one day be seen as the first step toward a lasting peace between the two countries. It is more likely, however, that they represent yet another premature effort by President Clinton to create … Continue reading “SHEPHERDSTOWN”